via John Velghe: The TVD First Date | The TVD Storefront.

“When it comes to vinyl, any nostalgia derived from memories of nosing around my family’s record collection or conning my grandma into taking me to Bernstein-Applebee isn’t nearly as meaningful as the hours and hours I spent flipping through albums in the bins at an indie record store in Kansas City during my 20s.”

“I’ve had some great mentors in my musical life. Alejandro Escovedo taught me rock-n-roll. Charat Chandra taught me how to develop characters. But it was Anne Winter who – through vinyl – taught me (and many others) the human coalescence of music. Anne and her husband, Kurt Von Schlemmer, owned Recycled Sounds (or, as we called it, “Dirt Cheap Records”). For musicians and music fans in Kansas City during the ‘90s, Recycled Sounds was where we discovered music.”

You couldn’t walk into her shop without Anne giving you the low-down on the next band coming through KC, handing you a used record that she’d held for you, or playing you a new record that was in your wheelhouse. Anne and her crew did what chain stores never could; they got to know their customers, befriended them, respected their tastes, and fed them a steady diet of records that would become the most important possessions they owned.

Recycled Sounds closed in 2006. At the time, it was easy to chalk it up as yet another blow to the music community due to both the impersonal nature of the digital era as well as the stupidity of the corporate-music system. A few years later, Anne died. There was nothing easy about that. Her death was a huge loss for the collective music soul of not only Kansas City but for cities like Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York as well. Any road an out-of-town musician took to play a venue in KC would eventually lead to Recycled Sounds.

On the October morning when I learned Anne died, I went to my old record player – untouched in months – and found sitting on the platter the first record she recommended to me, Only Life by The Feelies. I played that record and tried to make sense of what had happened in her passing; it felt like nothing short of a death blow to our music community.

Looking back now, that period between losing the store and losing Anne looks more like a “spiral” – the spiral is the section on a record where one song ends and another one is about to begin. The spiral is the one place left on earth where you can see silence—reflecting on what you just experienced while simultaneously anticipating what’s coming next.

 When it came time this year to release my first solo record, there was only one thing I knew for sure—it had to come out on vinyl. This meant I finally had to get a turntable worthy of hearing my own first test pressing. So I bought a Thorens TD160, rehabbed it, and began to clean my records.

 I’d forgotten how many of those records were marked with Anne’s sticker: “Dirt Cheap VG.” Hundreds of records, all with a story of how they came to be mine. These albums are connected to people in the same way each song on a side is connected in one, continuous sine wave. That’s what records and record stores mean to me. They are about people. From the people who made them to the people who gave them to me, all of them motivated by nothing but a sincere love of this art form. All they asked for in return was a dirt cheap price.

Richard Powers wrote, “Surely if two people love the same thing, they must love each other a little.” I think that explains how records and record stores bring people together. The greatest bonds I have with people are made of the c(h)ords of music. And, inevitably, in every relationship, there comes a spiral – the moment of visible silence where we all simultaneously reflect on what we’ve just experienced and anticipate what’s about to come. But, when we come together to experience what we love, we bind ourselves together like songs on a side and, maybe, love each other just a little.”

Come see us play with Alejandro Escovedo and Friends Saturday 3/17/12 at Maria’s Taco Xpress.

Or, come to Alejandro’s SXSW Closing Show at The Continental Club on Sunday 3/18/12.

More details on our Shows page 

Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

Most of the songs on this record were written in the studio.  Some a while ago, only seeing the light of an audience in a very stripped down, acoustic performance.  Of the rest some are several years old, getting a chance to be re-worked through the benefit of time, better ability, and new instrumentation.  One is a cover and a couple were in the Mendoza Lie repertoire for a few months.

So, in the past few weeks, with the help of some great folks, a majority of the tracking is done.  Ms. Abigail Henderson of the amazing band Tiny Horse came in and lent her voice to a couple songs, including a super secret cover tune.  There are a few more parts to iron out, re-cut, and honestly, thanks to a new song yesterday, there are lyrics still to be written.   Some songs that were favorites a few months ago have been trashed.  Replaced with new ones that came up during the recording process.

I’m hoping to start mixing in a couple weeks.  Then mastering, then maybe pressing or Drop Carding or whatever comes in the year 2010 after that point in the process when you are genuinely sick of the record and just want it out of your life.

All this means is that, hopefully, amid all the guitars, pianos, drums, accordions, tambourines, and Rhodeses – some risks have been taken.  Not the kinds of life-and-limb risks people take every day, but the kinds of risks that will make people either love or hate your work.

All this to say it’s pretty much your standard recording project.  It has a beginning, a middle and an end and this one is somewhere in there.

A so began a 20-year musical mentorship of myself by Anne Winter. Over those years I bought stacks and stacks of vinyl from Anne. Every time I bought one record, she recommended one I’d probably like.

Today I learned that Anne passed, unexpectedly. There’s not much I can say about what Anne did for me that the many others whose lives she touched don’t already know.

People turn to music to make sense out of life and death. And for some of us, that meant turning to Anne. So right now this all seems a little, well, confusing. I can’t offer any kind of clarity.

This morning, when I learned about her death, my first instinct was to play records. I walked over to my record player, untouched for months, and what record was on there?

The Feelies — Only Life with the tag still on the clear sleeve “$8.00 VG”

What does it mean?
What can you do about it?
What can you say?
You don’t even know about it
Nobody talks
Nobody listens
Well look around
Yeah look out your window
They’re having a ball
Having a party
Well come inside
You can do what you like
Well it’s a nightmare
It’s all negative
Nothing matters
And what if it did?
You could lock your doors
Close all your windows and
Hide away …

It’s only life …

We’ll see what happens, but until then you can check out my theme here:

http://johnvelghe.com/2009/music/Evans_DrumsHeSaid.mp3

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
The urge to focus too much on rhetoric.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Getting in their own way or prideful ignorance. I can’t decide which.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
Today, probably Bruce Springsteen.

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
My studio equipment or my jeans. I can’t decide which.

7. What is your current state of mind?
Contemplative

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Intelligence.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
When I’m writing a song or when someone might get hurt. But those are pretty much the same thing.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The sanctimony.

11. Which living person do you most despise?
Right now, its tied between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. I have no use for hate and insecurity masquerading as entertainment.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Simplicity.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Grace.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“All I’m saying is…”

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Who = Juj

What = music.

16. When and where were you happiest?
Memphis Tennessee, around 1998.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
It’s almost impossible for me to distinguish between talent and aptitude. But I guess the aptitude or talent to be able to teach.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My inability to teach.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Getting this far.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Hopefully I’ve earned the right to come back as a family pet, a dog perhapse.

21. Where would you most like to live?
Europe, the warm part.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
I would be lost without my 1964 Hofner acoustic guitar.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Not having someone to share everything with

24. What is your favorite occupation?
Janitor

25. What is your most marked characteristic?
Impatience

26. What do you most value in your friends?
Patience

27. Who are your favorite writers?
Richard Powers, Robert Pirsig

28. Who is your hero of fiction?
Chris Pirsig (is that actually fiction?)

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Bob Stinson (is he historical?)

30. Who are your heroes in real life?
My mother. Alejandro Escovedo. Juj.

31. What are your favorite names?
Aeshel. Clara. Napoleon.

32. What is it that you most dislike?
I most dislike lack of empathy.

33. What is your greatest regret?
Taking too much time away from doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

34. How would you like to die?
AFTER everyone else, in my sleep.

35. What is your motto?
always be compelling