So here’s this thing that I wrote, then decided could be the start of an essay on record digging. The full thing won’t be done by the time Stupidity Hole stops, so I figured it’d be worth sharing this now.

The final version of this essay will be published on From Somewhere out the Back. If you’ve been following my stuff here long enough, then you’ll recognise the name as the title for when I write about music releases in my music collection. I’d been intending to dedicate a space for those pieces for a while, and of course rather than hold to that, the space expanded to more than just music.

The draft below is just to give an idea of progress.

I hope you enjoy.

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When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time browsing through record stores looking for music. Usually these would be quick, ten, maybe twenty-minute affairs as I’d have an idea of what I wanted to buy, and usually once or twice a month, but over time the visits increased to once every week or two, and occasionally they’d be for an hour, or sometimes hours if I was visiting more than one.

I spent a lot of time hunting down things that were difficult to get, such as Freibentos, and when I finally got a record player, I’d move more into the record sections, digging away, trying to see what came up. Before then, however, I did a dig at Goulds in Newtown, back in its old location. I dug through stacks of records and books, and unearthed Murder, Inc., Prong and An Emotional Fish. Good times.

But I spent a lot of time digging and listening, and I mean really listening to music, just taking it all in, being obsessed, but not so obsessed that I regretted doing my marine science degree.

My friend Ewe once told me that my knowledge of music was encyclopedic. I don’t think my knowledge is that advanced and probably never will be, but I am good at pulling out stuff that people might not know about artists they like, and I’m also good at finding stuff that people may like. Who isn’t, though? It just takes time and paying attention, and hoping you develop a good enough ear and understanding to be good at putting something forward.

I remember once someone trying to tell me the release order of some Godflesh stuff, and knowing that they were wrong. Shame. I also remember wanting to work in a record store. Still would be happy to, but I live in Sydney which makes it a challenge to do so these days. But I digress.

I’d flip through stacks and shelves, look at each record carefully, see what came forward. It’s what helped me get into Miles Davis. Would buy a record, bring it home, spin it when viable. Listen. Take it in, work toward understanding what I was hearing. What was going on.

In a some ways music as a physical format has been superseded, but there’s still something about the time investment a good-sounding record provides. You have to take it out of its sleeve, turn on the record player, get the needle in the right position, lower it, put it on. A record can be unwieldy, but its an intentional time investment. You have to be a participant in putting it on to listen to it, and so usually you’re making time to listen to one. You can put a record on in the background, but the issue there is that you’re going to be drawn back when it ends. You have to flip it, so when you put a record on you’re dedicating time and spending time with it. You’re making an intentional decision about how you want to hear and engage with music that requires some physical action.

I haven’t gone digging for a while. The convenience of being able to jump online and order, or just even put on a digital copy of an album is great. So much less time, but I feel that I’m not listening to stuff the same way. I’m still hungry; I’m still looking for stuff, seeing what comes up and I’m still listening, but there’s less time involved and the convenience takes away from the ritual, I feel. I don’t know if I could claim that this is a bad thing, however; it’s the way it is, but for what is gained something is lost, and that same kind of intimacy just isn’t there.

The last dig I did was at a record fare in Bathurst a couple of years ago. I was visiting Ewe and Anna, there was a fare on, so Ewen and I went down. Most of everything was overpriced, and nothing in particular caught our fancy, and sometimes that’s the way it is. It was still an enjoyable time in a way. The process of flipping through records, seeing what there is, and maybe something catches your eye. It can be like looking for a book, but not necessarily knowing how it’ll appear to you.

Sometimes you dig for stuff and you come across something by someone you’re familiar with, or something catches your eye and you don’t have an idea of how it’ll sound. If it turns out to be something you don’t enjoy, you’re still gaining something from what you’re hearing.