I guess this is the first featured collection post. It feels a little self centered to have me as the first featured collection but I wanted a post about me for when I launched the website so this seemed like a forgivable thing to do.
I'm 47, I have 3 kids and a lovely wife. She's been super supportive of my record collecting.
Like a lot of gen Xers, I got into records by spinning my parents' vinyl as a kid. My Dad introduced me to some great music as a 11 year old; Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix. Funny enough, the record of his I remember spinning the most was Dire Straits Brothers in Arms.
I think my Dad wanted me to listen to some bands that he liked because he was probably sick of hearing me play bands like Poison, Bon Jovi and INXS.
Our neighbour played in a band, I used to hear them rehearsing in their garage all of the time. He was probably the other influence on my musical tastes. He gave me a tape to check out when I was 11, and another one later. At the time most people probably hadn't heard of the band. One was a black and white cover and the other had a naked baby swimming after a dollar bill under water. Nirvana's Bleach and Nevermind were the two tapes and they changed my musical tastes for my life.
So I spent much of my teenage years listening to bands from the 90s and spinning records from the 60s and the 70s.
As a high school kid I used to go to music stores and buy CDs. I used to want to find cool new bands to listen to or single releases of my favourite bands because they always had B sides, songs I hadn't heard before. And of course, there was no internet then to find them.
I still remember seeing a vinyl copy of Vitalogy by Pearl Jam and thinking how cool it looked. I wanted to buy it, but of course didn't have the money for it, or a record player.
20ish years later I was in my 30s and sitting at my desk at work and on a whim thought "I want to buy a record player". I went on Kijiji and found one for $60, I messaged her and she let me come by over my lunch to buy it. While I was there, she said "do you want my records too"? So I headed home that night with a handful of records and a record player.
The last piece of my story that got me into collecting was a listing I found. I really wanted a copy of Led Zeppelin II and this dude was selling a collection of his Dad's and it had Zepp II. So I went out to grab it. The collection had 300 records or so and I could barely fit them all into my car. When I got home I sorted through them and found some ones that I loved. I was pretty stoked and that was that.
My collection now has thousands. Various genres, various conditions, some collectible, some hard to find and some I keep sealed. My favourites are still my 90s bands; Pearl jam, Nirvana, Wilco etc...
Here are my top ten favourite records from my collection (in no particular order):
1.) Pearl Jam - Ten Original US pressing still sealed
2.) Nirvana - Bleach 1992 pressing on pink vinyl
3.) The National - Laugh Track test pressing signed by the band
4.) The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream first press on purple vinyl
5.) Pearl Jam - Benaroya Hall
6.) The Beatles - The Collection by Mobile Fidelity
7.) Moby - Play test pressing. From Moby's collection.
8.) Alice in Chains - Unplugged
9.) Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild picture disc
10.) Soundgarden - Hunted Down blue vinyl.
And lastly, my top 10 albums of all time (no particular order):
1.) The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
2.) Beck - Morning Phase
3.) Nirvana - Nevermind
4.) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
5.) The Beatles - Abbey Road
6.) Pearl Jam - VS
7.) Neil Young - Harvest
8.) The National - High Violet
9.) The Doors - The Doors
10.) Radiohead -OK Computer
Man I could list more, only 10 are tough to choose.
That's me, and a bit about my collection.