The last time I tried to unload some of my old LPs I was sneered at and derided: “What are those?” people would say, as if regarding a manual typewriter. But like that underdog the Underwood, the long-playing phonograph disc is back, big time, if yesterday’s stoop sale was any indication.
Our neighborhood has become the nexus of cool in Brooklyn; young people in skinny jeans and straw hats now rule the pavement, as proven by the success of the Brooklyn Flea Market, held each Saturday a few blocks from here. The last time we held a stoop sale the hot items were used toys, especially my son’s old action figures. But the people doing the shopping yesterday were closer to toy age themselves, and what they wanted to play with were my old records.
As readers of this space know, I love music, and my record collection (winnowed down over the years to about eight boxes of wax) is a fair representation of some part of my musical odyssey. From my earliest purchases (the Beatles, Traffic), to my country phase (Merle, Willie) to the punk and new wave and jazz and you-name-it that followed — each stop was marked in pock-marked vinyl. And like most people my age, I’ve gone digital, with tens of thousands of songs on disc or in various computers and iPods. It’s not that I don’t dig the difference of the analog sound; it’s just that I think someone else is going to love these much-loved (and sometimes only liked) records a lot more than I have lately. Especially as they sat in my basement…
It was very gratifying to see a girl with her first phonograph ogle an image of the early Prince, in raincoat and women’s stockings, or see a young dude struggle over the choice between Buck Owens and Captain Beefheart (I think he went with the Byrds). A DJ at a club downtown, who carried a portable phonograph with him for just such chance encounters, bought a couple singles by now-defunct San Francisco bands I knew in my youth. “Come on down Thursday nights,” he said. “I’ll probably be playing 84 Rooms!”
The karma flowed both ways. A couple of young women alerted us to the Muslim music festival happening at BAM, and at the last minute we ended up going to a screening of a new documentary about Youssou N’Dour, followed by a live performance by the man himself. Sitting in the BAM Cafe before the show, I told my wife it was like being in an international airport, hip Berliners in black on barstools beside Africans in what looked like pajamas and gold shoes. All were in the same place, brought together by a love of the same music. Or as the title of film says, I Bring What I Love.