Michael and Mark are two awesome brothers who have amazing tastes in music. They both have a very diverse collection with some real gems. The two of them were nice enough to let me check out what they have and gave me some really awesome listening suggestions. Here’s what they had to show me! My questions are in bold, Michael and Mark’s responses are labelled. Their collection is grouped in with their parents’ so we talked a little bit about that first.
Note: I know that my pictures are horrible!!! I drank too much coffee. My hands were really shaky.
Michael: So my Dad was really into the eighties pop and rock and jazz, and kind of synthy stuff, and my Mom has some really weird prog rock and some Jethro Tull and other out there shit, this one always blew my mind.
What is it?
Michael: It’s Jethro Tull, but it’s a book too.
So when did you guys start collecting?
Michael: I started around last year, but you’ve had some for a while.
Mark: When I was twelve, I started getting classic rock records, like the Beatles and Iron Maiden. I probably got rid of it though because I don’t really like them any more. But yeah, I had some, but then got more into it when I started going to shows, then I started to buy a lot more. Hope bought me a lot of records, and that kind of helped kick start it, because she bought me ten consecutively at one point then from there I started to buy more. Are we out of peanut butter Michael?
Michael: I don’t know, I haven’t had some in a while.
Mark: That’s really sad, it’s the only thing to eat right now.
Do you guys know what the first record you each bought was?
Michael: Yeah! Gimme a second to find it.
Mark: The very first one I got, I didn’t buy it, was Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, which I got for my birthday when I was fourteen from my friend Niko.
Michael: Mine shows you how new I am to collecting. Bought this [St. Vincent’s self-titled release] in 2014 when it came out from Cosmic Dave’s.
Do you remember the feeling of buying your first record?
Michael: It was great. You spend a lot of time, like, man, this artwork is so much better than a CD. It’s so much more detailed. You get the bug right away.
Okay, so what’s the most recent record you guys have bought or received?
Mark: The most recent record I have received is…
Michael: The Elwins maybe?
Mark: No, there was a couple after that. I got Charles Bradley after that for sure. The most recent one I purchased was definitely both Elvis Costellos. I bought them in Toronto.
Michael: I got this one in Toronto too actually, it was a find just in a random section at Rotate This on Queen Street, I’ve been looking for this album for a long time – it’s a remaster, it sounds great.
Nice. Do you guys have albums by your favourite bands?
Mark: Some of them!
Michael: Oh god yeah, absolutely.
What are your favourite bands?
Michael: That’s a tough one. Puts me on the spot.
Mark: I’ll see what I have of my favourite bands, I’ll have to live on the floor here.
Michael: Well we talked about St. Vincent already, that’s one of them.
Do you have Strange Mercy? That’s the only one I have by her.
Michael: Yeah, I have Strange Mercy, Actor and St. Vincent.
Oh my gosh! I remember when you got Actor.
Michael: Yeah, it was a Christmas present!
Yeah! That was so funny!
Michael: Gotta keep it a secret!
Don’t look at the records!
[Michael’s family came in and bought him some records and one of them was a St. Vincent release, we had gotten a few in and he happened to come into the store around the same time and I figured he would buy it if he saw it, so I told him not to look.]
Mark: We have a bunch. For me, Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk.
Michael: Pulling that out, for sure.
Mark: Attack In Black. Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown for sure. Absolutely one of my favourites.
That’s such a cool cover! [Hadestown]
Mark: It’s a great folk-rock album.
Michael: Jellyfish because it’s especially one of our favourites, for both of us. Where is it?
Mark: It’s lost.
Michael: A-B-C-D-E-F-G… here we go. It’s a horrendous cover.
What about it? I’ve never heard this before.
Michael: Okay, so these guys were a kinda power-pop band at a time where it really wasn’t cool to do that. I think they put this out in 1993.
1993!
Michael: So it was during grunge and Nirvana and stuff, right? They basically went nowhere and then I guess one of the guys in the band was a giant asshole or something, so they broke up but yeah, it’s Sgt. Pepper’s, but catchier, better.
Mark: I don’t know. To me, it’s in the vein of that, it’s really different and daring. The keys player, Roger Manning, is the best parts arranger for orchestras and stuff, subtly, while kind of blending it in with a rock band.
Michael: Have you ever heard the debut album by fun.?
Mark: Aim and Ignite?
Nope.
Michael: They became a radio hit with their next album, but their first album is really awesomely orchestrated with accordions and strings.
Really!
Michael: So yeah! It was this guy, Roger Manning, who did all the arranging on their album.
Cool. That’s really cool. I’m gonna listen to that. Okay, what’s the weirdest album you own? Either album art wise, or song wise…
Mark: I think Mike has weirder ones art wise.
Michael: This one’s not that weird art wise, but the songs are really weird so I’ll show you.
Mark: Dirty Projectors is ridiculous looking.
