The UT Historical Music Recordings Collection added more than 1,000 vinyl records to its collection Tuesday with a donation from the Audio Preservation Fund.

William Vanden Dries, board of directors chairman for the Austin-based nonprofit, said the new donation includes genres ranging from jazz music to movie soundtracks, all from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. The organization, which is dedicated to preserving music and sound recordings, worked with staff at the UT Fine Arts Library to determine which tracks would be valuable to donate.

“We found out which recordings UT didn’t already have in their collection and donated the records we held,” Vanden Dries said. “This specific group came from one collector and is really diverse.”

The campus community will be able to access the additions to the larger collection by September.

The Audio Preservation Fund works with private donors to obtain recordings, restore sound quality when necessary and determine suitable recipients for collections, Vanden Dries said. He said the organization has obtained more than 5,000 audio recordings since he and two other UT alumni started it in 2009 and donates the music to institutions across the country, usually universities or museums.

David Hunter, Fine Arts Library curator and senior lecturer, said the University is grateful for all donations that expand the current collection of more than 200,000 audio recordings.

Hunter said the Fine Arts Library receives between 30 and 50 requests each week during the school year from students seeking specific sound recordings.

“This is an opportunity to add what we’ve been missing to our collection,” Hunter said. “We don’t have any funds to go out and buy LP records, so we are very much dependent on gifts. The Preservation Fund helped us obtain a whole bunch we do not already have.”

Vanden Dries said he hopes his organization will be able to continue aiding University students with their studies through more than donations.

This spring, members of the Audio Preservation Fund created an online catalog archiving collections in the Texas Music Museum, located in Austin. UT alumna Virginia Rowland volunteered in the effort as part of a senior capstone course in information studies. Rowland said creating the catalog helped her recognize the importance of the University’s partnership with outside organizations.

“I think UT should maintain a relationship with the Audio Preservation Fund,” Rowland said. “It’s amazing that [Vanden Dries] has an interest in helping maintain our archives, seeking quality donations and helping students.”

Check out the full article from The Daily Texan here.

Thank you to everyone who bought the Beach Boys, 'Don't Fight the Sea.' $9000 was raised to donate to the Japan relief effort. A big thank you to Rob Christie, Al Jardine and the rest of the Beach Boys for putting this together!

Check out this review of the new Fleet Foxes album Helplessness Blues by Tone Audio.

“So now I’m older,” confesses Fleet Foxes leader Robin Pecknold on “Montezuma,” opening the band’s anticipated sophomore record with a sentiment that largely informs the intelligently crafted, complexly arranged, and gorgeously executed album. Indeed, feelings and realities of being older seemingly consume the sweet-timbered singer-songwriter, who usesHelplessness Blues as a platform for soul-searching, questioning personal identity, reflecting on life purposes, and contemplating existence.

Artists have long ruminated on these weighty matters, but one of the myriad reasons that make Fleet Foxes unique is that at no point does the group invoke self-pity, resort to cloying earnestness, or complain about fame as it raises deep questions that often yield no resolute answers. If the Seattle sextet had any detractors after releasing a 2008 full-length debut that landed on most critics’ Top Ten lists and staging shows that proved its natural harmonizing absolutely ethereal in scope, its latest creation should elevate the band to household-name status. Such is the spectral beauty, cohesive chemistry, and golden-hued ambition contained within.

Whether referred to as roots-rock, folk-rock, or the hipster-coined beardo-rock, the last several years have witnessed an inundation of bucolic music performed by bands that yearn for passed times and bygone environments. Mumford and Sons, Dawes, The Head and the Heart, and Blitzen Trapper are among the acts whose rustic fare evokes simpler times and pastoral pleasures while offering needed relief from a technology-dominant culture that’s far removed from the tranquil, down-home rootsiness conjured by acoustic instruments and easygoing singing. Fleet Foxes stand apart from their contemporaries and followers due to a basic fact: As demonstrated on this filler-free 12-song set, they are plainly superior, deeper, and more soulful than their peers. It’s a truth borne out every year in professional sports. Championship-winning teams claim immense talent and advanced skill sets. For all its romanticism, sheer will only takes you so far.

