Side by side Local vinyl-heads are in it together, all the way through to the run-out groove By: David Sanderson Posted: 1:00 PM CDT Friday, Mar. 22, 2024

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This article was published 22/03/2024 (915 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Are record clubs the new book clubs?

That was the question posed in a British report about goings-on that invite people in the U.K. to experience classic vinyl albums in their entirety, everything from Billie Holiday to the Beatles to the Beastie Boys, in a pub or theatre setting.

The aural get-togethers were started by English DJ Colleen Murphy who felt too many people were listening to music in a pick-and-mix fashion, what she referred to as “download culture,” by skipping from one track to the next on their devices, with little to no regard for the original source material.

“These are works of art at their greatest level,” commented a person who attended a session showcasing Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. “You can pick up a Dickens book and read a little bit of it and get some pleasure, but you will not get the same pleasure as you would, picking it up and reading it from beginning to end.”

Closer to home, a group of Winnipeggers acknowledge how rewarding it can be to enjoy an album from start to finish, the way an artist intended their work to be heard. But that’s just one of the reasons why Jordan Bodnar, Garrett Wellwood, Danny Lutz, Sean Soloway and Sean Gutheil, all in their late 30s or early 40s, formed what resembles a book club, only with vinyl records as the centrepiece.

“As to ‘why a record club?’ it’s really because we are all music lovers, who happen to also listen to vinyl,” Bodnar explains, seated inside Soloway’s West End abode, the site of a recent get-together. “Simply put, we wanted to celebrate the love of music, and the passion for discovering new music that we all share.”

After officially calling this evening’s meeting to order, Soloway-as-host goes through a semi-ritual. First, using a knife, he carefully slices open the shrinkwrap of a new copy of Salt, the latest release from Montreal indie rockers Half Moon Run. Making sure not to touch the album’s sand-coloured surface, he removes the record from its protective sleeve, and deposits it on his turntable, a high-end Yamaha model manufactured in 1977.

Turning his head, he reminds the others that today marks the club’s fifth anniversary, and because wood is the traditional gift for said occasions, all the records played over the next four-plus hours should touch on wood, in some way, shape or form. (For instance, Alco, the second track on Salt, carries the lyrics “I’m sure you had it right, down in that foggy wood.”)

Finally, Soloway drops the needle on side A, then props the album’s cover on a speaker the same way a record-store employee might, to alert shoppers as to what’s presently spinning.

“I hope you all enjoy my first pick and I just want to say again what a blast it’s been, being part of this group for the last five years,” he says, reaching over to crank the volume.

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Bodnar, who grew up largely listening to CDs, started getting into vinyl about 10 years ago, after his father handed over a collection of classic-rock titles that were gathering dust. Around the same time, Bodnar’s then-roommates gave him a few records by more contemporary artists for his birthday, which caused his interest in the rejuvenated format to really take off, he says.

About six years ago, he and a group of pals were getting together occasionally to listen to music and shoot the breeze. He knew that Wellwood, a co-worker of his, was a “vinyl nut,” so he approached him about forming a club that would do something similarly on a scheduled, monthly basis. Great idea, said Wellwood, who credits boxes of old records that once belonged to his parents for kickstarting his hobby.

Lutz, the third enlistee, spent a lot of time in record stores when he was living in Halifax, where he played in a series of bands. He’d built up an enviable collection of funk and jazz albums, except when he left the Maritimes, he parted with the lot, feeling they were too cumbersome to be dragging from place to place.

“I’d already been thinking about starting (to buy vinyl) again, so when Jordan, who I play hockey with, told me about the club, I thought perfect, now I have an excuse,” Lutz says with a chuckle.

Soloway was the next to join. The subject came up one afternoon when he and Bodnar, whom he knew fleetingly, struck up a conversation in a record shop over a pair of colourful socks Bodnar was sporting, ones adorned with images of LPs.

“The crazy thing was, at the first meeting I went to, I discovered Danny and Garrett lived on the same street as me, though I’d never met either of them before,” says Soloway, who started listening to vinyl 21 years ago at age 16, when he purchased close to 1,000 records in one fell swoop, at a neighbourhood garage sale. “It was four sisters whose dad had passed away. I made them a lowball offer — something crazy like $25 — and they said sure, they were just happy to get rid of them.”

Gutheil, the final piece of the puzzle, belonged to the same group Bodnar was in originally. When it went into hibernation at the onset of COVID, he joined Bodnar, Wellwood, Lutz and Soloway, who never missed a beat during the pandemic, thanks to Zoom.

The group’s rules, if you want to call them that, are fairly straightforward. Foremost, it’s a vinyl club, meaning compact discs, cassettes and any sort of digital file need not apply. Secondly, every meeting carries a specific theme, as determined by the host a few weeks beforehand. It’s the guys’ individual responsibility to arrive with two albums that touch on the chosen theme.

“We try to make (the themes) as broad as possible, versus a specific band or style of music,” Bodnar says, citing “animals” (think Rain Dogs by Tom Waits), “stage name” (Begonia’s Fear) and “albums that went No. 1” (Styx’s Paradise Theatre; Mogwai’s As the Love Continues) as past threads he can recall, off the top of his head. “There was one time early on when we did a metal night, except it was so much all at once, I couldn’t listen to metal for six months afterwards.”

All five agree the best thing about their club has been the opportunity to discover artists or titles they may not have come across on their own. Mother Earth’s Plantasia, an instrumental album recorded in 1976 with the intention of assisting houseplants to grow, “absolutely blew my mind,” Soloway says, when Lutz brought it on a night dedicated to “albums you think nobody else has heard.”

“One hundred per cent, there have been records I was exposed to through the group that I went out and bought, the very next day,” Wellwood pipes in. “After Sean G played Pretty Hate Machine (Nine Inch Nails) for our third-anniversary meeting, I was like, ‘I don’t understand why I don’t have this already.’”

Most important, everybody contends, is to park any prejudices about a certain genre of music or specific artist at the door, while they’re removing their shoes.

“What I love is that there’s no such thing as cool or not cool,” Lutz says. “I remember the time I brought a record by Ariana Grande for a girl’s night theme, and I almost apologized as I was putting it on. Everybody was like ‘hey, no worries, it’s all good.’” (Other albums that night? Janelle Monàe’s Dirty Computer and Heart’s Greatest Hits.)

“It’s important, I think, to have things you can look forward to,” Bodnar says, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the second selection of the night, Volcano, by British electronic band Jungle. “Because all the other s—t in life can be large at times, knowing I have (record club) in a couple of weeks is more than helpful. I can get excited about shopping for a new record, or it puts me downstairs in my listening space, going through my shelves, wondering if this or that will fit a theme. Everything about it is good.”

Of course, four to five hours is a lengthy stretch to talk music, which is why the conversation almost always deviates to work, kids, travel… the gamut, they say. And because four hours is also a long time to go without sustenance, that leads to decisions as equally compelling as which Elton John or Dr. Dre album to arrive with.

“We usually put out snacks about an hour or so in, with something more substantial later on,” Soloway says. “Except we have a peanut allergy, a dairy allergy, a vegan and two guys who eat anything. Most times, it’s actually harder to pick food than records.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca