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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Monday, May 23, 2005

Needle on wax

 •  Caring for your vinyl

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Jonathan Ablan was barely in kindergarten when the large shiny black discs with the hole through the center began fascinating him.

DJ Jonathan Ablan, a member of the Nocturnal Sound Krew, shows his prized stuff in front of a small part of his 10,000-strong collection of vinyl records at the DJ collective's Kaka'ako recording studio.

Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Back in the day, my mom had this Bee Gees record," said Ablan. "And I'd watch these old-school movies and see them scratching and stuff."

Doing what seemed natural, Ablan took the disc out of its paper sleeve, placed it on the stereo turntable and copied what he saw on television.

"I ruined my mom's record player and the record."

Twenty years later, standing in front of two shelves loaded with a mere two-fifths of his 10,000-strong vinyl collection, Ablan confessed he's grown a bit more cautious with the discs.

"I will always believe in vinyl," insisted Ablan, a founding member of Honolulu-based, two-time International Turntablist Federation world champion DJ team Nocturnal Sound Krew. "I like the overall feel of it. Even the sound of dust on a record ... is just irreplaceable. When you constantly use a record, you can kind of feel the wear and tear of it. ... I like that."

BUYING TURNTABLES

Though not as ubiquitous as they were 20 years ago, turntables are still easy to find if you know where to look.

For casual listeners, TEAC and Philco make turntable/radio and/or turntable/CD combo players that retail for about $150.

More-traditional turntables that need to be used with an amp and speakers are still manufactured by Audio Technica, Sony and Technics, and are sold at Circuit City and Best Buy, among others, for $99 to $599. Two of the most popular brands for DJs are Technics and NuMark.

Ablan is no raging vinyl purist. He's accepted the fact that CDs and digital files such as mp3s are vital technologies now widely used in his profession. He doesn't look down on DJs who have switched exclusively to those formats. He's even purchased equipment that will allow the Krew to scratch computer-based mp3s using turntable-based vinyl-like discs.

Ablan — who employs vinyl exclusively when DJing — is simply clinging to the real thing as long as he can.

The entertainment industry may have tossed vinyl into the trash bin of technological history along with 8-tracks and Beta tapes. But Ablan is part of a small cadre of music fans holding out from the digital dictatorship.

Many are baby-boomer rock, jazz and classical-music aficionados who grew up with the tactile pleasures of needle on wax and foldout sleeves. Others, like Ablan, are too young for such memories.

And their ranks are growing. The National Association of Record Merchandisers reported in its 2002 annual survey that between 1999 and 2002, sales of new and used vinyl albums tripled, making it a $67 million business. That's chump change compared with the format's former domination or the Recording Industry Association of America's reported $12 billion generated by compact discs. But it's a testament to the resilience of a technology that had its corporate life-support severed two decades ago by the sharp, sleek edge of CDs.

It's still possible to buy turntables and find major-label artists' recordings on vinyl, even though some are limited-edition. Chains such as Tower continue to stock records, and for some indie stores, the format offers a dedicated, specialty market that downloading can't erode.

"It's huge. I go into stores all the time, and it's pretty amazing how vinyl does," says Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, a national trade group of 60 indie record stores. "There are people who want to hold something physical, and vinyl is still very sexy to a lot of people."

Compact discs immediately upended the record business after being introduced in 1982. Hailed for their sonic clarity and durability, they caused music fans to exile their favorite records to attics and garage sales and then re-purchase them on these shiny new discs.

But vinyl enthusiasts fought back. Some jazz and classical buyers carped about CD's "cold" digital sound. (A few even went so far as to dump digital amplifiers/receivers in favor of retro tube technology.) Hip-hop and dance-music fans, coming out of a sonic culture of scratching and mixing, found CDs harder to manipulate. Indie-rockers took their best anti-corporate stance and celebrated vinyl's underdog status.

"There's a feeling among a lot of people that there's a soullessness in a lot of current (art) forms. CDs are blamed for sterilizing sound and taking the soul out of it," says Brett Milano, author of "Vinyl Junkies," a portrait of rabid record-collectors.

Patrick Amory, general manager for Matador Records, home of the popular band Interpol and a label that issues a vinyl version of all its releases, says that many young fans have a higher respect for vinyl.

"Increasingly, for teenagers and kids, vinyl records seem more important and permanent than CDs, which they just burn and rip all the time anyway."

