Record Store Day: Something In Construcion, 'Records and Me'

David Laurie started his life in the music industry as the A&R for Nude Records, thus responsible for the careers of Suede, Ultrasound and Geneva to name just a few. Launching Something In Construction in the early noughties alongside his career as a succesful radio plugger, Laurie has gone on to sign countless amounts of incredible artists. From Loney Dear to Memory Tapes, Air France to The Concretes and most recently ANR and A Lull – needless to say, the man hath taste. A long-time supporter and friend to TLOBF, we asked him to tell us just exactly what his record collection means to him.

I have a problem. I am a pathetic addict. I can’t walk past a record shop without wanting to go in and get inspired. Luckily they are making record shops extinct so my habit is easier to manage these days. It certainly won’t be a problem my kids have.

The modern instanet is a miracle. If I fancy hearing a Sparks song, mentioned by someone I was just talking to in America, it’s only a click away. This happened yesterday. It happens to me pretty much everyday. Amazing, really.

And very efficient. Very clean. And, frankly, if y’all are strapped for cash (ie. young), it’s pretty much free. Again, amazing. If we’d had the internet first, there would doubtless have been no need for records.

But that was not how it went down. And that is a good thing because records are art. The music is the main part of the art, of course. But the packaging, the presentation, is very much part of the art. It develops, enhances and informs the music. It lures the listener in, provokes curiosity and interest. It is informed by the music. It strengthens the relationship between the artist and the listener. It makes fans of listeners. And this extra appreciation and understanding of the music, and the musician is amazing. It’s a connection. A one-way connection but, done well, it’s a profound one.

I run a label so, I would say that. But it’s my love of music, of art and yes, of records that inspired me to do this job. That and an insatiable wish to be proved right.

It lifts the process from buying music to buying into it. And with something as magical and transformative as music, why would you not want to buy into it? I could download the entire Sparks discography off a torrent. It wouldn’t take long. But would that immerse me in Sparks’ world better than buying an album at a time. I don’t think so. Buying a record from a shop marks a time and date in your life and is the result of a thought process, your mood, your life situation and the world around you. The investment again enhances the experience. The OMD single (‘Souvenir’ – geddit) that I bought in Paris on a school trip when I was 14, the Nirvana album I was so so so excited to buy, the Cure albums a girlfriend bought me, the Pixies single my mum actually liked, the Joy Division box set that I really couldn’t afford at the time, the surprise Radiohead 12” panic buying, the Subtle album I was previously unaware of that I got in Oxfam in Farnham last weekend. The summer of 1983 that I bought a David Bowie album every Saturday with my paper round money. I strongly recommend this Bowie/weekly idea to all of you by the way. Bowie = God.

So maybe the connection is not so one way. These links are part of the process and they are not efficient and clean. They are human, emotional and way way better, deeper and stronger than they are efficient.

Flicking through records. If I get a bit down, that is what cheers me up. In record shops, at friends’ houses and of course, on my own bespoke, gorgeous, nerdy, shelves. This simple pleasure has won me friends, started relationships, ended some too, and broadened my horizons more than books and films and anything else. Record collections and record shops are like brains. And flicking through the racks and shelves is like a thought process. Synapses link up and all of sudden you are considering Thai psyche music from the late 60s or Big Youth or realising that The Besnard Lakes are amazing, or discovering that someone actually likes Maroon 5 and should probably be cut from your social circle.

Scrolling through files on a hard drive is absolutely not the same experience, it is uninspiring and clean to the point of soulless. That hard drive makes for a piss-poor heirloom and it doesn’t cheer me up on a rainy day.