Gerry Rafferty
Unofficial Vinyl clubs have existed since the dawn of the gramophone record. People used to sit down and listen with friends and family to their latest record purchase, in fact this was often the only way to hear new albums. If you couldn't afford to buy every album you wanted, who could!, the only option was to meet up with friends to listen to their copy. The radio served as a taster for a couple of key tracks, but to hear a whole LP the only option was to buy or be social.
Vinyl clubs are a way of socialising with people whom share a common interest, music and the art of the vinyl record sleeve. When an Artist creates an album they put a lot of effort into the story of the album as a whole. The best example I can think of that proves this is The Streets, A Grand Don't Come for Free. Each individual track tells a story about a night out, relationship, or misunderstanding etc, but listened to as a whole the album is a story with references across tracks and a start, middle and end. In fact, I don't like listening to just one song as I feel like I've picked up a book and just read a chapter.
Deciding on a play list
The LP line up for the coming months is usually decided between all attendees, either as a whole in a discussion and then listed out, or each individual chooses a record to add to the playlist. Without wishing to be morbid, recently deceased Artists often get a lot of air time at the clubs, Gerry Rafferty being a favourite on the UK scene at the time of writing.
Location
The traditional place for most book club meetings has always been the living room and members usually take turns to host the meetings in their own homes. This format works well for Vinyl Clubs too, although you should not feel obliged to host a meeting if you do not wish to.
Two things to bear in mind about meeting in living rooms are this can limit the number of members that can attend, and the noise levels. An average UK living room can only comfortably accommodate a maximum of 8-10 people. Having said that, for discussions to work well, the ideal group size is 8-12 members so a larger space may not be needed. It can also depend on the kind of gathering you envisage for your group - if you like something small, intimate and cosy, then the living room is the ideal meeting place.
Noise can be more of a problem. This is something your average book club doesn't have to deal with - unless there is a particularly heated debate! The best solution to this is to have a no noise rule during playing of the LP to avoid people shouting over the record, after the last track is fully played out, the discussion can start. Surprisingly even with the rowdiest of friends they can normally stick to this one rule. After all, if your talking through over the music - what's the point!
This is the story behind the Vinyl Record Clubs, people who wish to bulk the current trend for endlessly streamed music as a sort of white noise to life. The clubs are for people who want to think about the music and the artist. One vinyl cluber reported to the BBC it was a revelation: "Listening to an album like this shows me something new, it's always an emotional experience." I couldn't agree more.
Attending a Vinyl Record Club? Need some more material?
The author, Richard Cord is the owner of VinylVenue.co.uk, an online vinyl record shop based in the UK. Whether your thinking of going to a Record Club or not, many music enthusiast believe vinyl is the truest way to listen to any sort of music, so dust off that turntable and put a record on.
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