Sold the TV, bought a record player.

Joni Mitchell sang "You don't know what you've got until its gone" on the song Big Yellow Taxi, released on 7 inch vinyl in 1970. Within two years, I'd be putting on my own singles and albums, on a rather large (for a five year old) cabinet record and radiogram player, beginning my relationship with records.
Along with a handful of children's records, I was given my parents singles from the sixties. I spent the mid 70's playing hits by The Beatles, The Kinks, The Hollies and many more. By the late 70's, it was time to buy my own records, Come Back My Love by Darts was the first single I ever bought, Absolutely by Madness my first album.
Buying albums became especially gratifying, reading and consuming the artwork and linear notes on the bus going home was an important part of the ritual. Labels on the disc also captured my attention. From the infamous 45 logo, to the swirling Atlantic logo as it went round on the turntable, all added to the experience of listening to music.
At some point in the early 80's, I saw a tv program that was extolling the virtues of a new musical format. Apparently they were made of metal, indestructible and to prove it, they put marmalade on it; of course, it's breakfast tv, and it still played. Like many others, I was slowly converted to the dark side, I bought a CD player as my beloved records grew dusty in the dungeons of my mind.

Last year, on the release of the Groovy Uncle LP, "Play Something We Know", Glenn was telling me just how great the album sounded on vinyl over the download version, I suddenly realised just how much I missed playing records. It's a very different experience to listening to music, CD's and downloads are something I have on while I'm doing something else, but records demand my full attention.
With the imminent release of the Galileo 7's 2nd album "Staring At The Sound" I've taken the plunge and now have a new turntable. To me it sounds better on vinyl, more real, more like a record.

In the early 90's, there was a tv debate on the end of vinyl, a DJ who's name I've forgotten was discussing the notion of Jerry Lee Lewis on CD and it sounding like he was performing in the room with you. "I don't want him in the room with me, some maniac with a knife! I want a record of Jerry Lee Lewis."


The Galileo 7 album "Staring At The Sound" is released on 10th September and is available from http://thegalileo7.fourfour.com/home
Buy the vinyl, your ears will love you for it.