Whereas the band’s influences shone brightly on its debut, they recede further into the background onHelplessness Blues. Shades of Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the Incredible String Band give way to a mix that’s more original, involved, and modern. Fleet Foxes occupy an indefinable territory that both bridges and honors the Laurel Canyon past while taking the former period’s earthy, intricate, and natural elements into a present that delves further into go-for-broke blends of gospel, baroque, Americana, rock, psychedelic, and, on “The Shrine/An Argument,” even avant-garde jazz strains. The amount of time and care the group invested in its craft will be immediately evident to even the most casual listener; more than a year in the making, and captured at multiple studios,Helplessness Blues comes on like record on which every note is carefully considered but never overly polished or overwrought. It’s a difficult line to navigate, and yet, Fleet Foxes and co-producer Phil Ek convert their Swiss-wristwatch-precise obsessiveness into transcendent art.

“So, guess I got old,” vocally shrugs Pecknold on “Lorelai,” continuing to explore a topic that occupies him from the start and stays with him until the concluding “Grown Ocean,” a stomping upbeat tune that reveals glimpses of unvarnished optimism and finds him declaring “I’m as old as the mountains.” Amidst the group’s arching heaven-bound harmonies, delicate fingerpicking, booming drums, and majestic melodies, Pecknold engages in blunt self-evaluation, his confessional meditations on uncertainty, withdrawal, and responsibility contributing to an ebb-and-flow of swelling choral tides and three dimensional textures. Songs pour into diverse structural molds, ranging from “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” suite which commences with layered vocals that sound as if they were plucked from the heights of an European cathedral ceiling and unexpectedly transitions, via flute passages into an uptempo romp, to the concise, closeup, and solitary hymnal “Blue Spotted Tail.”

Purity maintains as important a role as needle-pointed guitar motifs and immediate, wide-open production. Slight pauses, reverb baths, and ornate flourishes don’t decorate as much as flavor and reinforce existing patterns. Such detailing enhances the woody percussion and gypsy sway on “Bedouin Dress,” underscores the dips and dives in Pecknold’s vocals during “Someone You’d Admire,” and allows “Sim Sala Bim” to emerge with equal parts orchestral flair and private abandon. And it’s the latter—as experienced through Pecknold and Co.’s aspirations, hallucinations, desires, and innermost thoughts—that spikes Helplessness Blues with the mystical intensity and engaging hypnotism of a fever dream.

“All these voices I’ll someday have turned off then/And I will see you when I’ve woken/I’ll be so happy just to have spoken/I’ll have so much to tell you about it then,” Pecknold tenders towards the conclusion of “Grown Ocean,” singing like a drifter in no rush to awaken from his sleep.

–Bob Gendron

Read the full article here.

A lot of people are just as concerned with the quality of the cover as the record itself. Here's an article by Northern Star about the significance of the artwork on record covers.

DeKALB | Peter Olson's dad didn't appreciate his son's records.

The assistant director of the NIU Art Museum and curator of Tuesday's "Listening to the Sounds that Inspired the Graphics" event, Olson said he had to explain to his father why he was filling the display cases of Altgeld Hall with the vinyl albums of Kraftwerk and Multi-Death Corporation. As one musical revolutionary once said, "Parent's just don't understand."

"The question is, ‘A museum? Isn't that where you're supposed to go to see something that is really rare or really special or is grand achievement? Why would you have something in a museum that anyone could go get for a couple of dollars?'" Olson said. "My response would be, ‘there are things that anybody can get for two dollars that have a lot of visual sophistication and artistic integrity to them and it's kind of miraculous that anyone can go get them for two dollars.'"

The event was a guided tour of "Graphics of Their Time," a showcase of iconic album covers and sheet music at the NIU Art Museum. Olson wheeled a stereo down the hall and, from his iPod, played tracks that were originally released on the records displayed. He explained how album covers, which were originally developed by companies as packaging, became a relevant vehicle of expression.

Natalie Brulc, graduate student of fine arts and painting, agreed with Olson that the covers translated music into visual images.

"I was surprised because I did study some graphic design as an undergrad, so I understand that it takes a lot to get the concept out and also to be able to sell the piece," Brulc said. "I think a lot of the work actually speaks for the music. Some of the music I did recognize: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Decemberists, and Joan Jett. I really think that the pictures convey a lot of what the music is."

