Charlatans UK Frontman Pens Another Book on the Glories of Vinyl
Tim Burgess, the frontman for the Charlatans UK, loves everything about vinyl. He’s a DJ. He’s a collector. And he’s one of the format’s biggest evangelists. He has a book on the subject called Tim Book Two: Vinyl Adventures from Istanbul to San Francisco due next week. Here’s an excerpt from The Independent.
It’s hard to know when something goes from being an interest to a hobby and ends up as a passion. Noting the beauty of a passing train to memorising the names of engines and ending up with a notebook on platform 11 at Crewe station on a rainy Friday evening. It’s often a subconscious journey but, at the end of it, you’re in deep with whatever your chosen distraction – maybe it’s easier for an outsider to see, as denial can often be a feature of an obsession.
The first time I was aware that I had more than just a bug for collecting records was the day I noticed I had a filing system – it was very informal and I was judge, jury and executioner. I kept my records leaning up against the wall, next to my bed and the vinyl stretch had become longer once I’d committed all my money and asked that all my presents were records.
The order of the albums (at the back) and singles (at the front) were both in order of how impressed I was with them. The cooler titles at the front and, according to 13-year-old me, the more mediocre ones at the back.
Those next to the wardrobe at the very back were in an unloved vinyl version of purgatory, where much of the rest of the collection would be involved in reshuffles on an almost daily basis – Showaddywaddy and some of the records I’d bought on a more casual basis from the age of seven were only kept for sentimental reasons rather than any possibility that Little Jimmy Osmond would see any kind of coolness recovery now that I was a committed UK Subs fan.
