Vinyl Diving
Just because it's vinyl doesn't mean it's old.
I don’t really like the phrase “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” but I guess it can apply when you are referring to a friend who has a somewhat different musical taste than you. I was having a conversation one day with a friend who is not a fan of The Promise Ring. “Cap’n Jazz is better,” they’d say. I’d scoff and disagree, while trying to maintain some sort of credibility within musical taste ranks. We ended up chalking it up to personality as opposed to having a better or worse taste in music than the other person. The argument resulted in me getting a free Promise Ring vinyl out of the deal, so maybe I ended up winning.
Someone giving you a CD is a pretty nice gesture, but a free vinyl is a different beast. It’s almost like receiving a plant from someone. It’s not going to hurt anything if you don’t take care of it, but principle alone should make you want to keep it in good shape. This particular Promise Ring album is entitled wood/water, something plants need, but records do not.
The Promise Ring was born in Milwaukee in 1995. The creation of Davey Von Bohlen, it started as a side project to the aforementioned Cap’n Jazz. They would release five albums from 1996 until 2002, with the last being wood/water. After it’s release, Von Bohlen decided to focus his attention on his latest and most current creation, Maritime.
The record doesn’t sound incredibly different from it’s CD counterpart because the record isn’t very old at all. However, it still has the random clicks and jumps that make listening to a record so incredibly satisfying. Luckily, this vinyl features my favorite Promise Ring song entitled “Stop Playing Guitar.” There is a specific point in the song where Davey says, “I’ll be taking her number home, yeah, yeah, yeah oh yeah.” Damn it Davey, you get me every time. The end of the song gets a little fuzzy, but what would vinyl be without that sort of charm?
STREAM: The Promise Ring – Stop Playing Guitar
Posted by Wes Soltis on Jan 29, 2008 @ 12:00 am
