Jennifer Gariepy writes, paints, reads, sings and dances in her living room in Detroit, Michigan, and beyond. She recently took the time to answer some questions for me about her record collection via email. Thank you Jennifer!
How many records do you have?
Well, they take up about 3 linear feet of shelf space, which translates to 216 records, give or take a few. Not a very big collection.
Do you remember the first kind of music that you got excited about buying on vinyl?
The first record I ever bought was Men at Work's first album, and it got me excited about LPs in general. For the first time I found out that a band's songs ran a wider gamut than what I'd heard on the radio, and that I really liked the things that didn't get played on the radio at all. I haven't listened to that album in years. I wonder if it still sounds good.
Next I got into British music. I was a teenager in the 1980s, so you can imagine some of the crap I have: Duran Duran albums. They all sound pretty awful now. I moved on to Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, “How Soon Is Now?” by the Smiths, Pornography by the Cure, gothy stuff. Nothing terribly outré. The words didn’t attract me as
much as the sounds–
the darker the music the better. I like spooky, haunting songs. Creepy sounds. I have echoey rainy nights in my mind’s eye a lot, and those tunes conjured those images so well. Sometimes I like a song just for a single split-second riff, and that’s what guided me most of the time back then.
Well, they take up about 3 linear feet of shelf space, which translates to 216 records, give or take a few. Not a very big collection.
Do you remember the first kind of music that you got excited about buying on vinyl?
The first record I ever bought was Men at Work's first album, and it got me excited about LPs in general. For the first time I found out that a band's songs ran a wider gamut than what I'd heard on the radio, and that I really liked the things that didn't get played on the radio at all. I haven't listened to that album in years. I wonder if it still sounds good.
Next I got into British music. I was a teenager in the 1980s, so you can imagine some of the crap I have: Duran Duran albums. They all sound pretty awful now. I moved on to Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, “How Soon Is Now?” by the Smiths, Pornography by the Cure, gothy stuff. Nothing terribly outré. The words didn’t attract me as
much as the sounds–
What kinds of records are in your collection?
I like to sing and dance in my living room (pity my neighbors), and I also use music to exit my mind for another place, so my collection is split between poppy stuff like Marshall Crenshaw on the one hand and on the other. . . a really mixed bag of stuff. Almost the only thing it all has in common is that the songs take me to vanished or imaginary places. I’ve got little blocks of surf music,
funk, bagpipes,
garage rock: things I associate with different places and times. I love baroque music and medieval songs, so I have some compilations. Bach’s harpsichord music is just fascinating–wheels within wheels–you can really see the connections between mathematics and musical composition in those works. Spanish classical guitar music is like that, too. I enter an imaginary world that is like an armillary sphere: neat and orderly but also as complicated as a Rube Goldberg machine. Late 60s and early 70s music evokes an imaginary Detroit I enjoy retreating into via music, so I’ve got some MC5, Blue Cheer, 13thFloor Elevators, psychedelic stuff.
I never really realized this before, but I have a big collection of comedy albums. Bob and Doug Mackenzie’s first and Weird Al’s first two were given me as birthday presents when they were released. I've got bales of Firesign Theater albums and some of the stuff Proctor and Bergman did on their own. I haven't listened to all of the Firesign ones yet--they came to me as a complete collection from a guy getting rid of all his vinyl. I’m saving them for when I really need a laugh.
There's a strong thread
of humor that runs
through the rest of my collection, too. Records you wouldn't consider comedy at all have their moments. The Fugs album I have, It Crawled into My Hand, Honest!, sounds like a medieval choir on acid. William S. Burroughs is hilarious reading his work. You certainly wouldn't call a Gil Scott-Heron album comedy, but “Whitey on the Moon” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” struck me as great stand-up satire in the political cabaret tradition.
Some of the Kinks’ songs are high comedy, which is what drove me to buy their albums. I have a lot of Jazz Butcher albums for the same reason. I heard “Death Dentist” on midnight radio, and I almost fell out of bed laughing. Like the Kinks, he makes funny songs you can dance to. 
I like some of the old music hall and vaudeville songs because of their odd brand of humor. Gracie Fields’ songs, like “The Biggest Aspidistra in the World,” are surreal and funny at the same time. B-52's albums are like Yoko crossed with a busload of singing drag queens. Totally nuts.
Chance has played a big part in my record collecting. What’s on the cutout rack at the record store? Anything new in the local music bin? What are those albums sitting on the curb with the garbage? I have a pile of Grand Funk Railroad and prog rock albums from the guy who was getting rid of his vinyl: King Crimson, ELP, Robert Fripp. I never would have gone out and bought a comprehensive collection of any of these, but I have them nonetheless. There are so many other things I don’t have that I would get first, like Can.
