I wrote this initially for my Wednesday short story on Substack. But I feel it is too good not to be shared further and therefore why shouldn’t I utilise the blog as well.

So here for you delight and delectation I give you – The Joy of The Vinyl Safari.

I believe it was Jimmy Page who first coined the term “Vinyl Safari.” It basically means standing in a record store or antiques emporium or even a charity shop and perusing the 33rpm vinyl records, hoping to find that gem you’ve long been looking for. I did it a lot in my younger days, however, with records being between £4 – £5 a pop at the time and with me earning the princely sum of £25 per week, and having an overly healthy fondness for beer, it meant that actually buying records was something that only happened only a few times a month. Maybe four or five.

But on those days when I did have a bit of spare cash I would pop down to Revolver Records or dear old Woolies and re-appear from within, half an hour later, with a square carrier bag in my hand bearing a freshly purchased LP and feeling as pleased as punch with myself.

Buying a record, back then was a multi-sensory experience. For one thing, record shops (particularly second-hand ones) smelled different to other shops. A blind person would know they were in one. Then there was the thrill of slowly (slowly now) letting your fingertips flick through the records, relishing the touch of those gorgeous cardboard sleeves, before stopping on the one you’ve been searching for with lit up eyes. Then of course there was the cover itself. A whole square foot of artistic wonderment which often led to many of us judging the music by the cover.

And who can forget that feeling of walking down the high street with the bag in your hand? I was almost tempted to do a Travolta-esque strut at the time.

Of course, I couldn’t wait to get home and put it on the turntable for that first listen and then sitting and reading the lyric sleeve as it played. Then when you’d exhausted all the lyrics you would move on to finding out who the producer and sound engineer were and in what part of the world it was recorded. Every single word on that album cover was thoroughly read and inwardly digested as if it were some great Victorian literary classic.

You’d bought a record, and it felt bloody ace!

But time has a way of changing us and different fads come and go and it was in the early nineties that vinyl came under a sustained and prolonged attack from the, now much-maligned, compact disc.

And I can remember when CDs were ushered in, hailed as the saviours of recorded music and I confess that I fell under their crystal-clear-sound spell too. My records were, over time, consigned to the loft with childhood toys, dusty old suitcases and broken cassette players, there to languish for decades – forgotten and uncared for.

Until now!

I’m back on the vinyl with gusto! And I’m enjoying the thrill of the Vinyl Safari once again. Vinyl has resurged back on to the music scene and my cherished old records are being aired once again.

I’ve got my lovely wife to thank for that. For it was she who bought me a record player for my birthday in 2014 with the words, ‘You need to play those old records again Al.’ And damn it she was right. I started playing them and the floods of memories that they brought back was pure, immeasurable joy to me. I’d heard those songs many times on CD but to blow the dust off of Dark Side of The Moon or those old Quo albums and put the needle down was like hearing them again for the very first time. Yes there were plenty of snaps, crackles and pops but they were always there anyway. They were all part of the charm. It was great.

Fast forward to present day and we find ourselves living in a delightful flat on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and my records have suddenly found a whole new level of usefulness. Every six weeks or so a bunch of us at the flats get together, we have something to eat, a music quiz and then I play records for about three hours.

And people love it. It’s brilliant to see them singing along and air-guitaring to rock classics. Heck, I even had them all doing the YMCA dance a couple of times. Which was a lot better than it sounds.

Something else that has been pretty cool is that other people are bringing their old records to Vinyl Night and hearing them played for the first time in ages as well. It makes for a wonderful, fun-filled evening

And so, to ensure the continued success of Vinyl Night I find myself buying records at every available opportunity. Why, only today I toddled off to the local antique shop which has a veritable wealth of vinyl on offer. I spent a good long time letting my fingers do the walking before setting off home again with two YES albums and one by Steeleye Span. Plus I bought one of those Top of the Pops cover version albums from 1972 because I had that exact one and I don’t know whatever happened to it.

I felt like that starry-eyed teenager from forty years ago again. I couldn’t, in fact, wait to get home before I had a look at them and stopped for a sit down outside a café to have a gander. They were all utterly gorgeous of course, although, on second thoughts, perhaps taking them out of the bag and sniffing them in public in broad daylight wasn’t the best idea. I got some funny stares off people, but who cares?

I’m really enjoying connecting with vinyl records again and my collection is growing quite rapidly. I’ve taken it very seriously too, buying replacement stylus and proper cleaning cloths. I’m also on the lookout for a carrying case to protect those precious 12-inch beauties on their travels.

I’ve still got my CDs, well most of them at least. I did sell a big load off last year with the thought, “What the hell was I thinking of when I bought this?” at the forefront of my mind. But the good stuff I’ve hung on to. Just in case.

Who knows, in twenty years time we could be doing “CD Night.” But somehow, I doubt it.

Vinyl rocks!!!

If you’re interested, here’s a to my Substack Home Page.