There are three compelling reasons to collect vinyl: it’s cheap, it sounds great, and it changes the way you listen to music. It requires time and dedication to find the stores with vinyl, but once you’ve found the two or three shops worth frequenting, it’s like a vodka tonic on the porch. Vinyl becomes obsessive and your collection will grow quickly.

A great book or a great album coheres. It may not cohere in a simple or obvious way, and it may only be clear in retrospect. Listening to vinyl underscores the difference between a sterling, cohesive LP and quickly produced songs. It is more apparent on vinyl because you listen to a side and usually to the whole album straight through. The experience is richer. But it is different in a crucial way from listening to songs on random play or on the radio. The artist or somebody at the label chose the songs you listen to and they chose the order in which you hear them. There is stuff to be learned from that order and from what comes out of it. There is control to be ceded to the artist in this kind of listening. It is the same control ceded to a band playing live. They’ll play whatever they want and you get to drink your tallboys and cherish it all.

Over time your collection starts to show your leanings and you find yourself building up pockets of depth: maybe you track down eight Emmylou Harris albums from the 70s and 80s or you succeed in collecting all of the Nirvana releases, 7″ releases included, or maybe you get up and put together an ABBA effort. Now you are able to compare the LPs and see how the artist changed over the years. The success of multi-cd compilations has made it easy for us to gain this appreciation from somebody else’s curatorial perspective. But there is something fantastic and mesmerizing about finding the obscure late 60s/early 70s Stones releases that sound ridiculously fresh and daring now. Listening to an LP like the Stones 1965 release December’s Children, or the 1979 Clash double LP London Calling, or the 1981 Human League release Dare captures artists at a certain time and place. There is an immediacy to vinyl tied up to a degree in its technological naivete. Playing a record and being told a story share something. And it is refreshing to learn history from the concerns, focus, and sound of a band recorded many years ago.

Some Refreshing Vinyl
# Stones, up to 1980
# James Brown
# Van Morrison, pre-Born Again
# Luscious Jackson, early releases
# Etta James
# Emmylou Harris, 70s and 80s
# Clash
# Nina Simone
# Nirvana
# JJ Cale
# Psychedelic Furs

All week long I have felt a dual impulse: to grieve and mourn; and to find renewed energy and inspiration to do what I can with the talents I possess. At first I thought I’d put together a thing on mourning music. But that seemed macabre and stupid. Then I thought I’d make some drawings and scan them in. And that amounted to a page with spare white pencil drawings on navy blue paper, which similarly felt wrong. I retraced my path and revamped my strategy. Maybe the answer would be to compile a list of underappreciated bands. I figured I could draw attention to some artists putting out record and after record of brilliant pop songs. It would begin with Robert Scott’s work with the Bats. But I couldn’t sustain the positive energy that undertaking requires to be done right. And so I am left with this: the first installment of my Spotlight: series.

In deference to the twin targets of this week’s unprecedented terrorist attacks, I have chosen to shine my spotlight on my favorite Washington, D.C. record label, Teenbeat Records, run by Mark Robinson. Before I talk a bit about the label’s history, I’d like to recount two stories. In Charlottesville, Virginia, there is a sushi restaurant (Tokyo Rose) with a basement which hosts many of the “alternative” acts going through town. On a nondistinct weekday night in 1996 I went there and got a warm bass ale on tap and meandered around. Many high school students were roaming around enthusiastically. I didn’t understand why, usually the crowd was much older and, at best, unimpressed. When the band came on, the students were jumping all over the place and I had to squirm my way to the front to see a band fronted by 15 or 16-year old girls in matching cowgirl outfits. Their sound was oddly reminiscent of a country B52s and I soon found out that they were Teenbeat Records’ Blast Off Country Style. Over time more of the Teenbeat roster began accumulating in my collection: a few Versus LPs that rock; the rare Air Miami release and the oddly compelling remix of “World Cup Fever”; the pop stylings of Aden; and a couple Teenbeat sampler albums. When, by coincidence, I was in DC during this winter’s Teenbeat 15th anniversary show at the Black Cat, I showed up and ordered a martini to show my enthusiasm.

