Dust, Scratches and Stories: The Far Out team on their most prized vinyl
In this capitalist and commercial world, it is easy to be cynical about the worth and power of objects. Some scream about people owning too much pointless stuff; some keep buying too much pointless stuff. But there is a golden midground where every penny spent comes back to you tenfold in emotional currency, the weight of memory. Art is one of those things. No money ever spent on art that connects to you is wasted as Record Store Day still feels new; our own vinyl collections are whispering that to us, packed full of stories, special moments and the songs that soundtrack them.
Of all art forms, music surely has to be the most evocative of memory. A song playing in a certain moment or connection to a certain person, place, or experience will forever play on a loop in your head when you revisit it. Sure, we can hold that in our minds or stream it on Spotify, but there is something so special about owning it in a physical form.
That is why vinyl has endured and potentially why it’s seeing a revival. Maybe in an increasingly digital world where all our memories exist on a phone screen, those treats with a cardboard package and a slick, grooved disc feel even more precious.
But what is truly precious is the scratches that form, the hands that hold it, the shops that sold it and all the times it’s been picked up, placed onto the turntable and played out in memorable moments. Adding layer upon layer of memories and meaning, like dust settling on its surface, it takes a special soundtrack and makes it even better.
For the Far Out teams, these records stand out as the most special in their personal collections.
The Far Out Magazine team’s most prized vinyl record
Reuben Cross – William Onyeabor – Who is William Onyeabor?
Released in 2013 via David Byrne’s Luaka Bop record label, Who is William Onyeabor? is the fifth entry into the label’s ‘World Psychedelic Classics’ compilation series and perhaps the most beloved release in the collection. Collecting some of the career highlights of the Nigerian funk pioneer onto a 3xLP set, this record was ultimately what opened my eyes up to a treasure trove of music from another continent that the inquisitive teenage me had never bothered to investigate before and helped me to appreciate the different styles and approaches to genres I thought I was familiar with and recontextualising them through a more worldly lens.
It stands out as my most prized possession in my record collection because it broadened my musical horizons and was the last record I bought from the iconic Bristol record store Idle Hands before it closed its doors in 2022. While they’ve managed to reopen in a new location within the city since then, having this record in my collection is a reminder that showing your support to local independent record stores is essential to their survival, especially ones that have a specific focus on championing music from within more niche genres.
Lucy Harbron – Lana Del Rey – Lana Del Rey AKA. Lizzy Grant
I was in Brick Lane doing an interview with Ellie Bleach. My friend Ele Marchant was on hand to take photos, and it had been a great day. One of those amazing days in this job where you get to connect with great people over mutual loves, buzz over shared taste and chit-chat through the history of all the music, films and culture that made you you and see a part of you in the shape of someone else. Then, we walked into the vinyl store in the market – and there she was.
When I grabbed it and turned around to reveal it to the girls, everyone gasped. I’d found the holy grail here, something truly unbelievable, something priceless for £20. To a certain subsect of women, to which I belong, this album, Lana Del Rey’s unofficial debut, was brain chemistry changing. As a teenager in the wild west of the internet (Tumblr, early 2010s), I was wandering a trail of new discoveries for maybe the first time in my life. This was arguably the first time I was discovering music that wasn’t playing on the radio, passed down by my parents or shoved down my throat by Disney. The first time I heard this album, with Del Rey’s bratty voice dripping with vintage energy, all the cinematic references in her lyrics, the abundance of cheekiness and this captivating persona she presents herself with, it was the first time I’d heard anything like this or knew anything could sound like this.
From that moment on, Lana Del Rey ruled over me. Through every album I’ve been there, and I’ve been hooked. But it’s more than that. Not only did Del Rey give me a new language and open up my eyes to so much other art, literature and film, but Del Rey provided so many girls like me with a sense of identity, style and a comforting voice that honours being sensitive while still being powerful, sexy, fun. As all three of us gasped at the sight of this album, that’s what that was about. It’s definitely a bootleg, given that one of the songs is in a sped-up chipmunk version, but I love it anyway.
Tim Coffman – Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly
Rewind the clocks back to 2017. Yours truly is a rock kid only into indie music from the modern age and every single classic rock band that I can get my hands on. But the minute that I got to college and was shown the Grammy performance of Kendrick Lamar playing ‘The Blacker The Berry’, I ran out to my local record store and fell in love the minute that I heard the opening notes of To Pimp A Butterfly.
