Music Memoir #3 – Vinyl Addiction Begins / The Cure – In Between Days

Being a 95er, the only mediums of music I experienced for myself were CD’s and cassettes. My brothers owned Sony Walkman’s which played cassettes, and cars still had cassette players for quite some time. No doubt I’ve lived a sheltered life, my first memory of seeing a record player and records was when I was 20 and in my second year of uni. I went over to my friend’s student house, and in the living room next to their PlayStation 4 was his housemates record player and small collection of records. 

I was immediately drawn to the 12” records and made myself welcome to snooping at the covers without permission. I wasn’t brave enough to venture any further than to hold the cover in my hand. I put them back down and that was the end of it. I would visit my friend’s house a few times during the year and every time I would be eyeing up the records, but I never had the courage to ask to put one on.  

Jump ahead shortly after to Summer 2016. I was in France for the 2016 Euros. I was in Toulouse to watch Wales play Russia. Me and the family were walking through the city the day after we destroyed the Russians. It was the 21st June, I remember it well because it was the day of Fete de la Musique, an annual music day celebrated nationwide in France. We were hanging around Place du Capitole. There was a big stage being set up in the square for the festival. Performers were rehearsing during the day for the show at night. We eventually got tired of hearing The Blues Brothers’ Everybody… stop and start repeatedly and slipped down a nearby street to get some cheap kebab takeaway food. A few stores down, there was a record store called Croc Vinyl. I go alone into the store since everyone else was too hungry to care to join me. 

I noticed there were turntables with headphones set up to be used. The owner tells me I can pick a second-hand record to listen to. The choices were endless, but I knew I didn’t have much time. I settle on The Cure’s In Between Days 12” 45rpm single. With his little English, the owner says: “Ah Le Cure, good choice”. Avec mon peu francais, I tell the owner: “c'est ma première fois”. The owner nods and shows me how to use a turntable. I put the headphones on. With the record spinning, I hear the needle drop.  

First, I heard the outer grooves surface noise as I waited for the needle to hit the grooves. And then they met resulting in the thunderous drum roll at the beginning of the track. The sound was loud with clarity beyond anything I was used to hearing. At this point I had never listened to music through audiophile quality headphones. Few moments in life have struck me as unforgettable, but this is one of them. When the first track ended, I took it to myself to flip it with all my wariness.

The B-Sides of In Between Days are The Exploding Boy. With its lone bass line followed by a phenomenal squealing sax and a similar drum roll. 

And finally, A Few Hours After This. A grand finale. With the smash of a cymbal, synths sounding like violins, a tambourine replacing the drumkit, leaves the punchy bass standout as the main line of rhythm. There’s a ghostly reverb added underneath Robert Smith’s vocals which only adds to the gothic grandiosity of the song. And then at under 2 and a half minutes the track ends. The song is like a DMT trip in that you are blasted off into another realm, and before you know it, you are back to earth wondering what the fuck happened. 

Once I came back down to earth, I thanked the owner for his help and left the shop without the record like a fool. Despite buying the record on Discogs once I had ordered my first turntable, it would have been extra romantic to have took home the copy from that day. After all, what sells vinyl is romanticism. The size of the covers, the texture, the fragility, the weight, the preparation. Then there’s the music itself. Every record has its own unique identity that evolves through time. Given the day it was, it only adds more coincidental romance to the experience in remembering.   

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 Catch up links ~

Music Memoir #1 – My first album! The Rasmus - Dead Letters (2003)

Music Memoir #2 - Destroyer - Kaputt / Album of being 21 (Best year of my life)
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My collection so far...