45 RPM
Vinyl diehards find their groove
BY RYAN CORMIER, EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM
EDMONTON — Dwight Young has collected records since 1964, since the night his Mother marched him to a neighbour’s television to watch the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. He was six years old.
As he flicks through albums in fruit crates, elbow-to-elbow with fellow collectors, Young has never lost his love for the needle and vinyl.
“There’s just something about the sound of vinyl, especially the originals, there’s just something magical about it,” he said Sunday at the Edmonton Music Collectors Show.
Young’s collection now spans most his life, though it was larger before he got divorced. Time among the stacks is like memory lane for him, a reminder of the day he got grounded for sneaking down to Calgary to see Janis Joplin in concert.
“Totally worth it,” he said.
That devotion to albums was a constant at the one-day collectors show, held at Sherbrooke Community Hall the same weekend as Record Store Day. The hall was filled 23 vendors and releases from Roy Orbison to Merle Haggard to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.
The show was organized by George Gawlak, who has three turntables at home and listens to at least that many albums each day. He was pleased to see a wide age range among the collectors.
“They’re rediscovering it, these young people,” he said as a teenager walked by with an armful of Elvis Costello. “There’s a warmer sound to vinyl, they like that. They like that it’s retro, they’re beginning to like the act of collecting.”
Ben Jamin, 22, is one of those youth. As opposed to today’s digital buy-a-song trends, Jamin would rather listen to an entire album, in the order it was recorded, committed to the full listen as soon as the needle drops.
Once he realized “today’s music is crap,” Jamin turned to records and found himself hooked by the hunt for rare gems that thrills any collector. A hunt for the holy grail of a collection can take years, as opposed to the 10-second downloads of today’s industry.
Though even obscure music can now be found on the Internet, a click of a mouse lacks the full experience of the cover art or lyric sheets, Gawlak said. There’s a story with an album that a download will never match.
Gawlak’s collection used to top 10,000, but he’s sold a fifth of that since retirement, the age when people disperse their collections rather than grow them. His wife wants to take a vacation with the money earned.
Still, there are untouchables. You’ll never see Gawlak put a price tag on his Nina Simone albums.
For Rick Mah, it’s his Beatles albums that will never be sold. The collector of records and band posters came from Saskatoon, one of a handful of out-of-town vendors who brought new stock into the usual circle of Edmonton dealers.
His dedication to vinyl is simple: “I want something I can touch and hold onto.”
Indeed, while music sales are falling overall, vinyl sales have actually been increasing slightly in recent years.
Many Edmonton stores brought their wares, including Sound Connection on Whyte Avenue. Employee Aaron McMillan has been collecting since his Mom left him in a record store at Londonderry Mall while she shopped.
For McMillan, he’ll always go for the format with the best sound.
“A good record on good equipment is like being in the room with the band.”
Many buyers not only have a keen eye for the rarities, but also possible defects. Many withdrew albums from their sleeves and inspected them an inch from their faces, tilting them to the light. The slightest scratch can cut the price of an album in half.
The flaws they search for, Gawlak believes, are what make records great.
“Vinyl is a bit like real life. It’s not crystal clear, is it? You buy a record that at first looks pristine, and then maybe you hear a crackle when you get home, and you just live with it.”
rcormier@edmontonjournal.com
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