Olson explained that since the Beatles released Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, musical and visual artists have been collaborating on the medium of album covers to release sophisticated graphics. Because almost everyone has a music collection, the general population has acquired a sophisticated taste for visual images.

"What really struck me the most in doing this whole show was the contribution on a mass scale to this kind of visual literacy that record designs have had," Olson said. "It's something that almost everybody has in their house, and I just thought of it as this little mini art collection. A lot of real art people would say, ‘Oh geeze, he's lost his mind. An art collection? It's just a bunch of records!' Well, I went to art school; I know for a fact that there are people that spend a lot more time and invest a lot more intelligence, depth, visual thought and sophistication into one of these covers than they would into a painting on canvas."

Check out the article here.

We can't get enough of this vinyl love! Check out this article from Connect Savannah.

Video killed the radio star, the compact disc killed the vinyl record, downloading killed the compact disc.

Vinyl, once thought to be as extinct as the passenger pigeon, is making a surprise comeback. According to Nielsen's SoundScan, vinyl record sales have increased significantly over the past four years. In 2009, 2.5 million albums were sold in this country, up from 1.88 million in 2008.

Back in 2001, when the CD reigned supreme, the numbers for vinyl barely registered at all.

At last weekend's third Savannah Record Fair, hundreds of young people - college students, from all appearances, kids who probably weren't even born when those 12-inch slabs of plastic were already starting to disappear from retail racks - combed through boxes and boxes of vintage vinyl LPs. There were very few CDs for sale.

Some came with definite ideas about what they wanted to buy. Others were just enjoying a good browse.

"The biggest thing with the Internet is that the new collectors don't have an appreciation of things like the art and the liner notes," says Florida-based Tom Buby, who's been dealing in used and rare music, and working record shows, since 1978.

"That's kind of too bad, because one of the things that was most fun was seeing who played on what songs, and with who ... that's gone away. Right now, all they have is a Sharpie pen to write down the song listings."

In Savannah, Buby sold mostly inexpensive records. However, he said, "If there's something they really want, I've seen them pull out 25 or 30 dollar pieces. A 40 dollar piece, for a college kid, I think that's pretty good."

Roger Hoppe, a Detroit-area broadcaster who's been dealing records for about 25 years, said the Savannah crowd was buying imports, and specialty things like picture discs. Most of his customers, he explained, seemed to know what they were looking for.

"I met a young lady at the last Savannah show, and she spent about three hours at my table, talking about music," he said. "She was a SCAD student, and she was incredibly knowledgeable. She bought a Kinks box set, and it just blew my mind how much this girl knew about music.

"I was kinda hoping she'd show up here today, because she actually pointed out some rare items that I had, that I wasn't really aware were that rare. A lot of these college students from this generation are - probably because of the Internet - very musically educated."

For college towns, Hoppe puts his crates marked "indie rock," "metal" and "jazz" front and center.

Then there are the other repeat customers: "Over the years, I've gotten the reputation of being the ‘80s guy," he laughed. "I took a lot of flak at first from the ‘oldies' dealers, but now it's turned the corner. I've got a lot of moms and dads, soccer moms who want their Rick Springfield and Bryan Adams records."

The first day of the weekend event happened to fall on Record Store Day, a loosely-organized national salute to the (dwindling) number of independent record stores. Many labels, in the past few years, have begun re-pressing older titles for the new generation of vinyl buyers. For Record Store Day, numerous artists and labels put out limited-edition singles and albums, in commemoration.

Mark Vaquer ran Graveyard, a Savannah record store, for 14 years. He closed the place in 2001.

"Back then, people were thinking ‘Oh, vinyl's on the way out and it's never gonna come back,'" Vaquer said. "Then Napster hit, and the era of the really cheap CD burner started. And that equaled: Kids were not buying CDs any more.

"That's pretty much what killed my store.

"Back then, there were five or six stores in town. Now, there's nothing."

The resurgence of interest in vinyl, Vaquer believes, is multi-generational.

"People see that Mom and Dad have those old albums. ‘What's that?' ‘It's a record.' It looks cool, you put it on a turntable, it sounds better. It sounds better than CDs.

"You put an album on a good turntable, good tube amp, nice speakers, there's nothing better."

Check out the article here.

More proof vinyl is making a comeback! Gotta love recycling!

