Clearing out the loft, the garage and every cupboard and drawer of my parents’ house has had its perks in the form of vinyl, tapes, VHS cassettes, mixtapes, CDs and DVDs. There is a chance they have collections to be envied. They have albums they didn’t even know they owned with unknown handwriting, original covers/cases, and some labels as ‘Class 3 or Class 7’, coming most certainly from ‘show and tell’ lessons at school in the 60s.
This has filled time when trying not to watch too much TV and avoiding screens after working from the phone via a laptop all day. We’ve listened to everything from Carole King to Fleetwood Mac, to more recent purchases of Jake Bugg and Harry Styles. Other vinyls include Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra, Jane Fonda (lol), Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, and The Four Seasons.
DVD wise I constantly have a long list of films I plan to watch, but often opt for podcasts or shorter 30 minute TV sitcoms such as Miranda, Outnumbered, or more recently The Stranger and Sherlock on Netflix. Writing this has certainly made me realise the amount of media I have consumed over the past few weeks! I have ticked off Rendition and Pride and Prejudice from my list finally, with Pulp Fiction and Harry Potter 3 still to go (bizarrely managed to miss the worldwide Harry Potter hype back in the day and have still only seen the first two). Managed to find a DVD named ‘Alexandra’s videos’ which will not play on any device we own, so eagerly awaiting a time when I can ask a friend to try it on their TV/laptops.
Back to the music, we have huge collections of Elton John, The Police, The Beatles, and David Cassidy. I have been taking the posters out of the vinyl covers and plastering them on my wall, although never a real fan, my childhood bedroom walls are now sporting ginormous Toto and Wings Over America, Paul McCartney posters.
Finally, onto VHS’, many of which I remember watching as a child, I loved Riverdance and definitely imagined myself as a future dancer. My mum and I re-watched Carole King’s live set the other day and had a great dance party. The Neil Diamond film too is a favourite of my Dad’s. We still have Bruce Springstein, Eurythmics, Carly Simon, and Dire Straits to go. We are probably one of the only households that can easily play tapes, VHS, and vinyl but struggle with a DVD or Spotify playlist!
We did manage to set up a Bluetooth speaker this week that I bought my brother for Xmas, he clearly left it behind as he has a fancier one of his own, but my mum persevered and finally got Johnny Hates Jazz on the speaker via YouTube on her phone. So tech. The irony that a lot of my work revolves around social media is quite hilarious.