Can you imagine that one day listening to the radio you get the idea of recovering those records that were lost on the road of life? But not just any disc, but the exact copy you once had.
Everything was born from tuning in to the song “Livin ‘on a prayer” by Bon Jovi, which encapsulated Eric Spitznagel to feel the vinyl material, the art, the waxed cardboard covers and even remember where the songs were. grooves, ah, those scratches, and especially the music, which culminated in a book: “In search of lost records” (Contra editorial).
Because old records never die, the protagonist of this work is the same author, who decides to recover the records that he once had and that many sold to a music store to survive or that they stayed with friends or somewhere another place that Eric is hell-bent on remembering.
What a difficult task for the freelance journalist, but where can you start. Each LP has something of who owned it and in this case Eric lists them as follows:
Bon Jovi’s “Slippery when wet”, acetate who survived a car accident in which he almost lost his life and where he wrote the phone number of his first girlfriend, Heather. “Exile in Guyville” by Liz Phair, which should have the sticker of the store where you bought it on the cover. “Let it bleed” by the Stones, which on the cover are the initials WBCR, from the radio station where he collaborated in his college days. KISS’s “Alive II”, which in the group’s logo is penned “Do not touch,” as a warning to his older brother, who was the original owner, part of a family dispute from early childhood.
Another album he wants to recover is “Band of the run” by Paul McCartney and Wings, which includes a sticker on the cover that says it is the property of the Richton Park Public Library. “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits, with lipstick marks on the front. One from New York Dolls, which must have Prince’s “Sign o ‘the times” inside or vice versa.
So to try to recover them, he travels through what were once the United States’ large record warehouses, moved to abandoned warehouses, between dust and humidity, in a university archive, in his adolescent house and even travels through the network, in eBay.
But what is the intention of Eric, married and with a son? Pure nostalgia, midlife crisis or the idea of building a kind of autobiography with his character as a vinyl lover. But did he get them all back? Also, what did you gain by doing so? Life and music, always hand in hand in this work in which the acetates do not stop ringing and which includes a foreword by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.
And well, did you ever think about recovering the records you once had?
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