In an industrial and uninviting stretch of Brooklyn, near several strip clubs and a factory that makes electrical tubing, Thomas Bernich’s small plant recycles vinyl and preserves a fading piece of history.

In fact, Mr. Bernich’s workplace in Sunset Park is one of the few of its kind in New York City and in the country.

Inside the one-story, red-brick factory on 42nd Street, boxes of discarded albums from used-record stores are piled high on wooden pallets, awaiting their end and a new beginning.

The records are tossed into a large shredder to start the process of putting music on them again. The used vinyl is eventually fed into a press that creates new albums. “Taking rotten milk and breathing new life into it is not an easy thing,” Mr. Bernich said.

Mr. Bernich and the five employees at his company,Brooklynphono, have preserved the craft of applying music to vinyl.

Mr. Bernich stumbled into the record business after he realized that his talent for sculpture, which he studied at the Pratt Institute, could probably not support a career. But while at Pratt, Mr. Bernich, 40, started collecting records, inspired by a friend’s passion for vinyl.

“You have these moments when you are playing a record when you get caught in a location and time,” said Mr. Bernich, who lives in Brooklyn Heights. “There is a magic with vinyl and the memories that are connected to it.”

When he finally had the chance to buy two used vinyl-pressing machines from a plant that was closing, Mr. Bernich pounced, turning his hobby into a job and opening a small business. While vinyl records are clearly a relic, Mr. Bernich has found a niche. When it first opened in 2003, Brooklynphono was making about 2,000 records a month. Now, Brooklynphono has five pressing machines, making more than 10,000 records a month. It caters mostly to indie-rock record labels based in Brooklyn, but also to several European dance record labels.

One skill that has proved useful is the comfort with tools and machines Mr. Bernich gained while studying sculpture.

“I’m really not very musical, and the best thing I can play is the stereo,” Mr. Bernich said. “This fits because I have mechanical experience.”

He has tinkered with all his pressing machines, attaching them to a customized network of vacuum tubes and other pieces which automate the loading of vinyl plastic and the recycling of excess material and also maximize the power of the presses.

“Essentially, I’ve taken a regular machine and hot-rodded it,” Mr. Bernich said.

When the machines start up, the smell of warm plastic fills the factory. The vacuum tubes suck granules of vinyl from the industrial plastic shredder. The small plastic bits are then pumped into a hot extruder, which melts the plastic. Black vinyl flows out like toothpaste and is then formed into a misshapen puck. At that point, a label is glued on each side of the puck.

The pressing machine hisses as it opens and heats, the puck is slid onto the press, and 120 tons of pressure stamp sound waves into grooves on the vinyl. Once it cools, the flattened plastic is pushed out onto a trimmer, where any excess vinyl is cut, and the black disc is dropped onto a spindle. A record is born.

“I love how you can play a record, look at the cover art, and read the liner notes,” said Heath Bodine, 40, who does quality control at Brooklynphono. “You don’t get that with an MP3 file.”

While new vinyl plastic is still available, the material is expensive and hard to find. Mr. Bernich prefers recycled vinyl because it is suited to his retrofitted machines. “It’s like being a short-order cook,” Mr. Bernich said. “The music is only as good as the ingredients you get.”

A major responsibility for Mr. Bernich and his workers is tending to the pressing machines, which demand constant adjustment. During production, the movement of the machines causes parts to shift, and the slightest misalignment can cause a malfunction and stop production for an entire day. A disc can become jammed inside one of the machines, or the brace that holds the part that stamps grooves onto the vinyl can come loose.

Another worker, Sarah Himmelfarb, 26, wears latex gloves to test the machines and examine records. Every so often, she will stop the machines and use a small mallet to reposition the metal plates that keep the vinyl stamper in place.

Ms. Himmelfarb, who has applied to several medical schools and is waiting to hear back, compares the process of maintaining the presses to diagnosing problems in the human body. “There are symptoms, and they can be caused by a variety of things,” she said.

Zach Cale, a 32-year-old musician and a founder of All Hands Electric, an indie rock and folk music record label in Brooklyn, is one of Brooklynphono’s clients. Aside from the convenience of having records made by a local plant — his label saves on shipping costs by picking up orders — Mr. Cale prefers having his music on vinyl because, he said, fans like the tangibility of a 12-inch album. “We’ve always been really into the physicality of vinyl,” said Mr. Cale, who paid $1,300 for 500 records. “People really respond to it because it’s visual and it feels like you have a piece of the band.”