Do you spend a lot of time shopping for records? How often do you go out in search of something you want?
Buying books is my primary vice, and I spend most of my spare change on the monthly pilgrimage to the bookstore. When I do go to the record
store, it’s either because I’ve just been to the dentist (my favorite record store’s up the street) or I’m hunting for something. I always look through almost every bin in the joint, and every time I end up buying something else I just have to have, whether I find what I was looking for or not.
The last time I went shopping because I really, really wanted to listen to a certain 10-second riff in a Wishbone Ash song. Can’t remember what else I got on that trip, a couple things.
Do you have any records or group of records that you treasure most?
I really dig Betty Davis’s
raunchy funk. That is flat out the best music to play whilst drawing and painting. Oo-oo, hot! I channel that blazing energy into my work, and the pictures practically draw themselves. An English label reissued a best-of comp and all her albums on vinyl back in the ‘90s. I’ve got the comp, but I’d love to get my sweaty little mitts on her other albums.
Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda and Ptah, The El Daoud are so beautiful. There’s a box set of Nick Drake’s albums, Fruit Tree, that has some of his last recordings, just voice and guitar. His voice is magic, and his fingerpicking is ethereal. I like the spareness of those pieces so much better than his orchestrated stuff.
Other things I like for sentimental reasons. Traffic’s first album and The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys remind me of a friend who lives very far away, same with Blind Faith. Canned Heat is great makeout music. “Breathe Easy” reminds me of a certain––my, my, my. I’ll keep that to myself.
What are some recent things you've picked up and how did you find them?
My most recent find is a short stack of 78s. I saw a garage sale sign in front of a factory, and there they were, hundreds and hundreds of some of the worst records you can think of. They also had some good stuff, though. I picked out a copy of “Stranded in the Jungle” by the Cadets and a bunch of hillbilly songs that looked like they might be interesting. I also found a few LP’s: Pearl Bailey singing “adults-only” songs from her nightclub act and two comedy albums, Nipsy Russell
and Dick Gregory. I haven’t listened to any of it except for “Stranded in the Jungle” and a recording of locomotive sounds. I guess you’re supposed to spin that record when you’re playing with your train set. It’s pretty entertaining to listen to it and daydream of a man who looks like Mr. Rogers playing with a huge train layout while his wife’s asking him, “Are you listening to those damn trains again?”
Is there anything particularly rare or exotic or bizarre in your collection? Or something that you think another record collector would really love to have?
I’ve got a couple Spooky Tooth albums. I guess those are hard to come by, but not crazy rare.
What records are you looking for right now?
Betty Davis’s eponymous first album and her They Say I’m Different and Nasty Gal.
I would love to have a couple Folkways records: Sounds of the Junkyard and Nickelodeon and Calliope. I haven’t heard the former. The latter is like listening to a phantom state fair. I imagine insanely complex machines chugging out tunes, shaking as they wheeze and crash and boom their way through “Pop Goes the Weasel” and other classics.
Growing up I listened to the records my folks had, some of which was interesting stuff. My dad was into the greatest hits of the Civil War era, popular songs from the turn of the twentieth century, some ragtime, and bagpipe music. The bagpipe music I loved the best. So haunting and beautiful, at least to my ear. Imagine being in an English army trying to conquer Scotland, camping at night in the damp and cold, and hearing THAT coming over the next hill. Psychological warfare, Scottish style. The other songs are just fun to sing: “Wait ‘til the Sun Shines, Nelly,” “Rings on My Fingers,” “The Monarch of the Sea.” My one grandmother used to sing “She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” and my other grandma played stuff like “The Sidewalks of New York” on a little electric harmonium she had in the back room. It would be nice to hear those songs again.
I like to sing and dance in my living room (pity my neighbors), and I also use music to exit my mind for another place, so my collection is split between poppy stuff like Marshall Crenshaw on the one hand and on the other. . . a really mixed bag of stuff. Almost the only thing it all has in common is that the songs take me to vanished or imaginary places. I’ve got little blocks of surf music,
funk, bagpipes,
garage rock: things I associate with different places and times. I love baroque music and medieval songs, so I have some compilations. Bach’s harpsichord music is just fascinating–wheels within wheels–you can really see the connections between mathematics and musical composition in those works. Spanish classical guitar music is like that, too. I enter an imaginary world that is like an armillary sphere: neat and orderly but also as complicated as a Rube Goldberg machine. Late 60s and early 70s music evokes an imaginary Detroit I enjoy retreating into via music, so I’ve got some MC5, Blue Cheer, 13thFloor Elevators, psychedelic stuff.
