My Pendulum Swings Again

I have a lot of hobbies, but they don't consume all of my time. I tend to swing from one hobby to another. All I was thinking about three years ago was my VW Beetle. Last year I was knee deep in pinball repair, and the Bug was all but forgotten. Does that mean I should sell my car? Heck, no. I'll come back around to car repair. I'll just need something to spark my VW interest again.

For example, I wasn't aware of this, but I had begun to get tired of fixing pinball machines. I finished a restoration in July, and didn't even blog about my "new" Zig Zag machine. I guess I didn't want to think about pinball anymore.

That's when my hobby pendulum changed directions.

The spark was a birthday present. Daphne gave me a three-month subscription to Vinyl Me, Please, a record-of-the-month club. As soon as I dropped the needle and heard that funky bass line on July's record, a re-release of 1973's Betty Davis, I was hooked.

It wasn't long before I was digging through my old collection of LPs searching for something else to play. That's how I rediscovered my vinyl collection. I had forgotten how much I liked playing records. 

My first LP purchase was the soundtrack to the 1983 movie Christine (George Thorogood and slew of 50s classics on that), and I bought quite a few records during the rest of the 80s. I switched to CDs in the 90s, but I still enjoyed buying records at thrift stores and Half Price Books as an adult. The record shopping stopped when Charlotte was born. It wasn't a conscience decision; I just didn't have time for new music anymore. 

I have learned a couple of things since then.

1) After looking through my record collection, I have discovered that a lot of the music that I was buying in high school and college was total junk didn't age well. 

2) Records have become a hot commodity. You can forget about going to Goodwill and finding anything except Eddy Arnold or Ray Conniff. That bone has been picked clean. That doesn't matter, though. There are record stores in town that have quality, used records. You can even buy new vinyl recordings.  It is unreal to think that I can walk into Barnes & Nobel and walk out with a brand-new record by The Replacements. I feel like I'm riding in the time machine with Marty McFly. 

But that trip in the DeLorean isn't free. These new records are luxury items that cost anywhere between $20 and $50. I can't be making impulse buys for that kind of money, so I started doing some research. I have read Vinyl Me, Please: 100 Albums You Need in Your Collection, and I'm two thirds through 1001 Albums You Need to Hear Before You Die. 

1001 Albums begins in 1955 with Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours and ends in 2005 with the White Stripes' Get Behind Me Satan. Both books are intelligently written and insightful. YouTube is also great resource. Not sure if you're up to the challenge of listening to Captain Beefheart? Search "Trout Mask Replica full album" and find out. (I wasn't ready for the Captain, but I have listened to more than 30 artists that I didn't know existed. )

For the last four weeks, I have been playing pinball, surfing YouTube, and listening to music in my basement. My hand tools have been asleep in their toolbox beds, and I haven't watched a movie on DVD or Blu-ray this month. The Beetle has been consoling the pinball machine project in the garage, There, there. Don't take it personal. He'll work on you again. I promise.

It's true. Like Arnold, I'll be back. But for right now, I have to go back downstairs to listen to Marvin Holmes & the Uptights. 

I'll write about this record soon.