I was in a Goodwill recently in my usual position. Squatted. As close to the floor as I could get without sitting, ready to spring, with my arms hulked out in a semi-circle getting ready to plow my browse through a line of records that was packed way too tight, on the damn bottom shelf, for proper flipping. So I had to pull out about 15 and set them aside so I could get proper room to flip. Then I go in to get started. There's a guy standing behind me this entire time, I don't know what he wants but as he long as he's not bothering me I don't care. But he was bothering me because he was breathing loud and I could feel it. Anyway, I get going and he finally pipes up and says, "Oh! You're going to look through them all. That's alright I just want to look at tapes." VHS tapes are above the records. He keeps talking. "I like to buy these tapes cuz sometimes I just want to watch it once. We want a couple of specific ones. Here's one! Quigley Down Under. There was another one.... What was it? Anyway, what kind of records are you looking for?" I give him my standard answer, whatever I can find, whatever looks good, whatever strikes my fancy, nothing in particular. Then he goes off on some tangent about collecting little racecars, like Hot Wheels, how he has collectibles from Hardee's, a whole set! And then he asks me, about the records, "Do you listen to them or just collect them?" Which might be a good place to start this blog.
Records as collectibles? WHAT?! I think I can at least somewhat speak for Adam when I say that we are not collectors. We may be hoarders, we may be searchers, we can definitely be greedy about them, we can definitely come precariously close to putting ourselves in debt over them (and that will all come up in this blog) but they're not for show. Of course we play them! It's why we're selective. It's why we hunt. That's basically what we are. Hunter-gatherers. Always on the lookout, and ready to scoop en masse. And why do we hunt? They. Sound. Good. They sound incredible. They have character that no digital media can match and make for a listening experience that is practically supernatural. And they're beautiful. You get warm feelings when you hold them. And every time you actually find one that you've been waiting to find, waiting to hear, it's like your supposedly barren womb is unexpectedly ripe with twins. There's a reason they've lasted so long. Or there's tons of reasons. All of which we'll go through eventually. We'll talk about all that and then some. We spend a lot of time overanalyzing things into and past absurdity, so we will come up with all sorts of angles to look at records from. So on and so on general introductions.
Pancakes are delicious. They are shaped like records, it's true, and if you put one on a turntable we would probably get really excited, but that's not why they're primarily involved. Primarily they're involved because they're attractive. They smell incredible. Dude, you think I haven't seen the commercials for those new coffee cake pancakes at IHOP? I lean over myself and wet the floor when I hear about those. Pancakes could bring people in to a record store. No question. So, pancakes is the first word in our title. But, ironically, pancakes are secondary. Pancakes are amazing, but they are not records. But I do want some pancakes.
That... That was beautiful.
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