How old are you and how did you get into vinyl?

[styler]

my first LP

my father is a huge music lover and i grew up on vinyl, but i distinctly remember the first LP he ever let me pick out.. we were at Tower Records in Tempe Ariz and I was probably 7 or 8 years old. the big new release with a display was Reflections by Jerry Garcia. i think i just like the looks of the album, but he bought it for me. i still love the album, and have it!

 

[2DualsNotEnough]

My parents bought an RCA fold out plastic record player with detachable speakers when I was 12,along with The Beatles 62-66 and 67-70.I immediately bought tons of singles.I think the first was Jet by Paul McCartney and Wings.The main reason I got into cds was going into the AF in 84 I couldnt lug my 500 lps with me,so I bought a cd player and tt with my new system once I got to England.I kept buying both cds and vinyl.My theory was always that jazz and vocals always sounded better on cds(ok,I wasnt the brightest bulb in the box) but rock and rap sounded better on vinyl.I enventually drifted to mainly cds since the only tt I had at this time was an RCA I got for free at Radio Shack when I signed up for MSN(the colossal bad judgements just keep comin,folks!).About 3 years ago,I decided to look for another tt,and found an old Garrard and bought a Stanton 500 for it,and immediately started scrounging the thrifts to replace the vinyl I used to own.Since then,Ive moved up to a Dual 701(and a 1228,a Thorens 180,etc,etc,etc)with an AT 440.I think Ive found about 70 percent of the records I used to own.Now I think Ill call my sister and see if she still has my old records!

 

[Sandy G]

"Jet"-that was early spring 1974, IIRC. "Band on the Run" album. 'Nother couple I liked offa it were "Helen Wheels" & "1985". DAMN, that was a LOOOOOONG time ago.....<sob>-Sandy G.showing my increasingly advanced age....

 

[Randy Bassham]

Well...I'll be 55 next month and vinyl was all there was. My first "record player" was an RCA 45 RPM Changer that Dad found somewhere, that used my Mothers pink and white Silvertone twin speaker 5 tube radio for an amplifier. A neighbor gave me a box of 45's that her daughter had left when she got married and left home. That was a treasure trove of singles Tennessee Ernies 16 Tons, Crewcuts Shaboom, Several Elvis and on and on. I about wore that changer out. I was a tech for a Magnavox dealer for 10 years from Jan 70 through Dec 79, this was also a music store so I could buy LP's at cost and I did, I'm still buying them, also buying CD's. I'm in the process now of burning my LP's to CD's after running them through a cleaning program to get out the clicks and pops......

 

[jpciii]

Born in '72. My first records where:

- a 45 of Ernie (from Sesame Street) singing "Rubber Duckie" with Oscar the Grouch's "I like Trash" on the B-side.

- "Disco Duck" LP with Donald the Duck singing the title track (spoof on Disco Disco Man)

- "Funnybone Favorites" LP (bunch of goofy songs like "Ahab the Arab" shiek of the burnin sands...)

Played them on my Dad's Zenith console. Listened to cassettes in the '80s and started with CD's in the '90s. In 2005, I started getting into vinyl. So... 32 years old and got into vinyl about 4 months ago (I'm hooked).

 

[WhiteSE]

First LP i ever bought was when I was 11 in Argentina..it was Relayer from Yes...

 

[wa2ise]

My first vinyl I sent away a few boxtops and some money to get Post Crispy Critter's Cartoon show (Before it was banned by the FTC) characters singing songs. Some of the people supplying the singing voices for the characters later appeared on Laugh In (Ruth Buzzy is one I remember spotting on the back cover years later). Still have it with my other albums. A little strange sitting next to my Cream, Who, and Led Zeppelin albums....

