When I was a kid, I was always more interested in the museum gift shop than the museum itself. In many cases, this is still true today. What can I say? I was born to be a capitalist. This fascination with acquiring a physical object to commemorate even the most minute occasions is something that never really wore off. Nowadays, I am usually able to avoid the allure of coffee mugs, shot glasses, t-shirts, and keychains, but when it comes to records, I’m still an 8-year-old boy with mommy and daddy’s money, happily adding to my too-big-for-my-apartment record collection.
Music can tell so many stories; there are so many pieces of music in my head that are forever associated with a specific time in my life. I know, I know, you’ve never heard that before.
It’s cliche but I will never not think of being seasick on an Aegean ferry, head down, eyes closed, fanning my face with a British Airways boarding pass while listening to Viagra Boys for the first time. The opening bass line and lyrics to ‘Creatures’ is something I will always associate with the blinding sun reflecting off the choppy waves and shining right through my eyelids while I tried to keep last night’s souvlaki in my stomach. Way down, under the water, I don’t think I even finished the album after that. My nausea was too distracting, and I let my headphones dangle around my neck, absorbing the sweat streaming down my cheeks.
The same is true for concerts. Throw on an album I haven’t listened to in a while, and I can tell you all about the shitty bar we went to before the show, and just how far we had to park on that particular night, how cold it was on the walk back after the show, about that guy next to us who took the wrong combination of drugs at the wrong time.
This is all especially true when I’m flipping through my collection and stumbling upon a record I bought at a concert.
Most recently, this was a selection of B-sides only available on vinyl by Nerd-rockers Cheekface. I can remember the too-sweet Cheekface-themed cocktail that the venue had that night. I remember the entire crowd screaming about ramen. I remember timing my edibles perfectly (for once.)
Before that, it was MJ Lenderman. I realized only a few days before the show that another one of my favorite artists was opening for him. I bought Dulling the Horns by Wild Pink to remember the night. The lead singer was working the merch booth, and I was too shy to ask him to sign the record I bought from him, and I didn’t have a pen anyway. I took my edibles too early and was hitting that warm, sleepy phase by the end of the show. Luckily, he played my favorite songs early on in the set, when I still had the energy to bob my head rhythmically.
Probably the most valuable record in my collection is also from a live show. My treasured copy of 4D Country by Geese was something I grabbed during their 3D country tour when they came to Portland. It was one of wife and I’s first shows after moving. We we went to a bar before the concert, not because we drink much or because we are the kind of couple that go to bars but it just feels like the thing you are supposed to before a concert. I was half way through my Mai Tai when 3/5 of the band walked in. No one recognized them. Even I didn’t at first. I just thought it was a typical group of Portlanders in their early 20s. Strangely dressed with greasy hair and the tired, worn faces of guys who get 5 hours of drug and alcohol induced sleep each night. Again, I was too shy to say anything and too broke to buy them drinks. So I sat and stared respectfully.
I got my copy of Glow On at a Turnstile show in Denver, CO. The band’s hype was at an all-time high, and tons of rowdy kids packed into Mission Ballroom in an attempt to either relive their mosh pit glory days or to experience what they missed out on by being too young during the good ol’ days of Warped Tour in the 2000s. It was your typical cold as all fuck October night in Denver. The band had as much energy as you could have hoped for, and so did the mosh pit, which I kept a respectful distance from.
Funny enough, I throw that album on and I’m right back on that same high-speed ferry in Greece. I was working my way through a 30 or so album playlist I had created to combat boredom on the 20+ hours of traveling I would be doing. Glow On was next, with Welfare Jazz to follow. I was still fresh with that early vacation excitement, and the heat of the small cabin and choppy waves hadn’t caused any wishes for death quite yet. I was so fascinated by the transition from the frantic and energetic opening tracks before Underwater Boi comes in and slows the tempo down that I didn’t even notice how sweaty I was getting.
The summer of 2024 was a good one. The size of my record collection nearly doubled, and it was perhaps the first summer in years that involved happy memories but did not involve a vacation. Our first time enjoying Portland in the summer, we went to as many concerts as we could afford, went fruit picking as many times as our fridge would allow, and went on as many hikes as our legs could manage.
We went to two different PDX live shows, a summer concert series where the shows are smack in the middle of Downtown Portland in a plaza known as Portland’s Living Room, which is normally associated with vagabonds, tourists, and really good breakfast sandwiches. The second concert we went to that week was The Beths and Alvvays. I remember being bummed that the merch tent had run out of signed copies of the Expert in a Dying Field, the album the Beths were touring for, only to have a large box of signed copies delivered to the tent just as I was stepping up to purchase. I remember the giant fish on stage that was cause for discussion for the people sat behind us whom my wife and I were casually eavesdropping on, one of whom was trying acid for the first time. I remember being on the lookout for my wife’s stalker the entire show, who we eventually spotted but managed to keep a safe distance from. His bright orange shirt and the dick-print pressed through his leggings made him easy to spot and thus easy to avoid.
There’s more than just those in my record collection, but these stories are really only interesting to me. Hence, why I have failed to make a point besides music is powerful stuff.