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Start giftingOld Records Never Die
One Man’s Quest for His Vinyl and His Past
Narrator
Ramiz Monsef
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Length
8 hours 33 minutes
Language
English
High Fidelity meets Killing Yourself to Live in this memoir of one man’s search for his lost record collection.
As he finds himself within spitting distance of middle age, journalist Eric Spitznagel feels acutely the loss of … something. Freedom? Maybe. Coolness? Could be. The records he sold in a financial pinch? Definitely. To find out for sure, he sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records: the Bon Jovi record with his first girlfriend’s phone number scrawled on the front sleeve, the KISS Alive II he once shared with his little brother, the Replacements Let It Be he’s pretty sure, twenty years later, would still smell like weed.
As he embarks on his hero’s journey, he reminisces about the actual records, the music, and the people he listened to it with—old girlfriends, his high school pals, and, most poignantly, his father and his young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record culture with questions about our connection to our past, whether we can ever recapture it, and whether we would want to if we could.
Eric Spitznagel, author, humorist, and journalist, writes for major publications, including the Compare and Contrast column for the New York Times Magazine, and is the author of several books, including The Junk Food Companion.
Ramiz Monsef has spent several seasons as a member of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s acting company, and he is the playwright of OSF’s 2013 production The Unfortunates. He has also appeared onstage in New York and in numerous regional productions.
Reviews
“The perfect combination of a vinyl completist’s dream and nightmare.”
“When he searches for the records he lost and sold, Spitznagel is trying to return to a tangible past, and he details that process with great sensitivity and impact.”
“Calling someone’s work Nick Hornby-like is a bit cliché, but Spitznagel gives high fidelity to Hornby’s feel for music and its relationship to life.”
“It’s a classic, High Fidelity-esque revelation that has Spitznagel in the midst of a ‘what does it all mean?’ moment wherein he begins exploring what-if situations and finding that things often pan out just as they should.”
“Think of it as an updated version of High Fidelity.”
“Spitznagel knows that a good story can sometimes lead to a greater truth.”
“Ramiz Monsef’s perfect everyman voice—resonant with the inflections of old-time political hacks and old school comedians—couldn’t be more well suited to the task. Its air of righteous indignation and seasoned wariness is the perfect vehicle for these vinyl memories.”
“A funny and heartfelt memoir about music collecting that gives birth to a new branch of social science: Gen-X archaeology.”
“A touching exploration of loss: of opportunities, of loved ones, of the ability to even remotely discern what’s hip. Hilarious and heartfelt, this is a book for anyone who has ever spent entire years of their lives haunting record stores.”
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