 

[amason3]

I'm 29 and I grew up listening to my Dad play vinyl (Oldies, Old Country, Rock and Roll) on an old sanyo combination receiver 8 track and Record player (with a changer of course). I developed a love for music but couldn't afford to buy any till i started headin to yard sales or garage sales with the folks where you could pick up cool old records of good music for 50 cents or a dollar an album (sometimes people would just give me a whole box of records for free). Anyway, first two albums I ever bought were actually in tower records in london when my grandparents took me on a trip over there. I bought The Beatles - A hard day's night and Santana's Greatest hits. After that is when the yard saling started. Now ebay is my weakness for finding albums of old artists.

 

[dingus]

i did mostly 8 tracks through my teens. bought my first TT at 20 and had an LP collection of around 400 before i was through.

 

[abpeep]

Well I am 48 and so if you listened to music growing up, you had vinyl. My parents had an RCA console and had some Floyd Kramer, Chet Atkins, Buck Owens (his instrumental stuff), soundtrack to the Sound of Music....

My older brother - kdlsoft on AK - had a record changer (he may chime in here sometime with what it was). All plastic and probably did terrible things to to your records. I remember he had a Rolling Stones 45 - Paint It Black, I think - that was broken through from the edge to the spindle hole that we played anyway. I think I still have it.

Have had three vinyl collections - each coinciding with a marriage - but still have remnants of each one. I stayed with vinyl until the record stores became CD stores before breaking into the digital world. Continued to use the vinyl for a while but put it away eventually. About three years ago we bought a new home with room for me to set up a second system in the study and the vinyl came back out. I currently buy much more vinyl at the thrifts than I buy CDs. Probably at about 700+ LPs now.

And no looking back!!

Alan

 

[Wintersmaster]

Born in '72. My first records where:

- a 45 of Ernie (from Sesame Street) singing "Rubber Duckie" with Oscar the Grouch's "I like Trash" on the B-side.

I was born in 66 and I must correct myself. The first 45 I had was, It's Not Easy Being Green by Kermit D Frog. The next 45 my parents bought my brother and I was Jive Talkin' by the Bee Gees. For some reason, we fought over that one. Oh c'mon, it's catchy..................you guys know it......................c'mon.............................guys?

 

[Wintersmaster]

My older brother - kdlsoft on AK - had a record changer (he may chime in here sometime with what it was). All plastic and probably did terrible things to to your records. I remember he had a Rolling Stones 45 - Paint It Black, I think - that was broken through from the edge to the spindle hole that we played anyway. I think I still have it.

I have that 45 with the picture sleeve in great shape. I got into collecting everything Stones for many years.

 

[salred]

I'm of the vinyl-only generation.

My first elpee bought with my own $$ was Frank Zappa's "Absolutely Free".

"Brown shoes don't make it.
Quit school, why fake it?"
-- FZ

Steve Alred

 

[Aage]

Birth of a notion

First record I ever bought: Elvis Presely's "Blue Suede Shoes" on 78. IIRC, that was 1956, so I would have been 7 or 8.

This purchase also triggered my first hifi awareness moment: I noticed that after about the 50th play, it didn't sound as good as it did when new. ("Hey, records can wear out!")

I also discovered that I could hear sound just by holding a common pin in the groove as it spun! ("Whoo, I'm a record player!") My dumb little brothers and sister were too slow to be impressed.

Hardly rates as earth-shaking events in the annals of hifi history, but it was Big Stuff to me back then.

 

[shelby1420]

First record i ever got i got from my "nanny"......Black Sabbath -Paranoid, still have it and listen to it once in a while.................. very cool nanny!!!

 

[Hilltroll67]

I am pre-vinyl. My dad bought a Columbia Grafanola console (spring powered) at auction shortly after WW2. A couple dozen records came with it. Those steel needles wore quickly, and from somewhere I 'learned' that turning them 30 degrees after each play would extend their life. Somewhere along in there "In the Baggage Coach Ahead" became unintelligible. "Altoona Freight Wreck" suffered badly too.

:sigh:

Bob

 

[piece-it pete]

GREAT thread!

I'm a member of the forgotten generation, 38 years old, between the boomers and genX, cds came out when I was in high school.

