Okay, we'll start on the next rabbit hole - music.
It's always been super important to me despite never having played an instrument. When I was 13 we lived on a ranch 16 miles from town and had no phone. We did have a stereo and a bunch of records but it was a lot of folk/hippie music (sorry Cat Stevens - I still love you but...) and so one day I decided to see if I could connect to the larger world and rigged up wires from the stereo to the TV antenna (I had no clue) and I found a station 75 miles away in Colorado Springs and they played "alternative" music; David Bowie, Art of Noise, Men Without Hats, Devo and I was thrilled. Up until then it was all country music.
Fast forward to college and girlfriends that wore flowery dresses with Doc Martin boots and listened to the Cure, Depeche Mode, Robyn Hitchcock. I wanted to own this music and so I needed to buy my own stereo. I went to a bunch of stores and tried to make sense of the equipment and the slick salesmen trying to get you to buy something because this unit had less THD and more watts per channel.
It was confusing.
Then I happened by a store called Audio Alternative. I liked the the "alternative" part and the fact that it looked like a home and not a speaker warehouse. I went in and met Rick Duplisea who asked what I was looking for - a stereo. He didn't sell stereo equipment he sold "hifi" and was busy but how about coming back tomorrow when he had more time? But first, have a seat here and listen to this; and he put on the album Two Wheels Good by Prefab Sprout who I'd never heard before and he blew my mind. The music came from nowhere - not the speakers but from the space around them. Each instrument was clearly defined at a place in space in three dimensions and it felt alive and real.
I came back and bought a hifi from Rick. Then I came back to just visit Rick and listen to music. When I could afford to make an upgrade to my little Rotel integrated amp I would trade up. Rick introduced me to the idea that specifications don't translate to sound - to the idea that if something sounds better than it is better. Because that's what you do in the end - listen to music. Really listen.
Eventually Rick hired me to work at the store and it was one of the best jobs I've ever had in my life. I lived to find more music, new music and different music.
When I finally left I'd upgraded myself to a very great system including a beautiful Linn LP-12 turntable. This was when CD's had just come out so records were cheap and I bought them all the time. My collection grew and grew.
When I moved to NYC I had my albums shipped a few years later - 10 70lbs boxes. I kept moving those albums over and over. Eventually I wasn't listening to them as much because you couldn't get new music on vinyl and I decided to sell my turntable for $2500.
But I kept the records. With no way to listen to them. And I moved them again and again like a giant anchor around my neck. Finally they moved to Oregon and were stored in Judiaann's sisters barn. Then the cottage. Never played. At several points I thought about getting rid of them - all music was digital so why bother?
Nadia asked what they were and I tried to explain how a record worked and why I had so many of them but I had no way to play them.
So I bought a Rega 3 - the first turntable I owned. It sounded awful. I was sad I'd kept the records. I thought it was the cartridge and so I tried a couple and it never sounded good.
So last spring my friend Tom visits. He'd fallen down the hifi rabbit hole the year before and bought a beautiful Naim system - basically a 20 year newer version of what I already owned. We did some trading for an espresso machine I had no room for and when we plugged it in and put a record on it was magic.
I think the phono section of my old amp was bad and that's why it sounded fine when streaming but awful with vinyl. But now it was all different - records, vinyl, sounded absolutely amazing. Everything about the magic of vinyl came back to me.
I brought the records in from the cottage. Nadia, Lucas and I took a month to alphabetize them again. We stopped streaming music and started to play records. Nadia invented a game: pick a letter and a number. F 22 = Fine Young Canibals, J 11 = Jefferson Airplane, R 33 Roxy Music.
We've stopped watching TV and spend our evenings playing music, drawing or playing games. It has been single greatest thing that has happened in this past year - I have music back in my life. Not as a background while I work but as an active thing that I'm curious about and that I share with Nadia who is far more into the music than Lucas is right now.
The records took over the house for a while this fall as they were alphabetized they eventually found a home in the china cabinet - which is now the record cabinet. But the shelves were sagging because records are heavy.
I found just enough birch ply in the scrap to make some dividers that I screwed to the shelves.
In addition to playing records Nadia and I are sharing interest in finding new music and one of her favorite artists is Arlo Parks. I bought tickets to that show but discovered the week before it was a 21 and over and we didn't go. Her other favorite artist is Aldous Harding and that was an all ages show so I took her and Lucas this summer.
As first shows go I don't think it could have been more special.
