That's how it works - in the same place at different times, life flows very differently.
Music is heard differently, books are read.
Many years ago, in the place of today's Moscow, there was a completely different Moscow - filled with other meanings, participating in a different life.
There was also such a light filter (or the devil knows what it was - an angelic eclipse of the higher spheres): we heard what the whole world did not hear, but the sounds of that, the rest of the world reached us with difficulty.
That was the era of vinyl - the sound enclosed in black discs with colored apples in the middle.
It took quite a lot of things to hear him: turntables, amplifiers, speakers.
Another thing is more interesting - first it was necessary to get the disc itself with a colored apple.
And exactly the one that you need, but only with the condition of the problem, where you did not know the introductory ones.
And almost any disk you found in the near-Earth space of Moscow flea markets and black markets could turn out to be equally significant and completely empty for you.
The sound came from him, but is it the same?
Did those higher spheres radiate it?
We can never know.
In December 1985, I saw the complete Elvis discography for the first time.
The shock has passed - everything in our life gradually passes.
A rethinking came, and with it the realization that in the presence of three narrow pages (as it turned out later, not a complete list) of the text, my winnings fell only on two lines - these layers were at home on the shelf.
Three more were recorded on cassettes (the same ones that were rewound with a pen), but they were not supposed to win (moral, of course) - there was nothing to present to the lottery commission.
And I started collecting vinyl.
Everyone, not only Elvis, because around the King (almost like around the Sun) revolved country, blues, jazz, gospel, bossa nova ... If the scale of the disaster had been known to me in advance, I would hardly have begun to implement my plan, but what could be Do you know in advance when you are 16?
Here is the point - we know something about it.
Let's outline the point with a circle outside - what's in it?
Darkness of obscurity.
The replenishment of the collection went with a break for the army, the collapse of the country and hopes, with a break for the first and all subsequent loves, with a break ...
When the CD era swallowed up the foreseeable universe of sound and the last bastions fell (and Jackson's Thriller was originally released on vinyl, but who remembers about it), when it became prohibitively (as it seemed to me then) a lot, I put all the available vinyl into piles After counting the cash, I sat down on the floor between the stacks and read Fahrenheit 451 all day.
The finale definitely comforted me - they taught me to memorize books, and I had to learn music by heart, or rather, what accompanied it.
We all need clarification here.
I - do not stray from the topic, you - to understand what it is all about.
It is in a smartphone that you can listen to the same track a thousand and ten thousand more times, and nothing will change from the word “absolutely” in its sound.
The record is a different matter: each contact of the needle and the groove gradually changes, transforms the sound, introducing its own meanings that no one has guessed (do you think the technique is soulless, and the needle is just a needle?).
Everything here is like in love: if you are absorbed in each other, if you are not torn apart like magnets, each next time will never be the same for you - never like yesterday.
Over time, you will get used to each other and cling so strongly to each other that you will become completely inseparable - no words are needed, even gestures are superfluous, you are just one, you can easily read each other's thoughts.
Vinyl - the one that captured your heart, the one from whose envelope you personally ripped off (or removed with incredible care) the film - will also rub against: the player's needle, the dust of time - and you.
It will change its sound almost imperceptibly - as imperceptibly as we grow old, blaming the mirror more than the years.
And one evening, when you take it from the shelf and put it on the disc of the player, you will hear that someone is talking to you from afar, from that past that yesterday seemed to be today's reality.
Nostalgic memories of the times of green grasses to the sky and trees to the sun.
Memories... That's what vinyl is.
If it has become truly yours, sprouted in your heart, sounded in your soul.
When we are gone (this can and should be argued, but effective recipes against death have not yet been found), children, grandchildren, distant relatives, or just someone who bought your CD from your hands, on a commission, or anywhere (this can happen - none of the heirs will need "prehistoric trash"), they will hear crackling, sometimes clicks, sometimes rustling (remember? Here the record was dropped and rubbed a little, but here it came up and ruffled your hair, and the needle treacherously fell from your finger, not secured by an elevator) — the sounds of another world, a long-extinct star whose light...
