Play That Vinyl Disc One More Time
A musical interlude that became a Shakespearean tale of epic proportions, interspaced with critical comments by the Dishonorable Edward Pastanga (DEP).
My generation grew up with vinyl records; 45s, eps, and lps, a.k.a singles, extended plays, and long-play albums (DEP: What 78’s, they were your generation too weren’t they?). Two Dutch radio pirate stations, Veronica and Noordzee, were of utmost importance as they were often first playing new exciting rock and pop songs (DEP: Is Nordzee supposed to be the Dutch equivalent to North Sea?). Dutch TV only had 2 channels and there wasn’t that much shown regarding ‘pop’ music…
Fast forward to 2024 when we are literally swamped with instant access to streaming music courtesy of the internet, forget about cassettes, CDs, or even mp3s.
In a rebellious act of defiance my old friend Wilhelmus van N., the Dishonorable Edward Pastanga, and yours truly decided to have a vinyl-only evening on the 19th of April. Last year Wilhelmus received a Ynos record player for his birthday from his offspring which had rekindled his passion for music. It even had him buying vinyl albums in Japan and he slowly acquired a (tiny) record collection!
As for the Disgraceful Pastanga (DEP: Dishonourable, I’m only disgraceful on bank holidays), he had no real interest in vinyl, preferring cassettes and CDs instead, but the promise of good music (albeit with occasional surface noises) and copious amounts of beer, made him eagerly accept the invitation.
And me? I have posted before about my music addiction, having shitloads of CDs, zillions of mp3s and buying vinyl once and a while without even having a record player. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to actually listen to those old vinyl slices!
Wilhelmus left his office early in order to stock his fridge with various kinds of beer and had instructed his wife to come up with some edible snacks… (DEP: “instructed his wife”, are you sure you have word order correct?)
I arrived before 6 and handed over my gift for this special event; Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, ZZ Top’s Fandango, and Tracey Ullman’s You Broke My Heart In 17 Places. Unfortunately, only the last album was in its original sleeve which was a shame as the large-sized album covers are often part of the attraction.
First on the record player was Rumours, a genuine classic album (*) about which much has been written over the years regarding the recording and the multiple relationships between the band members, an epic tale worthy of a Netflix version!
Next step was - besides opening 2 bottles of beer - getting the Karmon-Hardon speaker system working. This wasn’t that easy as Wilhelmus admitted, at times it seemed suspiciously like a hit-and-miss bluetooth affair but after lots of fumbling around and Dutch curses.., we suddenly heard Stevie Nicks singing her accusations loud and clear! The quality of this 2nd hand album wasn’t bad at all and the pops and hisses added to the nostalgic listening experience.
Besides these 3 lps I had brought a shoulder bag full of 45s & lps which I would unleash slice by slice over the course of the evening.
The unofficial master of the house, Momo the cat, found my record bag intriguing but lost interest soon afterwards and disappeared into more quiet areas of the sprawling mansion.
The first one to be shown was a collection of Dutch artists under the banner of Radio Veronica donating part of the sales for a good cause, all revenues of this record were donated to the "Nier Stichting Nederland" (Dutch kidney foundation) (**)
The liner notes were immediately and avidly studied by Wilhelmus who discovered right away something intriguing; this album was released 54 years ago, on April 18th, 1970! (DEP: I also failed to immediately pick up on this very tenuous coincidence, the day we listened to it was April 19th, 2024, precisely 54 rotations of the sun later. It still sounded the same by all accounts.)
As the Disreputable Edward (who’s anything but Dutch (DEP: Good name for a band maybe)) hadn’t arrived yet we decided to play this album next and a little later Stevie got replaced by the Dutch Tee-Set…
I’d bought this album a few years ago from one of the many second-hand shops (the Kringloop) (DEP: Why do Dutch words sound so much like Klingon?) in the Netherlands for peanuts, mainly because I liked the cover (DEP: And, presumably, you had some excess peanuts festering in your pockets).
Halfway through side 1 Edward appeared on the scene, carrying a bottle of wine as entrance fee to this unique event.
After some witty banter, Wilhelmus removed the Dutch platter from his cool record player and I presented the next slice of black vinyl…
In the 1970s record companies released loads of (s)hit collections, either shameful covers by unmentioned studio musicians or the original versions, but both virtually always with a sexy-looking lady on the front cover, well known in Dutch as the ‘hoezenpoes’, a description which nowadays would have the woke people freaking out immediately! (***) (DEP: My favourite word of the week, perhaps there may be some benefits to preserving the Dutch language).
The politically incorrect album was ‘Hits For The Millions!’ (****) which had a wonderfully odd collection of songs, incl. some of which we’d never heard of before. All-time classics like ‘I’m Not In Love’, ‘Happy Together’, and ‘Autobahn’ mixed with unknown songs from bands like White Butterflies (from Turkey!) and Rimshots (yuk!).
