A few weeks ago I wrote about the opening celebration for the second show at YES Gallery and the weekend long Hoboken Art Walk and Studio Tour that it was a part of. There were so many wonderful things that happened during that beautiful and special event, but one of them that stood out in my memory was the turn table that the DJ and Musician Rose Image brought into the gallery and shared with me over the two days of that lovely weekend. During the time that it was in the gallery, I played some of the LP's that I hadn't played in years, some that belonged to my older brother from his collection from the late 1960's and 1970's and some of my own from the 1970's and 1980's. Hearing them again after all this time on vinyl made me want to find a stereo system to put in the gallery so that I could play records all the time. I have many of my favorites on CD's and can of course stream them any time I want to, but there is something about vinyl and about playing these old records that brings back the memories of that time and who I was and my brother and my childhood and teenage years like nothing I've ever quite experienced before.
It was on my mind to find a stereo system somehow, and then one day I went to an estate sale and there it was. At the time when I saw it I wasn't really paying attention to all the pieces, I just knew that it was a vintage one and it looked like it was in great shape and that it was the one for me to bring to YES Gallery. I do things like that sometimes, see something and just know it's right, and then later on when someone asks me for specifications I have no idea. That happened once when I was looking for an apartment years ago, and later on, when I was describing it to people they'd ask me about details and I couldn't tell them. All I knew is that it was right and it was the one for me.
The stereo system turned out to be a Pioneer, but after Rose Image was kind enough to stop by and help install it, we discovered that the turntable was missing the belt that makes it turn. I have no idea what the situation was in the house where it came from, and that is always the way it is with estate sales. The turntable looked pristine, but inside where the belt should have been were only a few small pieces left of what looked like something that had disintegrated. Perhaps it had been sitting in the house like that for years, or perhaps the person who had owned it took one that worked and left that one behind for the sale, but whatever the reason I contacted the person who was in charge of the sale and there was another turntable at the house that works perfectly. This one is a Technics, and along with the Pioneer system its sound is gorgeous.
When I first started listening to the LP's I have, the first one I tried was my brother's copy of The Who "Who's Next" and hearing the opening few moments that go crashing into Roger Daltrey's soaring voice was one of the most wonderful experiences imaginable. That album was revelatory and jubilant for me when I was a teenager, and I had heard it for years before that when my brother was a teenager who played it in his room before going out and sometimes when he'd be drawing at his desk and he'd let me sit on his lap or stand next to him as he created his artwork. For me there is such a deep resonance when I hear The Who, with layers upon layers of memories, of times with my brother and times when I'd listen in my own room and feel the freedom of their soaring sound and lyrics lifting me out of what were sometimes difficult experiences as a teenager.
With each passing day I listen to more, my brother's Led Zeppelin that I sang in a garage band in high school, his Allman Brothers, Neil Young, his Poco, Moody Blues and Rod Stewart and my own later ones, my South Pacific, and the list goes on. There are times when I first put an album on that I'm not even sure what I'm going to hear because it has been so long since I've heard them, and then I find myself singing and dancing and so filled with the emotion of memories, the reminder of hope and love and new beginnings, the experience of remembering a past when I had no idea what the future would bring and the understanding of where I've come from that has somehow brought me to here and now.
Today is Christmas Day, and when I was thinking of what I would write I realized that YES Gallery has been a gift from the beginning, and with each addition of Art and the Artists who create it the gift box gallery has become filled with blessings. This turntable and sound system is another gift, one that I couldn't have understood the power of until I began to play these old records again. Within them is my own history, my past and my present, wrapped up together and tied with streamers of golden light and rainbows.
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