While vinyl records have largely been consigned to the dustbin of the music industry, Mr. Bernich said he still found magic in turning musicians’ ideas into physical objects to share with the world.

“Once a musician makes a record it lasts a very long time,” he said.

Read the full article here.

We just got our RP1 REGA turntable setup complete with performance pack and we absolutely LOVE it! Our records never sounded so good.

We chose the white model. It looks pretty sharp!

We love the way it looks!

This cartridge comes as part of the performance package.

If you're in the Doylestown, PA area stop by and check it out.

Our very own Seth is quoted in this article by Newcity Music about Record Store Day:

As Chicago gears up to celebrate Record Store Day, here’s a question: why wasn’t cyberspace invited to the party?

Beneath the Record Store Day excitement, beneath the vinyl being spun on shiny turntables in independent record stores throughout the city, there is a quiet humming of discontent. That is, if you listen hard enough.

“Any of my city friends want to go on a Record Store Day shopping spree for me?” wrote Andrew Stratis on the RSD Facebook group this week. He doesn’t live close enough to the stores to go to them, and he isn’t the only vinyl-phile to find himself out of luck for next weekend, seeing as none of the RSD deals are available online. Maybe that’s not really a problem, because Record Store Day is really about celebrating the store, so if you can’t go, you can’t go. But why can’t the record-store community, the one that is so passionately defended by artists and music lovers alike, exist on our computers too?

This is where Seth Frank comes in. He is the founder of SoundStageDirect, which bills itself as “Your Online Independent Record Store.” “I understand that it’s not Record Day, it’s Record Store Day,” he says, “but I think that the online community should be included. If you don’t live near a record store, you can’t take part in it. There are all kinds of record conversations on the Internet, and it reaches more people than sitting around a store.” Beneath his argument lies the idea that RSD doesn’t recognize online retailers as real record stores, and therefore doesn’t want to include them. When I asked him about his business in Palo Alto, Calfornia, I made the mistake of referring to it as a web site. “We’re a record store, but we’re an online one. I mean, how independent can you be? It’s me and six other people!” says Frank. “People ask me what I do, and I say I own a record store. I understand what [Record Store Day is] doing, I just wish we were part of it.”

Eric Levin, one of the founders of Record Store Day and the owner of Criminal Records in Atlanta, defines a record store and its purpose differently. “Record stores are where a community posts its flyers and its identity. Ask the guy at the counter, after you’ve browsed around and listened to what was playing, and checked out the cool stuff (and hopefully, found something groovy to buy), ask the guy, ‘Hey, I’m new in town, what’s up tonight?’ and you’ve taken your first step into the heart of a new city,” he says. Because for Levin, just as a store is about the people in it, the day is about the atmosphere within the retail locations, not just the special records and releases that could be easily made available online.

“My store is in a community, in front of a park, so there’ll be a beautiful carnival atmosphere with other record stores and vendors and customers setting up shop out front and such. There’ll be food everywhere, dog-rescue groups setting up, vegan bake sale for Japan relief—“ he could go on. Happily, Chicago will be blessed with this kind of atmosphere too, and there’s something to be said for the human contact that comes with walking into an indie record store Saturday and joining in the festivities. You just need to be able to get there.

The solution he offers to online retailers like Seth is this: “We wholeheartedly encourage you to participate [in RSD] by visiting a physical retail store, grabbing a beer, enjoying some music, getting to know the owners and workers and hanging out and being cool,” he told me, “I mean, it’s Record Store Day. Step away from the computer for a second and put up a sign that says, ‘Gone to Record Store Day, You Should Too!’” (Lauren Kelly-Jones)

Let us know what you think!

Correction: We are located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania not Palo Alto, California!

Read the full article here.

Here's a great review of our friends at the Princeton Record Exchange!

We asked. You commented, emailed, and tweeted, and we’ve tallied up the votes; now it’s time to congratulate the winners! We’re featuring your TOP FIVE record stores this week, one per day, as we impatiently await Record Store Day, Sunday, April 16th, 2011.

We celebrate the stores that make Record Store Day possible and the vinyl enthusiasts—namely you, dear readers—who love them. It’s been great reading your opinions! Count down to Record Store Day with us as we pay tribute to the record stores that make our lives richer every day.

