Making the world go round... and round...

As national Record Store Day nears, Louis Barfe explains why he’s lost his love of vinyl. Meanwhile, Melonie Clarke’s love affair has just begun

‘I’M LUMBERED’, SAYS LOUIS BARFE

I hate records. It might come as a surprise to learn that the author of a history of the record industry feels this way, but it’s true. I own hundreds of the ruddy things, at all speeds from 33 to 78 rpm, and I have three turntables, but I don’t like them.

They’re easy to scratch or break, they get warped and they take up a lot of space in my house that I could do with reclaiming. I have no romantic attachment to surface noise, and I could do without the ritual of cleaning each disc with a carbon-fibre brush before playing it. I look at younger people rediscovering vinyl and wonder what they’re playing at. We had no choice. Time was when my idea of greatest pleasure was sitting crosslegged on the floor of a second-hand record shop, rifling through boxes.

Nowadays, I can’t think of anything worse. For one thing, if I sit on the floor, I might not manage to get up and, for another, have you seen the state of most record-shop floors?

It was my last house move that confirmed the end of my love affair with vinyl and shellac. Midway through boxing up another shelf of LPs, I wondered whether I would miss any of it if the removal van disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle between Suffolk and Gloucestershire.

I concluded that I wouldn’t miss the physical objects as long as I had access to the material on them. This feeling was underlined when the (alphabetised) box containing my Tubby Hayes LPs went astray. I didn’t want to fondle the plastic. I just wanted the sounds back.

Unfortunately, many of the obscurities I’ve gathered over the years have never made it on to digital formats (I favour audio files with lossless compression for all of my archiving these days), so I’m lumbered.

‘THE CRACKLE IS A BONUS’, SAYS MELONIE CLARKE

OK, so some people out there may think my love of records is simply an attempt to come across as cool and hipster. But they couldn’t be more wrong. There is nothing I love more than cranking up my 1930s HMV Portable Gramophone 102 (so called as it is supposed to be light enough to take along with the picnic hamper for a day out – it actually weighs a ton), and listening to an old 78.

When it comes to my old HMV model, I love the added nostalgia. I can’t help but think about the bright young things who might have listened to their music on the very player that I use now. And as someone who loves swing dancing, I love thinking about those who popped a record on this very player and danced about the room before me.

I actually own two record players, one for shellac (the 1938 player) and a modern version for vinyl. As much as I love them, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t listen to them every day. Needles can be hard to find sometimes, especially with the older models. But songs such as Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade were made to be listened to, with added crackle, on a record player. And yes, in my opinion, the crackle only adds to the charm .

Although most charity shops (I have spent hours sifting through the box of records you find in most second- hand shops) don’t have a record player on hand to try before you buy, that enhances the charm and excitement as I wind up the gramophone and get to listen to my latest find.

And as Louis Barfe has fallen out of love with his, I’ve already sent him a message telling him that I’d be happy to take them off his hands.

Record Store Day is on 19 April.

A CRACKLING HISTORY

  • The record player was invented in America by Thomas Edison in 1877.
  • The first records were made out of tinfoil and were cylindrical.
  • In 1887, Emile Berliner invented the first flat disc record.
  • In May 1889, the  rst ‘phonograph parlor’ opened in San Francisco, where people could listen to records for one nickel.
  • Some of the earliest recordings include Handel’s Israel In Egypt on 29 June 1888 at the Crystal Palace Handel Festival in London, and Au Clair De La Lune, recorded on 9 April 1860.
  • Thomas Edison’s 1877/78 tinfoil recording of Mary Had A Little Lamb was the first example of recorded verse. The 1927 version survives.
  • Most records were made of shellac until the 1940s when vinyl became popular; the latter reduced breakage during transport.