Why Music Is Important To Me
🎶 Notes from behind the turntables and across the record bins
Music has always been more than background noise. It is a constant thread in my life. From the mixtapes and cassettes I bought in the 1980s to the stacks of records lining my shelves today, music has shaped my taste, mood, and in many ways, my identity. Vinyl, especially, hits differently. The ritual of dropping the needle, the warmth of analog sound, and even the artwork. Something about it feels intentional and immersive.
I was a DJ in college and lucky enough to be elected music director for a year at WUNH 91.3 FM, spinning everything from indie rock and jazz to obscure 7-inches and the first wave of jam bands. It was a crash course in curation, discovery, and sharing music with others. There was nothing like queuing up two turntables, three CD players, scribbling out a playlist, and knowing a few people out there may be hearing something new for the first time.
That experience taught me how to listen and dig deeper into liner notes, production credits, and the artwork.
Fast forward a few years, and I was hired at the brand-new Bullmoose Music in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I think I was employee #3 and was there for the grand opening in November 1996 as a member of the staff and the indie music buyer. This was back when CDs were king, but vinyl never fully disappeared, it was just dirt cheap, cheaper than a CD. We sold everything from new releases, imports, used CDs, and the occasional weird gem someone traded in for… let’s call it gas money. I loved every minute of it. Talking music all day, helping people find their next favorite band, and slipping on a new album over the speakers was the job where you always discovered something new alongside the customers.
This was about four years before the film High Fidelity with John Cusack and Jack Black was released — still one of my all-time favorites. I mention that because, like many other record stores, we could also play something in-house and then sell three copies. It happened with Music for Egon Schiele by Rachel’s. Some Sunday mornings, after church, people were browsing while waiting for their table at The Friendly Toast, a local breakfast spot across the street and home to the absolute best dish ever, the Guy Scramble with Anadama Toast and coffee. Anyway, we’d play that album and sell two or three copies just like in High Fidelity, as it was just the proper tone for that moment.
Music collecting, mostly vinyl since 2007, is part nostalgia and part therapy these days. I don’t buy to build some museum-worthy archive. I buy because I feel something when I listen. Some records remind me of those college radio days. Others take me back to the Bullmoose bins or way back in time to when I’d get ready for school, and my dad would have WBCN’s The Big Mattress show playing through the living room stereo with host Charles Laquidara and his morning team. That’s where I first heard Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, J. Geils Band, Talking Heads, The Alarm, Flock of Seagulls, and so much more.
Those first record store visits as a kid are something I’ll never forget. Popping into The Musicsmith in the old Newington Mall, Rock Bottom Records and Sessions in downtown Portsmouth, or Strawberries out on the Woodbury Ave shopping district. I have memories of each place, even Record Town in the Fox Run Mall, which had some weird, expensive letter code pricing scheme… The memories began with my dad, as we’d pick out an album we agreed upon and two Maxell UR-90 blank cassettes. Next, we’d get lunch and then go home to record two copies of the album onto the cassette tapes. One copy for my Sanyo boombox, and the other for my dad’s Chevy S-10 pickup truck. As I got older, the memories with my dad faded, but never vanished. My music journey continued with bicycle rides across the military base with Ken, one of my childhood best friends, who lived just up the street. We rode our bikes, eventually driving when we got our license, to the malls and record stores in search of Pink Floyd, The Cure, R.E.M., or the new Hoodoo Gurus tape. As many of us do, I now realize how quickly time passes and how much fun those days of discovering new music with my dad and childhood friends were in the 1980s. This experience and exposure to 1970s and 80s album rock led me to listen to WUNH in the late 80s and throughout the 90s and get involved in music as a DJ, at least on some level. There, I discovered indie rock and the amazing world of jazz. Today, I have too much music and have begun digitizing many CDs to make space and declutter my home. My vinyl collection continues to grow, but conservatively as I age, ensuring my shelves and my wallet don’t regret it later…
Record collecting has never been about the rarity or the resale value. It’s always been about the connection and the sound. That’s what music, especially vinyl, has always been about. What about you? What are your beginnings and trajectory into collecting and listening to music? Leave a comment, I’d love to know!
Thanks for reading. I look forward to connecting again soon.
My grandfather gave me 50 cents for getting straight A's on a 4th grade report card, mid 1970s. I spent it as soon as I could on the single (45 RPM) of Barracuda by Heart. I can't remember what song was on the other side, but I played it constantly until family members started giving me more records. Some of my childhood favorites were the Grease soundtrack and later, Michael Jackson's Off The Wall and Fleetwood Mac (can't remember which one) and anything Rolling Stones. Otherwise my music enrichment came from a plastic, mod G.E. photo cube radio that I'd listen to when I played outside at Grandmas. A little later, someone gave me Donna Summer's Bad Girls. The album itself was a fold out featuring Donna Summer and her singers dressed as prostitutes and posing beneath streetlamps. I was probably 10 or 11, and so excited to get it that I brought it to school for show and tell. That was when we were living in Guam. Cassettes didn't make my radar until a few years later.
Amen to the Guy Scramble. I love that memory of your dad. Love this post.