We’re starting off the week with my own personal favorite, New Jersey’s Princeton Record Exchange, or Prex, to those in the know. This nationally-recognized gem is tucked away on a side street in historic Princeton’s beautiful downtown, just blocks away from the illustrious university. It is conveniently located about an hour from both New York City and Philadelphia.

I nodded vehemently when I read reader Smay1001′s comment, “Every record is washed and comes w/a white inner sleeve if the original is in bad shape and a plastic outer sleeve.” Another reader summed it up, “Best vinyl selection, best staff, best prices. Always a stop for me when I visit home (Philadelphia). One of the things I miss most about the east coast.”

Not only do The Vinyl District’s readers love Prex, but it’s been given the distinction of being in Rolling Stone’s Top 25 Record Stores, GQ’s Top Twenty Record Stores, and The Wall Street Journal’s “best music stores in America.” It’s also been featured in The New York Times, Philadelphia Magazine, and Billboard, and recently was called the nation’s best college town record store by Phil Gallo in USA Today.

Prex describes how “from humble beginnings, Princeton Record Exchange has grown to be one of the largest independent music stores in the country”:

“After graduating from college in 1975, Barry, the owner, traveled to flea markets and college towns buying, selling, and trading records. He slept in his van and set up shop on street corners, college book stores (Princeton’s was one), or wherever he could find a space. Eventually tiring of life on the road, in 1980 he established our first store in Princeton, NJ. The throng of customers and massive amount of merchandise soon overwhelmed the small space, so, in 1985, we moved to our present location on S. Tulane St. with five times the retail area. Even so, we are usually packed to the rafters with music and movies.”

Today, no longer sleeping in a van (down by the river?), but now the owner of one of the greatest record stores in America, Barry Weisfeld had these kind words to say when notified of Prex’s most recent accolade:

“We are honored to be voted in the Top Five by The Vinyl District’s growing number of music crazy fans. The mission of Princeton Record Exchange is to recycle music as well as new Vinyl into the hands of music lovers who can appreciate them all over again. We are always looking to buy Vinyl, CD and DVD collections to enhance our in-store selection.

Record Store Day 2010, we had something like 200 people waiting @ 10am when we opened due to all the limited edition Vinyl available one day only and expect it to be crazier this coming Saturday for Record Store Day 2011!

We want to say thanks to record collectors that visit us from all over the world and that have supported us and allowed us to serve LP collectors since 1980.”

Read the article in its entirety here.

Hello All!

It's been a little while since you've heard from us, but we're back!

As it turns out the Vinyl bug that is sweeping the nation isn't just infecting the folks that remember it in its hay-day but also younger generations that grew up immersed in the digital age.

NEW YORK, N.Y. — In most ways, Sarah McCarthy is your average high schooler. She has a job, college plans, but also a peculiar passion for a 16-year-old: She's a vinyl junkie.

That's right, analogue. And none of that hipster new stuff or a USB-ready turntable from Urban Outfitters.

To this student from Centreville, Md., there's nothing like the raw crackle, the depth of sound, her delicate hand on diamond-tipped stylus to spin from the dusty stash of records she found in the basement of her grandfather — yes, grandfather.

"He gave me his receiver and speaker system and told me to listen to it the way it was made to be listened to," McCarthy said. "I've turned a lot of my friends on to it. They come over a lot to listen with me."

At a time when parents feel positively prehistoric as they explain how to use plastic ice-cube trays or speak of phones with cords and dials, this teen knows what a record is. Not only that, she knows the difference between a 45 and an LP. She met her boyfriend in a record shop and now works there!

Sure, she has an iPod, but she also has a vinyl collection of 250 records and counting. Sure, there's a broader '70s renaissance in the air, but buying bellbottoms doesn't touch the commitment of teens unearthing old turntables and records, then convincing friends to listen, too, like a pack of crazy little anthropologists.

"Listening to old music remastered to a newer format is almost comical," Sarah said. "They weren't meant to be digitalized. Listening to Jimi Hendrix on my iPod doesn't capture his endlessly deep guitar solos quite like a 33 LP of 'Blues' does."

This girl's in love with vinyl, and she's not the only member of Generation Digital with an ear for analogue.