I was pretty impressed as a youth at a Jane’s Addiction show at City Gardens in Trenton, NJ, when Perry Farrell turned around in his black leather jumpsuit and unbuttoned his ass flap. Chris Freeman’s gold lame dress came off for Pansy Division’s encore “Bunnies Bunnies Bunnies” at a Philadelphia show and I thought that was darned cool. But I had not seen Butch Willis yet. Butch Willis showed up at the Black Cat. And I ordered martinis for everyone. Mark Robinson was on stage with his trademark grin and natty attire. Butch himself was wearing a dandy red tank top for the occasion. If I wanted anyone to write and sing a song about September 11, 2001, it would be Butch Willis or Tom Waits. I’d buy both of them martinis. Butch Willis is the only singer that has ever transfixed me. Most of the time I had no idea what he was saying. It was unintelligible, he sounded like a deranged, blind-drunk Mick Jagger. But wherever he was, it felt like he was singing about it for all he was worth, honest and nasty and worked up to a frenzy. There’s artful ways to express pain, but his shit’s compelling.

Teenbeat’s Rondelles seem to be real popular with college radio these days. True Love Always (TLA) has enjoyed a bit of a following for some time now, as has Versus (who opened for Yo La Tengo on a recent tour). Mark Robinson has released some of his own material recently to fair acclaim. The Air Miami material ranks in my undisclosed list of underappreciated stuff. But critically comparing bands on the Teenbeat roster is largely arbitrary. It’s a matter of taste. The label chooses mainly bands from Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia, each with a distinctive sound, a clean pop aesthetic, and compelling albums. My advice: buy a 2001 Teenbeat sampler from their catalog for $5, use the extra cash to buy olives or pearl onions for your icy cocktail, find a comfortable locale, and enjoy.

# Box sets: the Feelies, Royal Trux, Pansy Division, Public Enemy, Magnetic Fields, Superchunk.

# An album of original material wherein Stephin Merritt is called upon to sing other artists’ songs with a radically enthusiastic, emotionally charged style.

# A Madonna tribute album which asks diverse artists entirely unrelated to her oeuvre to cover her material. Possible contributors: Jesus Lizard, Hole, Shellac, Tom Waits, Free Kitten (admittedly, Sonic Youth is responsible for the finest Madonna cover, the ill Into The Groove(y) track), The Boredoms, and Superchunk.

# A Looper-Lee Scratch Perry collaborative album.

# The next MC Solaar album produced by Steve Albini or Jim O’Rourke.

# A series of issues where two bands alternate covering each other’s material, i.e. Yo La Tengo covers Daftpunk and vice versa; Halobenders cover Lyle Lovett and vice versa.

TRENDS

# More distributors carrying smaller record labels so it is easier to buy them; or increased ordering capabilities from the record label websites.

# Better, more comprehensive, more accessible music listings on the internet and in print. If I want to pay to see bands, venues should make it their business to make it easy as hell for me to find out about their upcoming shows.

# Continued resurgence of vinyl availability in record stores. It’s tough to find but God bless the little shops and the big vinyl events scattered about.

# Continued reissues of older material that is hard to find, and increased domestic availability of foreign imprints. American acts sell here partly because they have access to all the marketing, distribution, and advertising their management can muster, not because they are necessarily better than what is being recorded internationally.

# Continued imaginative use of: the film soundtrack. There has progress in this area over the last several years, but there is still a conspicuous lack of imagination and/or suitability in lots of popular film soundtracks. It’s too much to ask for but anyway I want another Ennio Morricone and while I’m at it the likes of Ry Cooder’s work on the Paris, Texas soundtrack.

CRITICS

# It would be nice if critics tried hard to understand that recycling and ripping off are not the same as innovation. It cannot be cogently argued that Radiohead is a radical departure for music, nor can it be reasonably defended that nobody before Britney Spears thought an innocent schoolgirl routine would sell.

# Music that is “difficult” does not exist. Music that is difficult for a particular person exists. Similarly, inaccessible suffers the same lexical confusion. That a critic cannot adequately understand what the Royal Trux or Tortoise or The Ex is getting at is not really a criticism; rather, it is a problem for the critic to resolve without us hearing about it.

# We are reading criticism for a specific reason: to find albums we can expect to like. We are not reading criticism to see how many pretty cliche’s can be jammed into a few paragraphs. Nor are we reading criticism for quaint personal anecdotes or to see whether the critic has mastered the ever-expanding universe of music subgenres and scenes.

# Lastly, a stiff standard for critics to adhere to: tell us whether the music is good or bad, not whether you like it or not. There is a difference, and it is crucial. I can say: I don’t like jazz piano, but Bill Evans is an extraordinarily gifted jazz pianist and his records are incredible. The critic makes or breaks his/her career in explaining why something is good or bad, not by exemplifying superior taste.