While there are an endless amount of things to love about the record, I owe this record an eternal debt of gratitude for getting me to listen to all styles of music, whether that’s blues, hip-hop, jazz, and everything else under the sun that didn’t necessarily fall into the “rock” category. So if this album had broadened my palette, chances are you would be reading a much different journalist than the humble one typing these words here.
Ben Forrest – Dice The Boss – ‘Gun The Man Down’
One of the greatest aspects of collecting vinyl is that it’s a lot easier to attach memories to a tangible object, like a record. As such, my collection is chock full of albums that are incredibly dear to me, both because of the music and the memories attached to them. If pushed to select my most prized record, however, the answer would be my seven-inch copy of ‘Gun The Man Down’ by Dice The Boss.
Quickly after getting into records at the age of 12, I became infatuated with the world of ska music. From then on, my weekends were invariably spent hunting for old ska vinyl around the record shops of West Yorkshire. ‘Gun The Man Down’ was always at the top of my list, but I never found it. At that time, it had only had one pressing, back in 1969 on the Trojan imprint, Joe Records.
Flash forward to 2022, when my friend and I began frequenting a local venue in Bradford which played ska and two-tone music. Almost every weekend, we would go along for a dance, and it was here that I first began DJing. I spoke to my friend endlessly about ‘Gun The Man Down’ and how its roaring opening line would be the perfect start to a DJ set.
A few months later, around the time of my 20th birthday, my friend and I were once again on our way to this venue when she handed me a gift. I opened it up, and there was a pristine copy of ‘Gun The Man Down’ inside. The song started my set that night, and it remains a beloved jewel of my collection.
Dale Maplethorpe – The Snowmen – ‘Hokey Cokey’
Look, I could rummage through my vinyl collection and pick out some of the albums that make me sound like someone with impeccable taste (which I am), but nothing epitomises my love for record shops, record shopping and the weird communicative aspect of music better than my 7-inch of The Snowmen’s ‘Hokey Cokey’. I should specify, a broken-in-half segment of my 7-inch of The Snowmen’s ‘Hokey Cokey’. Yes, the party tune for children that sings, “Put your left leg in, your left leg out…” Let me explain.
I was record shopping with my friend one day. After buying albums that we actually wanted, we headed over to a poorly kept section of the store filled with 7-inch records, three for five pounds. It was too tempting not to, so we randomly picked out three singles. One was Roman Catholic hymns, one was a local indie band whose name escapes me, and the other was this party classic. Giggling under our breath as we took the records to the counter, the man working in the record shop asked if he could play the ‘Hokey Cokey’ to see how such a classic sounded on vinyl.
There weren’t many people in the shop, but the four or five who were stopped what they were doing to gather around and listen to what would no doubt be terrible. Instead of playing the single, because the label on the record was torn up beyond recognition, he ended up putting on the B-side, a strange synth-pop song called ‘Don’t Go Short’. To call it a good song would be a stretch, but the trippy laser sounds and catchy chorus made for a fairly nice surprise. Everyone in the shop had a laugh, and given that my friend and I were living together at the time, the record became a running joke we would play for friends who came over. “What?! you’re telling me you HAVEN’T heard the ‘Hokey Cokey’ B-side?!?”
When I left the flat to move to London, my friend and I were shifting boxes, and I accidentally dropped one of them containing my records. One was our single, ‘Hokey Cokey’ which subsequently broke down the middle. It was a heartbreaking moment and truly the end of an era; however, we both keep half of the record at our houses as a reminder of that fun period in our lives and one of the most unexpected B-sides in history.
Lauren Hunter – Florence and the Machine – Dance Fever (Live At Madison Square Gardens)
I’m slightly reluctant to admit that I was embarrassingly late to the party when it came to starting to collect records. For years, I had pined after music – but was inhibited by a pitiful shoestring budget that only a student can know the pain of; whenever I could cobble my pennies together, I spent it on gig tickets to experience the thrill of seeing an artist live. However, I always craved the vintage allure and collector’s value of vinyl, so when I was eventually gifted my first record player for my 21st birthday, it felt like a coming of age in more ways than one.
Inevitably, the record I was given alongside my first player wormed its way into a special place in my heart, not just for the physical sentimentality but also for everything the music on it represented at that time in my life. The live vinyl for Florence and the Machine’s Dance Fever, performed from Madison Square Garden in New York, was a gorgeous thing to behold in all of its typical ethereal artwork. But the recording of the concert itself reminded me of when I had seen that tour earlier in the year, as one of the first gigs I went to after the pandemic, and it allowed me to fall in love with music all over again.
