One of the first people I contacted when I started the Vinyl ReSpin Project was the person who purchased most of my Oasis vinyl. He was clearly not someone interested in the monetary value of the items, but a superfan who had a genuine enthusiasm for the band. We spoke over the phone often about Liam and Noel Gallagher, Oasis memorabilia and the prospects of an eventual reunion (slim). Next month, I hope to meet up with him and other Oasis superfans at Liam Gallagher’s concert in Chicago. I’m extremely grateful that he sold them back to me. After I bought back (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, Be Here Now and Don’t Look Back In Anger, I sent him some questions about his records and his vinyl “origin story”.
What was the first vinyl record you ever bought?
La Bamba by Los Lobos. I remember being obsessed with this song. I was 10 or 11 years old. I still know the lyrics to it, or at least enough to sound like the lyrics. I don’t speak Spanish, so any proper Spanish speaking person would probably have a good laugh hearing me sing it.
How many records do you have now and do you still listen to records on a turntable?
I only still have about 20 vinyl records. Of these, I only have 5–7 that I have actually listened to, because they came from my youth. Springsteen and The Beatles. The others are Oasis vinyls I bought because I loved them on CD so much that I wanted the vinyls as collectibles. Unfortunately, with the advent of digital music, I no longer have a record player. I can certainly appreciate why people still listen to vinyl on a turntable.
What’s your favorite record (that you still own)?
That’s an easy one, Abbey Road by The Beatles. I love practically everything The Beatles ever produced, with the exception of very few.
What was the first Oasis record you heard and do you remember where you were when you heard it?
Don’t Look Back In Anger. I was working at a marble fabrication shop in 1995 when I was about 18 years young, polishing marble sinks and shower walls. The radio was always blaring at a high volume because of the noise of a polishing buffer. I remember thinking the song was called “So Sally Can Wait” for a long time. It is still my wife Cassie’s favorite Oasis tune.
What attracted you to them?
This is a tough one. I still ask myself this. To be honest, I think it was a couple of years after (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? was released before I really started getting into them. I have been a Beatles fan for as long as I can remember. I was also an avid reader of music magazines. I believe I had read an article about Oasis that compared them to The Beatles, and by then, I knew the three songs that most Americans had heard of by Oasis: Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back in Anger, and Champagne Supernova. I really wasn’t terribly impressed up to this point. I just liked the few singles that had come out in the US. I do remember buying the Morning Glory CD and being very impressed with Liam Gallagher’s sort of angelic sounding voice on Wonderwall, once I had listened to it repeatedly. I listened to the CD in rotation and was hooked within a few weeks. I believe Be Here Now was out by then. Like many Americans, I had never even heard of Definitely Maybe. Once I wore out Morning Glory, I reverted back to Definitely Maybe and was thoroughly impressed. I absolutely loved it from start to finish. I liked the raw and loud sound of it. So ultimately the music attracted me to Oasis and the fact that they were Beatles fans. I was never particularly fond of the rhetoric that existed between the brothers or the show they put on for the press. It was their weakness and ultimate fall from grace, in my honest opinion.
What was your reaction when you heard I was looking to buy these back?
I remember buying these from you and thinking “I will NEVER sell them, EVER!” Then, nearly 10 years later, you wrote an email asking if I would sell or trade them back to you. At the time, I was doing a lot of trading and selling off of my own memorabilia collection, but these were never put up for sale or trade. There were a couple of close calls due to very strong offers, but ultimately, I could not let them go. I really wanted you to have them back, but knew I would be disappointed to see them leave me. It sort of felt like I was saving them for you. I felt a kinship with you because of the passion you had for getting your memories back. I am a very sentimental person. I had empathy for what you were trying to do and never felt good about dealing your Oasis records out to anyone, so I hung onto them for nearly as long as you did before you sold them to me. I remember packing them for shipment to you and feeling very good about it because they were going back home. As I was packing them, I looked at the Letter of Authenticity you had written for me in 2007 when I purchased them and realized you were buying them almost exactly 10 years later! If I remember correctly, your letter was written on 5/4/2007. I was packing them for shipment on 5/26/2017. Coincidence? I think not. More like destiny/fate.
If you could have one music-related collectible, what would it be?
Easy- John Lennon’s personally owned 1964 Rickenbacker 325 guitar.
Why do you think vinyl records are becoming so popular?
Nostalgia. What goes around comes around. We all love certain things from our past.
What Oasis song describes you best?
Who Feels Love. This song has a different meaning to me than it has to many people, I believe. When most listen to it, they hear the words “I thank you for the sun”, but I really feel like it says “I thank you for the son”. “Son” meaning Jesus Christ. My perception is that this song is simply about someone being saved by God and having a spiritual awakening. My eyes were closed to God for many years, but when I was at my lowest, Christ saved me from myself, and continues to, even to this day. This is a spiritual song to me. Almost a hymn. I’ve never read anyone’s perception of this song being the same as mine. For me, though, it’s always taken on this meaning. That’s the beauty of music, I suppose. We all take away something different from it.