Michael: Oh! Yeah! That stupid art!
What is it?
Michael: You know Dirty Projectors most recent release?
Maybe.
Michael: What’s it called… this one here. Swing Lo Magellan.
Yeah! I remember that. What’s weird about it?
Michael: I don’t know, it’s just a picture of them teaching their neighbour what they do or something. It’s just a random shot of them.
I remember that album was super popular when it came out, and I didn’t really understand the whole vibe from it, but then I listened to it at the record store and was like, this is actually super good.
Michael: Yeah, they’re really good. They’re really weird, I found it took me around five or six listens to understand what they were doing at all, because he is a very unconventional songwriter. But I love it. I wanna talk about this one though.
Michael: Funnily enough, she’s a current member of the Dirty Projectors. Her name is Olga Bell, and I think she lives in New York City, but I guess she felt a huge connection to her Russian heritage, so she wrote this album. It’s kind of similar to a classical composition that she did by herself, she sang about six different parts and modulated her voice to sing the male parts as well. It’s all in Russian too. It’s definitely the weirdest listening experience I had, but was super cool. It’s very desolate. That’s another one that took me a couple of listens but then I got into it.
The artwork is very simple. I like that.
Michael: Yeah, it seems really regal.
That’s awesome. Do you guys have records that you’ve bought at shows?
Mark: Yes absolutely.
Hey, that’s signed!
Mark: Yeah!
They didn’t release the new one on vinyl yet, right?
Mark: They have now. I haven’t seen a physical copy but I saw they wrote on Facebook about it. I also have Shotgun Jimmie.
Nice!
Michael: This one I just bought a couple of weeks ago. It’s Hop Along. I saw them in Toronto. I just discovered them about a month ago and they’re one of my favourite bands. This just came out a couple of months ago.
Okay so, what did I ask the last time? What’s a band that you don’t have any records by, that you love, that you want. Like holy grail stuff.
Michael: Oh man, so, you know Thrice?
Yeah.
Michael: So Thrice released these two albums, The Alchemy Index one, two, three and four. They’re about different elements, so there’s a fire one, which is kinda punky, screamy, rock. Then there’s the water one which is more ambient and electronic, air which sounds more prog/alternative, then there’s earth, which is more country and laid-back and acoustic. So they released a box set of the four of them, and I don’t know how many they made, but it was just a couple thousand… I could be totally wrong, but they didn’t make many, but anyways they sold them, went out of print and never made them again. So it’s this beautiful box with all four and it’s kind of like that Jethro Tull one with a booklet and all this art, and they go for like five hundred bucks on eBay.
Oh my god! I hate that.
Michael: Yeah. So that’s what I’d like off the top of my head.
Mark: There’s been a couple of Record Store Day releases over the past few years, limited run cool stuff. Nothing is really jumping out at me, but I haven’t really scoured sites and that sort of thing. When you say that you want a “holy grail” thing it implies a certain elusiveness, which I haven’t necessarily found, but just by nature of having a really small record collection, I want to have a lot more of what I listen to on vinyl in general. Which is achievable, but expensive.
What’s something that you listen to on your phone or something that you would want on vinyl?
Mark: I would really really like to have a couple of things that I’ve gotten into lately. A band called Algiers.
Yes. I’ve listened to their album.
Mark: Yes, it’s their debut, and a guy named Andy Schauf. I’ve gotten really into both lately and I find that hi-fidelity – playing it on our nicer audio system would really go the distance because both albums have really dark connotations and really interesting production, so I’m hoping to pick up both records at some point. I don’t even think that Algiers is on vinyl.
I just heard it on a CD at the station. It’s really good.
Michael: It’s funny how sometimes you can listen to a vinyl and you can tell it’s just basically a CD rip. Then you have these bands that clearly recorded in analogue and it sounds a lot different on a record player. It’s when something has that real sound, it almost becomes your favourite record.
Mark: Spilt Milk, when you mentioned holy grail, was really something that I wanted forever. Ever since I started buying records, I have wanted that one on vinyl.
Michael: We got it at Sonic Boom in Toronto, and after I bought it, I was obsessively calling Mark until he picked up so I could say, “guess what I bought!”
That’s so amazing! Is there anything else you would want to talk about?
Mark: There’s a neat story I have with Cosmic Dave’s with this record I have. This was a limited Record Store Day run of this Dessa album [Castor, The Twin], a hip hop artist from somewhere in the states. But it was a limited run of around a thousand copies total, and I asked Mark [Cosmic Dave’s Mark] if he could get it and he said probably not, and I just said “okay.” But then he called me and it came in! So it’s a really neat record to have and was baffled that Mark actually got it in. Very bizzare.
Michael: Yeah, she’s cool. Do you know Doomtree? They’re a hip hop collective, and she’s a member of that.
Thanks Michael and Mark!!
vinyleyes 