Photo by Zack MacRae

The preservation of a culture that should have gone the way of the buffalo years ago
Written by Zack MacRae

For Chad Tindall, “it’s all about crate digging.”
It means spending hours in the stacks at some guy’s house in Sault St. Marie in hopes of finding that one authentic hi-fi track that no one else has. Or making special trips to the United States on the hunt for an elusive sample.
If you were to call Tindall’s preoccupation with vinyl and finding the perfect sample an obsession, you might be right. In fact, Tindall, who DJs under the name Chadillac, would probably agree with you.
“I do crate digging all over the place,” says Tindall. “Sometimes I go down to Detroit to dig, that’s where the best stuff is.”
The act of “crate digging” is a practice that all vinyl aficionado are deeply concerned with. It’s the thrill of the hunt; digging through seemingly endless dusty record jackets in stacks of old milk crates.
However, shop owners are noticing that it’s not just the few analog audiophiles that are involved in this nostalgic activity. In the last five years, a growing number of listeners have been trading their CDs in for vinyl.
Vince Dabin, co-owner of Waterloo’s specialty vinyl shop, Orange Monkey, isn’t surprised by the interest he’s been getting lately. Over the last 16 years Dabin, and his business partner Charles Janzen have been involved in preserving a culture that many people are now picking up on.
“We probably sell about 20 records for every one CD,” says Dabin. “A lot of our records are only $2.50 so someone will come in here with 20 bucks and walk out with a mitt full of records.”
Janzen, who Guelph locals might recognize as the bearded fellow who DJs for funk night at the Albion Hotel, is confident in the product that he sells and remains faithful to the ‘hot wax’ pressings.
“A record played on a nice turntable will always sound better than a CD,” Janzen states.
In the last couple of decades, independently owned, specialty vinyl shops like Orange Monkey have carried a lot of weight on their shoulders. Because of an evolution in technology, the vast majority of record companies discontinued their vinyl pressings and adopted CDs, rendering vinyl obsolete.
In the early 90s interest in vinyl was exclusive to a few niche markets and individual collectors.
As Dabin states, “We opened up in ‘93 and we were trying to keep vinyl alive back then.”
Small specialty vinyl shops acted like museums, preserving a culture and a medium that many consider to be the way that we are supposed to hear music.
Orange Monkey is ripe with musical history. From wall to wall and in the spaces between, the crowded attic space located above a local bar is filled with busting record crates and hanging memorabilia. Over the last 16 years, the shop has moved thousands of records onto the turntables of a whole new generation of listeners.
“Back in the ‘90s we couldn’t sell Meatloaf to save our lives, and now we can’t keep it in stock,” Janzen admits.
Janzen says that in the last five years, records have seen a renaissance, where more and more people are coming in asking for their current and classic favorites on vinyl.
So how is vinyl coming back from the dead? Why the sudden interest?
It’s actually quite an interesting and unique phenomenon if you take into account other forms of media like tape and more recently, CDs that have been phased out by technological advances. It seems that vinyl has bypassed this idea of “the survival of the fittest,” where consumer convenience is a deciding factor.
In fact, in this case “advancements” in technology are more of a hindrance than a benefit. The discrepancy here is between analog and digital recording.
With digital recording, some of the fidelity of the sound, or the quality of the reproduction of the original sound, is lost when analog signals are compressed and converted into discrete numbers.
Analog recordings, used traditionally on vinyl, stay true to the original source, storing sound waves on the record as a physical texture. When the needle of the turntable interacts with the texture in the grooves of the record, the result is a high-fidelity experience.
Peter Bradley, Music Coordinator at CFRU 93.3 FM, Guelph’s campus and community radio station still spins vinyl on his appropriately named “The Peter Bradley Morning Show.”
“I think we are a long way away from people letting go of this physical tradition,” says Bradley. “People want to see the cover, read the liner notes and have some further interaction with the artist beyond the audible aspect.”
Tindall, who also hosts a show on CFRU called “Fishing with Boston” uses vinyl almost exclusively in his broadcasts and seems to profit from this choice.
“It gives me an advantage because lots of the time I end up playing stuff that other people don’t have … Some of my best vinyl tracks are songs that I know people wouldn’t be able to download.”
For Toronto resident, Alain Levesque, juggling two jobs as a cook and commuting to work everyday by bicycle, doesn’t leave him with a lot of time to sit down and listen to records. Record companies are now providing listeners, with the purchase of a record, a digital download code that is servicing every possible need.
“The digital downloads give you the best of both worlds. I get a hi-fi copy on vinyl and a digital version that I can listen to when I’m away from my turntable.”
Whatever the reason, the preservation of a unique and functional piece of media is in good hands.
When Bradley speaks about his preoccupation with vinyl the reasons are clear:
“I think part of it is the ceremony, part of it is the art work, put of it is the sound, but the combination means that vinyl and physical mediums of music aren’t going anywhere.”