The demand for vinyl, while not big enough to command the full-time attention of major labels such as WEA and Universal Music, is strong enough to help sustain smaller labels that often are licensed by the majors to handle their vinyl releases. That's where a company like Sundazed Music comes in, releasing vinyl albums by the likes of Bob Dylan and Wilco.

"When we tell people we've sold 10,000 to 20,000 copies (of an album), that's substantial by indie-label standards," says Sundazed president Bob Irwin.

There are even those who want vinyl to have its own holiday. Gary Freiberg, who runs Rock Art Picture Show, a San Luis Obispo, Calif., company that makes frames for displaying album covers, wants Aug. 12 — the day in 1877 when the phonograph was invented — officially declared Vinyl Record Day. San Luis Obispo County has celebrated it for the past two years.

"I've read that only 5 percent of all recordings have been transferred to compact disc. A lot of music and artists over time will be lost, especially with the corporatization of radio and the media," says Freiberg.

This mixture of human touch and a sense of musical history that vinyl fans celebrate reverberates through their most vocal claim: that vinyl — played through a decent system — simply sounds warmer and better than compact discs. And with recent stories about "CD rot" hitting the media, they claim that vinyl ultimately is as durable.

(CD proponents counter that while there have been some manufacturing glitches that have led to CD degeneration, especially with first-generation CDs from the '80s, most cases of rot are due to mishandling and mistreatment by consumers who believe CDs are indestructible.)

"If you're having people over for dinner, then load up the CD changer and let it rip. But if it's just about listening, pull out the vinyl," says Sundazed's Irwin.

Which gets to the crux of the matter for most casual listeners lacking fanboy devotion. Whatever vinyl's merits, even its most ardent supporters don't expect it'll ever be more than a niche market. You can't play vinyl in the car. You can't load up a massive vinyl changer for a party. You can't haul a turntable to the gym. And the vinyl market may have reached its peak. The RIAA reported that new vinyl sales were down slightly in the first half of 2004.

"It's a labor of love for me and a few other people who work here," says Geoffrey Weiss, senior vice president of A&R (artists and repertoire) at Disney-owned Hollywood Records and a vinyl partisan. "I'm not under any illusion that it's a viable business. It's a little nostalgia and a nod to the cognoscenti more than a way to make money."

In fact, Weiss warns not to get too comfortable with your CD collection, either. He's seen the future, and it's downloadable. "Physical sound carriers will disappear completely in the next few years," he says.

Nocturnal Sound Krew's Ablan couldn't imagine himself ever abandoning vinyl completely for a hard-drive-based collection.

"There's always a concern with a hard-drive that your computer could crash, " said Ablan. "But by the same token, I buy a lot of copies of one record if there's a really good song just in case it wears away or scratches."

Selling his collection? Out of the question.

"Even if one day I end up lugging a laptop with me to the clubs, I'll also lug a case of records with me no matter what.

"It's just what I do."

Cary Darling, Knight Ridder News Service, reported this story. Advertiser entertainment writer Derek Paiva added the Hawai'i interviews.

• • •

CARING FOR YOUR VINYL

OK, you've got your old vinyl copy of "London Calling," it's in pretty good shape, and you want to keep it that way. Here are suggestions from preservation professionals:

• If possible, wash your hands to remove oil and dirt that could get transferred to the disc.

• Handle albums only by the edges, avoiding contact with the grooves.

• Use a disk brush or a soft, clean, lint-free cloth, to get rid of dirt and dust. With the cloth, work in a circular fashion, following the grooves, starting at the center and working out to the edge.

• There's conflicting advice on whether, in the case of grime on a record that can't be swept away, to use an alcohol-based solution, several of which are commercially available for this purpose. The Canadian government's Preserving My Heritage Web site, for example, advises not using these solutions, while DJ Equipment News, aimed at professional DJs, endorses their use. It says to apply the solution to a clean cloth or disk brush, not to the vinyl. Then wipe around the LP, again following the grooves. Then use a dry cloth to wipe away excess.

• Keep your stylus free from dirt and make sure the tone-arm is tracking correctly.

• If you're going to eat and drink while listening to music, don't do it over your albums or turntable.

• Keep records in their paper and cardboard sleeves when not in use. In fact, you might want to upgrade from the record-company inner sleeve to a higher-quality inner sleeve for albums with special sentimental value.

• Never stack albums. Store them vertically

• Store albums in a cool, dry space, avoiding extremes in temperature. Too much moisture can lead to mold. Too much heat and, like in "Star Trek," you're heading for warp drive.

Sources: www.dj-equipment-news.com; www.preservation.gc.ca