rewarding

about a week ago i received my in rainbows discbox - the latest radiohead album on vinyl and cd. it is probably the nicest packaged album i have bought in my entire life, and even though i usually listen music with my ipod or computer, it somehow made me want to be able to play records again.

i still had an old ca. 1972 record player gathering dust, but it was always too much of a hassle to set it up, so i never did.

so today i looked around for a decent new record player - not too expensive, but a nice one. i found one, the pro-ject debut III/phono usb. the interesting thing was - researching online i kept reading about people who refurbish old lenco l75 record players for some reason.

on my way home i couldn't stop thinking about what it feels like to put on a record and actually sit down and listen to it. it's like taking a hot bath - you're on your way home, freezing, already looking forward to that hot bath. then you get home, and you fill the tub with hot water, you get in and simply enjoy, relax...

anyway - so i get home, and it turns out my old record player is a lenco l75! so i spend two hours cleaning and restoring it, and all this time i cannot wait to put on a record and enjoy it after so many years. around 9pm i'm finally done and i'm ready to set it up and hook it up to those 1970s telefunken speakers.

i put on the first record i ever bought, and boom! i was blown away. i still am. it sounded just like back then when i put this record on the first time 20 years ago. it brought back the exact same feeling. i had listened to this album many times on cd, and it never really reminded me so much of my childhood, but hearing it sounding exactly like back then - gave me goose bumps.

so i'm listening to another favorite - tschaikowsky's pathetique. i had totally forgotten how much listening to records makes me appreciate the music even more... it's like, you have this piece of music in your hands, you need to be careful and take care of it, or else you'll scratch and ruin it. then you put it on, and you listen to an entire album. there is no remote control - when one side is over, you get up and flip it over. you don't turn it up during a low part, you listen more closely. you don't turn it down when it gets loud - you listen to it the way it was recorded! i love that. i do appreciate the convenience of having hundreds of cds accessible on my ipod, and being able to stream my entire music collection to my stereo via airtunes - but sitting down to listen to a record... is just wonderful!