I finally got a turntable two months ago, along with Beatles and Miles Davis double compilations, and Bob Dylan’s 2016 album Fallen Angels , where he’s done his take on standards. It’s a sleek portable system manufactured by Ion.
The next task is to build my vinyl record collection, but I have been too lazy to visit Revolver Club in Mahim or call up Pilak Bhatt, who has been in the business for years. At the same time, I am suddenly regretting gifting away so many LPs I owned in the past.
Every music collector has a different tale. I started with getting albums recorded on cassette. This was by saving my pocket money in the late 1970s as a 14-year-old in New Delhi. Then we bought a Philips record system in the early 1980s and I started buying vinyls.
They cost ₹40 then, and my father would let me buy two a month. So the collection picked up from Doors, Santana and Traffic to Mahavishnu Orchestra, Shakti and Weather Report. I also got a Mehdi Hassan compilation, the Sholay dialogues LP and Biddu’s Disco Deewane , besides listening to my parents’ collection of Bhimsen Joshi, Jasraj and M.S. Subbulakshmi.
Those days were fun. I would carry LPs to some friends’ places or they would come over. We introduced a lot of songs to each other through our own limited offerings. But when I shifted to Jaipur in 1984, the turntable was left behind and it was back to cassettes. Ah my Lucky Goldstar two-in-one stereo and later, my Sony Walkman.
Years later, settled in Mumbai, the focus shifted to compact discs (CDs), and I slowly donated my LPs. By then, as a music reviewer, I had already built up a pile of cassettes, Some had been autographed by Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar, Ghulam Ali, Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Elton John.. the list goes on.
The CD collection started growing. And soon, I didn’t know what to do with my cassettes. There were many precious albums and there was a lot of trash which I had been sent to review. I obviously discarded the latter, just putting them in a bag and giving them to the raddiwallah. But I hung on to many I liked.
Cut to today, I am wondering what to do with my CDs. There are eight crammed shelves cut across various genres. I haven’t counted but wouldn’t be surprised if there are over 10,000 units. Some are review copies, some are ones I bought, and some I received during and after my stint at EMI Music India. Many precious autographs, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts on the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St . Not to talk of another two shelves of DVDs.
I know friends who are selling their CDs, and I thought of doing the same. But where to begin? What to keep, what to give away? And I don’t even recall where half the autographed ones are kept. My bad.
Now I want to rebuild my LP collection but that’s the next dilemma. Where exactly does one start? Prices have shot up and one record costs nothing less than ₹1,000. How to get the right choice? Moreover, I would probably have all my favourites on CD or cassette and I barely listen to them in these days of YouTube, WhatsApp and pen drives.
But vinyl is a different sound. A completely different experience. I have many friends who have built their collection. Slowly, I know I will find rarities I have never heard before. The next dilemma is where to keep them, once I go on collecting. Will figure that later. Right now, I just want to soak in some new sounds.
