Chronicles of a Vinyl Collector – The Lisbon Era

One of the first purchases I made when I moved to Lisbon a couple of months ago was a turntable (slash radio slash cd and mp3 player) for I wasn’t in the mood to bring my whole hi-fi from home.

The first sign arrived when I was looking for an appartment and the one I ended up choosing has shelves especially designed for vinyl records that seemed to have been constructed four ou five decades ago – which, I may add, is a visible sign of a music lover when you are talking about an appartment as small as a studio. Then, slowly, I began to bring some of my records and, obviously, made some new, interesting purchases.

So this entry is a micro-catalogue of what is on those shelves the moment I write about it. I therefore present you about 10% of my collection.

Imagine, John Lennon (1971),

EMI 2000 digitally remastered edition

 

The Velvet Underground and Nico, Velvet Underground (1967),

Verve 2000 yellow vinyl remastered edition (ltd 500 copies)

 

Portishead, Portishead (1997),

1997 Go! Beat edited by Polygram US double LP edition

 

MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana (1994),

2008 Geffen Records European release (part of the Back to Black series)

 

Waiting For the Sun, The Doors (1968),

2009 Elektra reissue 180-gram vinyl US edition

 

A Arte Maior de, Elis Regina (1983)

1983 Polygram Discos double vinyl edition

 

Abbey Road, The Beatles (1969),

1995 Capitol Records Yellow Apple US Release

 

 

Transformer, Lou Reed (1972),

Undated Portuguese RCA – Polygram release

 

 

Disque d’Or vol. 1, Edith Piaf (1980)

1980 Portuguese Columbia edition

 

 

Ralph Burns, Cabaret OST (1972),

1977 ABC Records US edition

 

About Love, Plastiscines (2009),

2009 Nylon Records US Edition

 

Back To Black, Amy Winehouse (2007),

2007 Universal Island Records Europe edition

 

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra (1982),

1982 Spanish Phillips, brazillian edition

 

Pulp Fiction OST, V.A (1991),

2008 MCA Records Europe (part of the Back to Black series)

 

Big Brother & the Holding Company, Big Brother & the Holding Company (1967),

2008 Sundazed Records US mono edition

 

Falco 3, Falco (1985),

1985 A&M edition, US promotional use only release

 

The Big Black & The Blue, first Aid Kit (2010),

2010 Wichita Recordings Ltd UK edition

 

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band, The Beatles (1967),

1967 UK EMI/Parlophone first edition with cutout insert

 

Serge Gainsbourg ft. Brigitte Bardot, Bonnie and Clyde (1968),

2009 4 Men With Beards US edition 180 gram vinyl

The Singles, Pretenders (1987),

1987 WEA Records European edition (Spain)

Desperately seeking Sargeant

Well, maybe not that desperately after all, otherwise I’d already fallen for ultra-exclusive-import-editions with poor quality and damaged covers sold as if they had been property of The Beatles themselves. Ok, so I’m talking about 1967′s Sgt.Pepper’s album. Let me state that although it’s always been one of my favourites, it gained extra points for keeping me company – streaming on youtube – quite often while cooking or tiding up my apartment in Paris. And I re-discovered an old fascination for one of the XXth century masterpieces on how-to-do-experiment-rock-without-letting-people-know-we’re-doing-it. But allow me to explain.

It’s been a long long time since I found out that my favourite Beatles record was Revolver; I love it in every way, every single song, the line-up is perfect and the cover was designed by Klaus Voorman (who The Beatles’d met in their early years in Hamburg and would later play bass in Lennon’s album Imagine). As I have it on CD since the very beginning of my teenage years, it seemed to me that the logical thing to do before having it in vinyl was to get the other albuns first and leave Revolver in the bottom of my “to-buy” list. But everybody knows that quality Beatles vinyl albuns – the original ones – have become more and more expensive during the years, and although I intend to be very rich one day, the salary of a musician/writer/something doesn’t allow me too many extravagances. But the issue here is not how deep my wallet is, but why I want Sgt. Pepper’s so bad. First of all, I’ve always loved the cover; assemblage was always a great influence on my artistic work and I have a weekness for the “finding Wally” kind of thing. I must also add that, being Revolver my favourite album, I can see its shadow hiding behind certain parts of Sgt. Pepper’s – I like to think about it as if Revolver were the rough though solid sketches and Sgt. Pepper’s the full-coloured comic book (you know, the intelectual/popular duality of one specific philosophy). And then there are the cut-outs. Oh yeah, how I wish I’d catch one copy that still had the original poster that came with the album, the moustache, the picture card, the badges and stripes! Although The Beatles’ wish to create a concept album failed, it’s nice to see how much they wanted Sgt. Pepper’s to build a reality of its own in every person that bought it.

And the songs. As a big Lennon’s fan, I have to admit A Day in the Life and Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite have always been on my top favourites – but what truly amazed me these last re-listening period were McCartney’s tunes like Getting Better, Fixing A Hole or Lovely Rita (I don’t mention When I’m  64 for I’ve always considered it to be more a Yellow Submarine‘s type of song) for their ability to perpetuate themselves in time and suit what we now call “indie rock”, as well as Brit Pop (Getting Better‘s back vocals are outrageously Oasis).

A perfect album, one must say; we can even notice that it marked the end od Beatles’ live concerts, allowing them to have more freedom with the choice of instruments and special effects (they would NEVER have to do it in public, otherwise they would need a whole orchestra) and the beginning of an era when they started to look inside their own special musical needs – what was craving to be communicated and how, taking time, having fun, and starting 1967′s Summer of Love without noticing, for the release date was June the 1st and San Francisco was burning empathically with what the Fab Four were doing an ocean away, a cosmic wheel one would say. I’ll just suppose that, once again, The Beatles were ahead of their time.

And please, if you see the vinyl record on sale for a decent, fair price, let me know.

The Beatles’ A Day in the Life (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)