Are You Still A Vinyl Junkie?
Even in this day and age of free digitally downloadable music straight into your cerebral cortex, CDs for a couple of pence on the Amazon Basin, and streaming sites as open and free as a Jehovah Witness cake sale, are you still worried that you’re dangerously addicted to vinyl?
Are your friends and family concerned for your wellbeing, and have they started to question your obsession with all things disc shaped? Do you sketch out various gun tower designs in your head in order to ‘take out’ the eBay sharks who queue up at 2am on Record Store Day just to turn a quick profit? Since when did record collecting and gig going become the new Harrods Sale? Sleeping bags and thermos flasks at dawn as opposed to (Sex) Pistols at Dawn.
Do you lose sleep at night sweating about being a 12” Trainspotter, or spend your waking hours having unconditional cravings for gatefold sleeves and crease free spines? If you are, then here are 24 fail-safe indicators which will help you to check the seriousness of your addiction.
You know you’re still a Vinyl Junkie if......
1) You suffer more pain to your body due to record collecting - shoulder strap burn, crate-lugging-spine-crack, dusty fingered dysentery, Isopropyl inhalation, and paper-cut lock-jaw - than sports related injuries. Why carry round a memory stick with the whole of HMV on it when 2 battered flight cases are a far more romantic healthy proposition. Even if the ‘gig’ is up three flights of stairs, recently decorated. Laptops after all, are for laps, and for tits who want to check their Facebook updates.
2) You will quite happily visit a quaint historical English town purely for the record shops and not for the quaint historical English town.
3) You seriously weigh up the pros and cons of purchasing more records as opposed to buying any food at the weekend. "Well that jar of pickled eggs, box of All Bran and can of Sild will see me through ‘til the end of the month!"
4) Even on bright sunny days, 'inside with choons' is preferable: and even on clear days the only point you can see is the end of a stylus.
5) You frequently measure your accommodation, not for new furniture, but in order to look for extra space to pack in more vinyl. "Ahh, the skylight, now there's room for a shelf up there"
6) You develop a love for groups such as, 'XTC', 'Yes' and 'ZZ Top' because your alphabetical record library is a little, "A-B-C top heavy man!" Xmal Deutschland, Yummylip Jester, and Zebra Tripod certainly help fill a gap.
7) You will quite happily convince yourself that the one hundred pounds plus you have just spent on records is a sound investment. Only to get home and have a proper listen and realise that 90% of it is a load of old pony.
8) You think, Ikea is a hateful place, full of pseudo-trendy flat pack Automatons, purchasing lifestyles off the peg; but you're willing to concede that they do possess top quality shelving; and now that that advert with the ‘DJ’ has gone viral, you feel justly vindicated. Even though he’s probably an actor from Devon.
9) You will wander the length and breadth of towns and cities to find an uncreased mint nick version of the latest Moodyman 12". One tiny crease on the corner will not do. People banging into your bag on the bus creates more than a moody man.
10)You used to be prepared to wait behind, 'Dj Trance Monkey' - as he pretended he was in Cream - and waste twenty minutes in Virgin/HMV just to listen to a record you picked up, 'on a whim.' You wished cholera and pestilence upon Cream after you eventually listened to your tune and you realised that it was a pot of pish. You now wait in a ‘virtual queue’ trying to score a limited edition of one of the 14 7”s from a cottage in Liverpool, hand stamped by a Slovakian exchange student.
11) You cannot sell any of your records and you will quite happily convince yourself that the 'Big Beat Happy Hardcore Tibetan Trance Revival' is just around the corner and all the top DJs will probably be caning that stuff next month.
12) You suffer apoplexy when steaming off price labels and it takes a bit of the cover off with it. You’d rather scald yourself than risk any part of that pink Day-Glo £6.99 sticker remaining.
13) You must have both versions of 'Strathclyde Milkbottles' by The Electric Figs, even though the only difference between the two 12"s is a triangle going, "PING" in the last two bars of the first version and an A or B on the matrix code.
14) You cannot return home from a shopping trip without the feel of a plastic record bag slapping at your thigh. Even if you have to buy, 'The Best of Racey', 'Mrs Mills Piano Party' , 'Mantovani Live' or 'Mother' by Goldie. You’ll convince yourself that The Rastrick Brass Band probably has at least one ‘winner’ on it too.
15) You get irritated when a reviewer spells the name of an Aphex Twin song incorrectly, eg. Antiphlemghoxxornish!te as opposed to Antiphlemghoxxornish!ta.
16) You will quite happily buy obscure 80s pop from markets and confidently pass it off as 'Balearic.' Point of Caution – Confiscated Snood, A Flock of Falkland Sheep and The Brotherhood of Hair Gel, were, and always will be shite.
17) You call into question the professional integrity of a record shop owner who doesn't open before eight o'clock in the morning. ‘Well without me, they’d close!’ you exclaim rather indignantly. They did, but they’re open again now.
18) You will happily talk for hours about the limited editions on the Bulgarian record label, 'Imploded Cavity' with anyone who will listen. NB. It is not a good idea to share your knowledge with, members of your family, the police or the armed forces. They will undoubtedly have you committed.
19) Christmas Day is scribbled onto your calendar with a 2B pencil, whereas Record Store Day is etched into your calendar with indelible ink, aerosol and your own blood.
20) It’s Vinyl not Vinyls
21) Every record you own is safely and lovingly sheathed in a plastic protective sleeve. Ironically you have a slightly more cavalier approach when it comes to prophylactic sheathing.
22) When people tell you stories about how they ‘used to have a large collection of ‘vinyls’, but they sold/lost/threw/burned/binned/recycled them, a little part of you dies.
23) You have too many records.
24) You state the bleedin' obvious!