I never really realized this before, but I have a big collection of comedy albums. Bob and Doug Mackenzie’s first and Weird Al’s first two were given me as birthday presents when they were released. I've got bales of Firesign Theater albums and some of the stuff Proctor and Bergman did on their own. I haven't listened to all of the Firesign ones yet--they came to me as a complete collection from a guy getting rid of all his vinyl. I’m saving them for when I really need a laugh.
There's a strong thread
of humor that runs
through the rest of my collection, too. Records you wouldn't consider comedy at all have their moments. The Fugs album I have, It Crawled into My Hand, Honest!, sounds like a medieval choir on acid. William S. Burroughs is hilarious reading his work. You certainly wouldn't call a Gil Scott-Heron album comedy, but “Whitey on the Moon” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” struck me as great stand-up satire in the political cabaret tradition.
I like some of the old music hall and vaudeville songs because of their odd brand of humor. Gracie Fields’ songs, like “The Biggest Aspidistra in the World,” are surreal and funny at the same time. B-52's albums are like Yoko crossed with a busload of singing drag queens. Totally nuts.Chance has played a big part in my record collecting. What’s on the cutout rack at the record store? Anything new in the local music bin? What are those albums sitting on the curb with the garbage? I have a pile of Grand Funk Railroad and prog rock albums from the guy who was getting rid of his vinyl: King Crimson, ELP, Robert Fripp. I never would have gone out and bought a comprehensive collection of any of these, but I have them nonetheless. There are so many other things I don’t have that I would get first, like Can.
Do you spend a lot of time shopping for records? How often do you go out in search of something you want?
Buying books is my primary vice, and I spend most of my spare change on the monthly pilgrimage to the bookstore. When I do go to the record
The last time I went shopping because I really, really wanted to listen to a certain 10-second riff in a Wishbone Ash song. Can’t remember what else I got on that trip, a couple things.
Do you have any records or group of records that you treasure most?
I really dig Betty Davis’s
Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda and Ptah, The El Daoud are so beautiful. There’s a box set of Nick Drake’s albums, Fruit Tree, that has some of his last recordings, just voice and guitar. His voice is magic, and his fingerpicking is ethereal. I like the spareness of those pieces so much better than his orchestrated stuff.
Other things I like for sentimental reasons. Traffic’s first album and The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys remind me of a friend who lives very far away, same with Blind Faith. Canned Heat is great makeout music. “Breathe Easy” reminds me of a certain––my, my, my. I’ll keep that to myself.
What are some recent things you've picked up and how did you find them?
My most recent find is a short stack of 78s. I saw a garage sale sign in front of a factory, and there they were, hundreds and hundreds of some of the worst records you can think of. They also had some good stuff, though. I picked out a copy of “Stranded in the Jungle” by the Cadets and a bunch of hillbilly songs that looked like they might be interesting. I also found a few LP’s: Pearl Bailey singing “adults-only” songs from her nightclub act and two comedy albums, Nipsy Russell
Is there anything particularly rare or exotic or bizarre in your collection? Or something that you think another record collector would really love to have?
I’ve got a couple Spooky Tooth albums. I guess those are hard to come by, but not crazy rare.
What records are you looking for right now?
Betty Davis’s eponymous first album and her They Say I’m Different and Nasty Gal.
I would love to have a couple Folkways records: Sounds of the Junkyard and Nickelodeon and Calliope. I haven’t heard the former. The latter is like listening to a phantom state fair. I imagine insanely complex machines chugging out tunes, shaking as they wheeze and crash and boom their way through “Pop Goes the Weasel” and other classics.
Growing up I listened to the records my folks had, some of which was interesting stuff. My dad was into the greatest hits of the Civil War era, popular songs from the turn of the twentieth century, some ragtime, and bagpipe music. The bagpipe music I loved the best. So haunting and beautiful, at least to my ear. Imagine being in an English army trying to conquer Scotland, camping at night in the damp and cold, and hearing THAT coming over the next hill. Psychological warfare, Scottish style. The other songs are just fun to sing: “Wait ‘til the Sun Shines, Nelly,” “Rings on My Fingers,” “The Monarch of the Sea.” My one grandmother used to sing “She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” and my other grandma played stuff like “The Sidewalks of New York” on a little electric harmonium she had in the back room. It would be nice to hear those songs again.
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