We got to McMenamins Crystal Ballroom early as it was a general admission show. I explained that meant we didn't get seats but stood, anywhere. If you liked a band you wanted to be close. We worked our way through the crowd and at the front an older couple saw Nadia and Lucas and made room for them at the front row!
The show was amazing. Aldous is a quirky, funny performer that plays soulful music. She has a stern, focused stage presence. When she'd play a song Nadia knew she'd turn to in complete surprise and say, "Oh my god! She's playing that song". At one point, during an intense guitar solo, Aldous had her head down, concentrating and looked up at the crowd, saw Nadia, and smiled right at her.
Nadia practically fainted. Best first show ever.
The biggest change since the separation is that music is the focus of the house and not screens. We play records, talk about bands and draw during the week. We still have pizza/movie night on Friday but that's the only night with TV. I can't really explain how much of a fundamental change that is. And also how amazing it is to have music in my life again.
The other thing that's amazing is that, while I was gone, vinyl records made a come back. There are no CD's for sale at concerts but there are special colored vinyl records. And as amazing as my Rega turntable sounded on the new system I couldn't help but regret that I'd sold my Linn...
Sadly this is not the "exact" one - but it's the same one with a few upgrades. It needs a tune up but it sounds even more magical then I remember. When I got it I had Nadia sit and we did the old A/B routine. I played her favorite song on the Rega and then we swapped it for the Linn.
Nadia looked at me in shock after a few bars. Did you hear a difference Nadia? "The first time it sounded good - like we were in the audience at a show. But now it sounds like we are on the stage!"
That is a description that Rick would be proud of. Nothing about watts per channel but all about how the music sounds. This philosophy of function that I learned from Rick has stayed with me my whole life - something is better if it works better. My bikes, my photography and now, back to music. Full circle.
The house feels different now. We spend way more time in the living room. When the kids are gone I'll turn out all the lights and sit in the dark and play records - exactly like I used to in college. It's more magical than I remember. All those records that I wanted to get rid of at one point? They are worth a fortune now!
I can't tell you how happy I am that I never got rid of them.
So next up we're going to give the LP-12 a tune up but first we need to make a jig because setting up an Linn LP12 is a black art and luckily I was trained by one of the best.
Gregor
It's always been super important to me despite never having played an instrument. When I was 13 we lived on a ranch 16 miles from town and had no phone. We did have a stereo and a bunch of records but it was a lot of folk/hippie music (sorry Cat Stevens - I still love you but...) and so one day I decided to see if I could connect to the larger world and rigged up wires from the stereo to the TV antenna (I had no clue) and I found a station 75 miles away in Colorado Springs and they played "alternative" music; David Bowie, Art of Noise, Men Without Hats, Devo and I was thrilled. Up until then it was all country music.
Fast forward to college and girlfriends that wore flowery dresses with Doc Martin boots and listened to the Cure, Depeche Mode, Robyn Hitchcock. I wanted to own this music and so I needed to buy my own stereo. I went to a bunch of stores and tried to make sense of the equipment and the slick salesmen trying to get you to buy something because this unit had less THD and more watts per channel.
It was confusing.
Then I happened by a store called Audio Alternative. I liked the the "alternative" part and the fact that it looked like a home and not a speaker warehouse. I went in and met Rick Duplisea who asked what I was looking for - a stereo. He didn't sell stereo equipment he sold "hifi" and was busy but how about coming back tomorrow when he had more time? But first, have a seat here and listen to this; and he put on the album Two Wheels Good by Prefab Sprout who I'd never heard before and he blew my mind. The music came from nowhere - not the speakers but from the space around them. Each instrument was clearly defined at a place in space in three dimensions and it felt alive and real.
I came back and bought a hifi from Rick. Then I came back to just visit Rick and listen to music. When I could afford to make an upgrade to my little Rotel integrated amp I would trade up. Rick introduced me to the idea that specifications don't translate to sound - to the idea that if something sounds better than it is better. Because that's what you do in the end - listen to music. Really listen.
Eventually Rick hired me to work at the store and it was one of the best jobs I've ever had in my life. I lived to find more music, new music and different music.
When I finally left I'd upgraded myself to a very great system including a beautiful Linn LP-12 turntable. This was when CD's had just come out so records were cheap and I bought them all the time. My collection grew and grew.
