The Basement Rug

I have been collecting musical (and other) recordings in various formats for almost 30 years.

I grew up listening to early microgroove LP’s on an old Imperial/Telefunken tube-based console stereo. I would flip through old country and big band LP’s in my parents collection as I waited for the tubes to warm up.

My parents had another tube-based system in their bedroom that my father built in the 1960s when he was studying at the Radio College of Canada. Eventually my father passed this system on to me and I spent many late hours scanning for FM radio shows - in the days when local radio stations produced their own regular non-syndicated shows.

I connected a “travelling” record player to this system - something like the Crosley system shown here, but not quite as nice. These systems were quite common and existed in every classroom I attended during elementary school.

Over the years I built up my collection from a number of great record stores, most of which are now closed.

When the CD eventually replaced the LP in the 1990s, I nearly gave up on LP’s altogether, until I discovered that people were unloading all sorts of great items en masse at local Goodwill’s and other second-hand stores.

And so I gradually found myself back in the crates and getting my hands filthy. When the blogosphere exploded on the internet, all sorts of vintage vinyl sites started popping up, and so I decided to join this new network of possibilities.

If you have any comments/recommendations or another blog you would like to see on our blogroll, contact me by email.