I vaguely remember one of those vinyl-wrapped cardboard suitcase record players (green? maybe I'm thinking of the record carriers too), I think I even played 78s' on it (I'm familiar with them for some reason), but the 1st that was MINE was a brown plastic one. Super-high fidelity, I'm sure .

The 1st lps, hmmm, I remember Bugs Bunny something or the other, Snoopys' red baron, some of the goofy-great style KTel records (transfusion transfusion, I'm never never never gonna speed again - put the gluton in me Newton)(who did that?), but the 1st lp I bought with my own dough was "Rubber Soul" at Clarkins, a discount dept. store. I was excited, for sure for sure.

I never owned a decent stereo till recently, but always had a ton of lps and could name them by groove appearance, even when stoned .

I jumped on the cd bandwagon when they 1st came out, bought a sears lxi player from my coworker (who got it as a Christmas bonus) for $180! bucks (it's still in the family somewhere) and went cd.

Hey I said I was never an audiophile type! Anyway, a couple of years ago I came across a TT, pulled out the old lps, and presto! Found most of my old lps were scrap :sad: .

But. I immediatly noticed they did sound better. It might have been a cheapie cd player, but the tt was cheap too. Now I'm back to lps and only buy cds that are not avail on lp.

Pete

 

[john_w]

Man, does this bring back some haunting memories.

a 45 of Ernie (from Sesame Street) singing "Rubber Duckie" with Oscar the Grouch's "I like Trash" on the B-side.

Ha! I had the whole album that song came from, so there! (We didn't have a lot growing and I rarely got bragging rights as a kid, so I take 'em when I can.) It also had the classic "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Also played on an old Zenith, but it was a portable mono record player, not a console. (Just turntable, amp and speakers - in one attractive, easy-to-carry plastic box!)

But probably my first were a couple of recorded "read-along" childrens' books: Cinderella (permanently destroyed my sense of masculinity, I'm sure), and Peter Rabbit. I still have that English man's voice in my head, describing "Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail." Still on the old Zenith. I must have been about 4 years old - around 1969.

Not long after that, I became surprisingly intrigued by my brother's old "Wednesday Morning, 3AM" album by Simon and Garfunkel. For some reason, it was left with the old Zenith collection, along with Tennessee Ernie Ford, Herb Alpert, "A Treasury of Christmas" and my stuff, among others. I find "Wednesday Morning" just as hauntingly intriguing today as I did back then. Got my own copy years ago.

Any Simon and Garfunkel fans out there w/out this one? GET IT!!! IMO, it's their most authentic, self-revealing and profound work (though some of their later stuff was close, as far as being profound.) Also their first, IIRC. Just voice and accoustic guitar, before they got caught up in the music industry.

I didn't buy my own turntable until I was 18 and out of HS - and I still own it. Denon DP-15F. Strongly influenced by my much older brother's ultra-cool HK linear tracking table with touch controls. Of course, the Dennon was only the coolest thing I could afford.

In case you haven't done the math by now, I'm 40. And Pete -- That's STILL Gen-X, in my book. Older Gen-X, but I think most of us had a very different attitude from the boomer generation, and the generational population had already dropped off dramatically. It was, however, kind of a transitional stage.

Sorry for the novelette, but this one really got me going!

- jw

 

[akahn]

I first got into vinyl a couple weeks ago when I bought my Pioneer PL-518. I got into it because I'm big into punk and a lot of the music is only available on vinyl. Also, I can buy a ton of used stuff of any genre for way cheaper than CDs, new or used, cost. And now I can play all my parents' classic rock LPs, like the Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Doors, Hendrix, etc.

Oh, and I'm 19.

 

[thepogue]

I'm 45....

first LP was a Christmas present Stepenwolf "Monster"....

my second round with a TT was a Tech 1500 in the eairly 80's thru the mid to late 80's...then into CD's

my third round just started with a Tech 1700 mkII and no I've got a Linn LP12 and the rest is history!!

Peace, Pogue