Dance Fever is all about freedom and having a lust for life – and, of course, dancing – and it just gave me the epiphany that I shouldn’t dwell on the things I had lost to Covid-19, but instead embrace all the new journeys I could go on. Seeing Florence Welch prance about the stage, with seemingly not a care in the world, was the ultimate embodiment of that right before my eyes. So, to have the remainder of that night marked by my very first record still feels so special and full circle that it will always have a prized place in my vinyl collection.
Callum MacHattie – Getdown Services – Crisps
Somewhere in the depths of the internet is an interview I did with Getdown Services back in 2022. At one point within the 90 minutes of nauseating mutual appreciation, I tell the Bristol band that when I first heard their music, it reminded me of the exact reason I embarrassingly pursued this career and decided to self-record podcasts to a total of 10 listeners.
Because underneath the outrageously witty lyrics and groovy rhythm sections were two undeniably talented musicians who had crafted a genuinely unique artistic voice. I felt deeply inspired and became the irritant of every pub session thereafter. I was the idiot who, on his fourth pint of Guinness, thought that even the barman and their dog needed to hear about this band.
So, given how obsessively I played a handful of their early releases, I don’t know why I was surprised to hear 42 minutes of genuine all-killer-no-filler when their debut album Crisps was released. And while every show thereafter confirmed my feelings, it became no clearer last December when they played a sold-out hometown show with a one-off full band line-up. It was euphoric and triumphant and deeply confirmed why I love living in Bristol. I needed nothing more from their music that night, but it turns out I got it when my girlfriend came back from the merch stand clutching what is now a very sacred copy of my favourite album.
Aimee Ferrier – The Virgin Suicides soundtrack
Developing an obsession with Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides is basically a right of passage for most teenage girls. Not only did I love the lush visuals and the story – I soon devoured Jeffrey Eugenides’ book, too – but I was also enamoured by Air’s soundtrack. The music that the French band crafted for the 1999 film, which moved between dreamy cuts and empty, tragic soundscapes, quickly became one of my favourite soundtracks, and I became desperate to add the record to my collection. However, it soon became apparent to me that it was incredibly hard to get hold of.
While a version of the soundtrack, which included songs by the likes of The Hollies and Todd Rundgren, was relatively easy to find on vinyl, I was strictly on the hunt for the edition that contained Air’s complete soundtrack. Copies floated around online for at least £70, a price I didn’t exactly want to pay, but I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Every time I entered a record store, I would imagine a copy magically appearing among the endless stacks of vinyl, sitting inconspicuously, not knowing its worth.
I kept the hope of finding it in the back of my mind for ages, but for some reason, as I approached Earworm Records during a sunny day trip to York, I told myself that the album was going to be there, hiding in this small and rather unassuming shop. Lo and behold, I found it sitting among the soundtracks for £40 – the cheapest I’d ever seen it. I returned home to spin the record all evening, soaking up each note of the practically perfect ‘Playground Love’.
Tom Taylor – Arctic Monkeys – Feeling Far Away: Live in Syndey (2014)
You can’t have a relationship with a shuffle button, nobody gets sentimental about algorithms, and we forget what music means to us so much on streaming that we need an annual wrap-up to tell us what we’ve actually been listening to. That’s why I like vinyl—I’m not an audiophile, and I don’t have the money to be a rampant collector, but every now and again, a bit of black plastic with a backstory will float my way and prove an immeasurable addition to my life.
I don’t listen to Feeling Far Away, a potentially bootlegged Arctic Monkeys record, all that much. I might have only ever given it a spin two or three times ever, but every time I leaf through my measly collection, no doubt hunting for the safe, warm vinyl hiss of Jessica Pratt yet again, my finger will hover over the spine of this live oddity, and I’ll be hugged, for a brief moment, by happy memories of my years Down Under.
Facing down a cold career in Newcastle’s construction industry, a friend and I decided to grasp a few years of sun in Australia. An Arctic Monkeys concert awaited our arrival. En route, we dipped into Vietnam and Thailand, where, through a combination of hard partying and even harder food poisoning, my Potassium levels dropped below critical, and I became temporarily paralysed. Needless to say, this waylaid the intended Monkeys gig at the end of it all. But thanks to a fateful trip to a record store with my first Aussie paycheck and the benevolence of a mystery bootlegger, I was able to snap up a rare vinyl and not feel like the good lord duped me. Now, it serves as a reminder of two smashing years, barring, of course, the passing bout of paralysis.