"My dad always had these old records in the garage and I never got to use them until just recently, when my uncle let me have his old record player," said 14-year-old Nick Spates, a Los Angeles eighth grader who plays guitar and piano.

What'd he find in his dad's two milk crates?

A lot of George Clinton — "He's a genius. I swear," declared Nick. And Funkadelic. Of the band's Eddie Hazel: "'Maggot Brain' is like my favourite song ever. The original is a 10-minute guitar solo." There was also "Spiral" by The Crusaders. "It has a lot of horns. I love horns." And "Carmel" by Joe Sample, Hendrix on "Voodoo Child" and a trove of Stanley Clarke.

"My friends think it's cool," Nick said. "Before I had the vinyls I used to Google older musicians and see what songs they made, and I'd look for them on YouTube. We're all musicians and old music is like our favourite stuff in the world."

Wayyyy back when, he said, the message of the music was "definitely more to benefit society and people's knowledge and what's going on in the world." Now, he said, "It's more about what rappers have."

Jeremy Robinson, co-owner of the plantation-size Ditch Records & CDs in Victoria, B.C., has up to 20,000 records in stock — half old and half new pressings from reissue labels and indie bands.

"Our vinyl sales have probably doubled in the last couple of years," he said. "The bulk of that has been young people, the iPod generation. They want to collect things, own things, which is the opposite of digital culture. They want to belong to the past."

The uptick in interest over several years includes nostalgic "nerdy superfans" looking for a way around the more sanitized sound of digital, he said, but also savvy young people with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Iron Maiden and a host of obscure post-punk music on their minds.

"The younger kids that come in the store know what they want," Robinson said. "They usually want the best albums by the best classic bands."

Matt Melvin, a 22-year-old college senior in Orlando, Fla., began taking vinyl seriously when he was 17 and still in high school. His interest was fed by buddies in search of pressings from new artists but also his dad's collection of old staples like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Dylan.

"With vinyl, one is forced to slow down and take in an album as a whole piece of work as the artist intended," he said.

Melvin's constantly on the hunt for exclusive, hard-to-find tracks like special B sides or limited-edition colour pressings. The White Stripes, for example, released a series of singles on vinyl from their last album with acoustic and Spanish versions on B sides. A vinyl version of Radiohead's latest album can be ordered from its website.

But he's interested in older music, too.

"Going through the countless stacks of different record stores, my eyes usually get caught by old funk and jazz records that I would have otherwise had little exposure to had it not been for their eccentric and colorful cover art."

While the recording industry dukes it out over downloads and mourns the CD, 2.5 million vinyl LPs were sold in 2009, up 33 per cent from the year before. Vinyl sales are a blip among total revenue from U.S. music sales and licensing, but that's a healthy increase in its own right.

"Young people are leading the way back to analogue through vinyl and turntables," Melvin said. "I think young people are demanding a product that is more tangible, the thrill of hunting through a store for that perfect record, the simple satisfaction of turning that record over."

Young people who listen and young people who mix.

Tina Turnbull, 28, travels the world as a DJ. Last year, she opened a weeklong DJ summer camp in Ojai, Calif., for tweens and teens, many who attend on scholarship. Coming up in the business at age 15, Turnbull carted around crates of vinyl to gigs. "Now I bring two records with me and my laptop. Technology has taken over."

At Camp Spin-Off, she and a staff of working DJs try to bridge past and present through vinyl. "We use records. We teach them the fundamentals. Where they go from there is wherever they want."

On the first day of camp, her charges watch a documentary tracing the birth of hip-hop, when the first DJs inspired break dancing and rap, and invented scratching and "beat-juggling" on vinyl. The movie takes them straight through to "turntablism," the more recent explosion of using one or more turntables combined with one or more mixers to create original music.

Turnbull invites guest DJs young (Samantha Ronson will stop by in August) and older to share their expertise and memories of decades past with the 50 campers, ages 12 to 17.

"You have to learn the basics on turntables," she said. "It kind of bums me that people who are learning how to DJ will never touch a record, but that's an opinionated thing."

Sarah McCarthy, who like Nick plays guitar and piano, holds the same opinion. She doesn't have much use for the vinyl-to-MP3 converter her mother, Mary, gave her as a gift.

"It doesn't come from me," mom said. "She's just kind of an old soul and always has been."

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