Although children and grandchildren, perhaps, will hear something of their own, if in the long evenings, when adults were doing everything and having their endless conversations, it was possible to stay awake for a long time, until eyes were glued together and look, lying on the carpet, at the amber scale of the radio, luminous windows of the amplifier and arrows jumping into them, all sorts of other bulbs and lights and the edge of a black and shiny disk that, rotating, ran away to infinity ...
That's vinyl.
That's why he exists.
Even music has no power over the patina of time.
However, even time has no power over music.
It is difficult to understand, easier to accept, and even easier and more useful - to start collecting records.
Let them not be many, a good and true number for the collection of nightly metaphysical gatherings is 50. 50 albums - perhaps some of them will turn out to be double, are there few such cases in our completely non-random life.
Twins and twins.
Entering the same water twice...
Choose your equipment (turntable, amplifier and speakers) with your heart and a little bit with your mind - you don’t need anything more, believe me, that’s not the point, and salt.
You can buy a new one, you can find an old one - in stores, with friends (and this often happens: something costs and gathers dust for years - they give it to good hands without regrets), according to ads.
Here it is also important to understand how diverse in terms of years of release and subject matter you will listen to records.
Jazz of the 60s is one thing, rock of the 70s is very different.
With records, everything is more complicated and interesting.
To begin with, identify those albums from which you are carried away - at least every day you are ready to listen.
How many will they make?
Only you know - I have about a hundred of them.
Then pass everything through a fine sieve of emotions, and there will be fewer albums - contenders for the vinyl equivalent.
Still, the record is a special matter, often it is associated with some kind of life story.
As soon as you decide on both of them - with equipment and with vinyl - immediately go hunting.
Best with feet, not in virtual space.
Of course, anything can be found online.
And order.
And they'll bring it.
However, the disk obtained by oneself is the magic of personal tracking, the magic of extraction.
Do not laugh - I assure you, when you get sick with vinyl for real, you will not tell such stories.
The first step towards antiques, collecting with the application of meanings, experiences, emotions and passions.
You have seen some stories on this subject in my columns, I myself am a victim of mysticism and the magical circulation of vinyl in nature.
Everything has a soul.
Even the most rubbed forty-five in the trash.
By the way, the force of impact in it is sometimes greater than in a luxurious box for a dozen layers with a photo album and other delights.
There will be first successes and first failures.
New, from film, printed on heavy vinyl discs will invariably delight you - there is no miss.
Surprises are possible with old editions.
A tiny inscription with a pen or felt-tip pen on the envelope may come across, and other “improvements” happen: stickers, letters on apples - all sorts of nonsense.
The disc itself may not be in perfect condition.
Nevertheless, by trial and error, changing one edition to another several times, you will find what you want.
Who knows what will really hook you: the "Japanese" with their breathtaking design, the static and seasoned "English", the cardboard and indestructible "Americans"?
Or maybe it will be something completely exotic: Cuba, India, Jamaica, Uruguay - I came across such collectors.
Personally, I am terribly fond of old Italian vinyl - it is very dense in sound, heavy in the hand.
But this is not the main thing.
What is it all for?
Why bother?
Then, when you live in a huge city or in a village in the middle of a forest, at least once a day (is such a luxury really not available to you?), there is a desire to stop, feel inner silence, jump out of the frenzied trolley of society, be it wrong.
Most of the time it's evening.
But I knew people that the morning, and very early, began exclusively with their favorite, simply the most favorite vinyl, and the whole next day was invariably successful for them.
At night in Moscow, it’s not at all the same as during the day: the city is transformed, as if illuminated from within.
Especially in summer.
And in autumn.
In the spring especially.
And definitely in winter.
50 records.
Just for starters.
The wine will be drunk.
The words will be spoken.
Vinyl stays with you.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.