When I moved to NYC I had my albums shipped a few years later - 10 70lbs boxes. I kept moving those albums over and over. Eventually I wasn't listening to them as much because you couldn't get new music on vinyl and I decided to sell my turntable for $2500.
But I kept the records. With no way to listen to them. And I moved them again and again like a giant anchor around my neck. Finally they moved to Oregon and were stored in Judiaann's sisters barn. Then the cottage. Never played. At several points I thought about getting rid of them - all music was digital so why bother?
Nadia asked what they were and I tried to explain how a record worked and why I had so many of them but I had no way to play them.
So I bought a Rega 3 - the first turntable I owned. It sounded awful. I was sad I'd kept the records. I thought it was the cartridge and so I tried a couple and it never sounded good.
So last spring my friend Tom visits. He'd fallen down the hifi rabbit hole the year before and bought a beautiful Naim system - basically a 20 year newer version of what I already owned. We did some trading for an espresso machine I had no room for and when we plugged it in and put a record on it was magic.
I think the phono section of my old amp was bad and that's why it sounded fine when streaming but awful with vinyl. But now it was all different - records, vinyl, sounded absolutely amazing. Everything about the magic of vinyl came back to me.
I brought the records in from the cottage. Nadia, Lucas and I took a month to alphabetize them again. We stopped streaming music and started to play records. Nadia invented a game: pick a letter and a number. F 22 = Fine Young Canibals, J 11 = Jefferson Airplane, R 33 Roxy Music.
We've stopped watching TV and spend our evenings playing music, drawing or playing games. It has been single greatest thing that has happened in this past year - I have music back in my life. Not as a background while I work but as an active thing that I'm curious about and that I share with Nadia who is far more into the music than Lucas is right now.
The records took over the house for a while this fall as they were alphabetized they eventually found a home in the china cabinet - which is now the record cabinet. But the shelves were sagging because records are heavy.
I found just enough birch ply in the scrap to make some dividers that I screwed to the shelves.
In addition to playing records Nadia and I are sharing interest in finding new music and one of her favorite artists is Arlo Parks. I bought tickets to that show but discovered the week before it was a 21 and over and we didn't go. Her other favorite artist is Aldous Harding and that was an all ages show so I took her and Lucas this summer.
As first shows go I don't think it could have been more special.
We got to McMenamins Crystal Ballroom early as it was a general admission show. I explained that meant we didn't get seats but stood, anywhere. If you liked a band you wanted to be close. We worked our way through the crowd and at the front an older couple saw Nadia and Lucas and made room for them at the front row!
The show was amazing. Aldous is a quirky, funny performer that plays soulful music. She has a stern, focused stage presence. When she'd play a song Nadia knew she'd turn to in complete surprise and say, "Oh my god! She's playing that song". At one point, during an intense guitar solo, Aldous had her head down, concentrating and looked up at the crowd, saw Nadia, and smiled right at her.
Nadia practically fainted. Best first show ever.
The biggest change since the separation is that music is the focus of the house and not screens. We play records, talk about bands and draw during the week. We still have pizza/movie night on Friday but that's the only night with TV. I can't really explain how much of a fundamental change that is. And also how amazing it is to have music in my life again.
The other thing that's amazing is that, while I was gone, vinyl records made a come back. There are no CD's for sale at concerts but there are special colored vinyl records. And as amazing as my Rega turntable sounded on the new system I couldn't help but regret that I'd sold my Linn...
Sadly this is not the "exact" one - but it's the same one with a few upgrades. It needs a tune up but it sounds even more magical then I remember. When I got it I had Nadia sit and we did the old A/B routine. I played her favorite song on the Rega and then we swapped it for the Linn.
Nadia looked at me in shock after a few bars. Did you hear a difference Nadia? "The first time it sounded good - like we were in the audience at a show. But now it sounds like we are on the stage!"
That is a description that Rick would be proud of. Nothing about watts per channel but all about how the music sounds. This philosophy of function that I learned from Rick has stayed with me my whole life - something is better if it works better. My bikes, my photography and now, back to music. Full circle.
The house feels different now. We spend way more time in the living room. When the kids are gone I'll turn out all the lights and sit in the dark and play records - exactly like I used to in college. It's more magical than I remember. All those records that I wanted to get rid of at one point? They are worth a fortune now!
I can't tell you how happy I am that I never got rid of them.
So next up we're going to give the LP-12 a tune up but first we need to make a jig because setting up an Linn LP12 is a black art and luckily I was trained by one of the best.
Gregor
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