Wilhelmus decided that it was time to unleash a platter from his collection and selected King Crimson’s Beat, we all agreed a great album (*****). In between commenting on the music played our conversation at times reached obscure angles and dubious subjects which undoubtedly were assisted by Beer Lao!
It was time for a change of format, from lp (33 rpm) to single (45 rpm) which caused a moment of panic on Wilhelmus’ side as some of my platters only had a large round hole in the middle. However somewhere he managed to find a single spinner adaptor and the evening was saved!
Within seconds we were all singing (well…) along with Ian Dury:
I come awake with a gift for womankind
You're still asleep but the gift don't seem to mind
Rise on this occasion, halfway up your back
Sliding down your body, touching your behind
You look so self-possessed
I won't disturb your rest
It's lovely when you're sleeping
But wide awake is best
Unnecessary to say we were in a great mood!
Rather different, but also fun, was Mickey Jupp’s Joggin’ which has immortal phrases like:
He said ‘You’re my buddy so I’ll tell you straight
I’m gonna lose my baby if I don’t lose weight
Good life or my woman I have had to choose
That’s why the track suit and the running shoes
I’m out joggin', joggin', joggin'
‘Cause it’s good for you
Joggin', not walk-the-dogging
Yes I’m going to get healthy if it’s the last thing I do’
The remainder of the evening continued similarly, enjoying the snacks brought in by Mrs. Wilhelmus, listening to David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Gorillaz, Rolling Stones, Genesis, and more, with an almost free flow of Beer Lao. After 24 bottles though we changed to cans of Asahi, not bad either!
Not surprisingly music featured heavily in our conversation, Wilhelmus preaching about the quality peaks of music that were already reached during the 70-80s and present-day music mainly being shite… Personally I thought that we were just at that young age when teenagers are obsessed with music and pay heaps of attention to it, whereas nowadays we are way too busy with other things. Consequently we don’t listen that often anymore to what is popular these days and can’t be bothered either. Wisely I kept this heretical opinion to myself…
The quality of my vinyl was surprisingly good, only Robert Cray turned out to be a miss-pressing as the sound was plain awful. A strange double album was ‘It’s A Live-In World’ by The Anti-Heroin Project (******), another fundraiser for a good cause that failed miserably. After a rather mediocre Paul McCartney track we nearly pissed ourselves when we heard Naughty Atom Bomb by John Cleese & Co (DEP: Bill Oddy and Paul McCartney were the Co and I can assure you my bladder was well under control).
At one moment Edward came up with the disgraceful suggestion to re-enact the infamous throwing records scene of Shaun of the Dead (*******). Both Wilhelmus and I suggested beating the crap out of him instead upon which he mumbled that ‘perhaps it was not such a good idea’… (DEP: You seemed quite interested in zombie killing with the Robert Cray record).
A few beers later the good mood was fully restored (DEP: especially after Bowie’s Low Album and the volume cranked up for Sound & Vision) and a heated conversation started around the merits and demerits of U2’s Bono. We voted unanimously that he was a total twat, but the first few U2 albums were still awesome. Having said that Wilhelmus put on their ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ (********) which indeed was still cool as shit (DEP: I’m not sure this comparison stands up in testing).
It was time for my piece de resistance: a 10-inch ep of The Cure (*********) with 2 live tracks, the all-time classic ‘A Forest’ and the controversial ‘Killing An Arab’ which we all enjoyed very much! (DEP: For the record, I enjoyed the record, no Arabs were hurt in the writing of this article).
Wilhelmus though trumped my collector’s item when he - with an evil grin on his face - suddenly presented us with a sealed(!) copy of ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’. (**********)
12 cans of Asahi later we had to change to ‘Danish green stuff in cans’ according to Edward which caused Wilhelmus almost to start foaming at the mouth as he’s proud of this well-known Dutch beer…
Luckily unsealing the Pink Floyd restored the good mood and positive vibes all around.
Sheepishly we all admitted that despite it being an absolute classic none of us had listened to this album in years!
Both sides were played, bringing back great memories from the past and we were flabbergasted at how fantastic this 51(!) year old album sounded!
By now it was after midnight and nothing could top this last one for sure.
Despite the earlier played (and very well received!) Joe Jackson 45 ‘What's The Use Of Getting Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again) (Live)’(***********) we decided to call it quits…
Edward and I thanked our hosts, wandered off towards Tiwanon Road, and both somehow managed to reach home.
DISCLAIMER:
All photos were severely manipulated digitally to protect the innocent, however during this process pixels were mistreated, sorry about that.
No Arabs (or other nationalities) were injured during the writing of this epic.
The editorial management team did their utmost best to remove any potential offensive/politically incorrect remarks, or language which might be considered as taking the Woke movement not seriously enough.
Any resemblance of the characters in this tale to anyone alive is pure coincidence and was never intended.
