If you've come to understand our tastes, you'll recognize that London's The Supernovas are a straight shot right up the center:
“Vinyl is something that has always been seen as a thing of the past by many of my generation. If I got a penny for every time I had someone say to me; “Vinyl?!? Who still plays vinyl?!?” when I was trying to sell them one of our 7”s, then I’d at least have enough to buy a copy for myself!
For me though, it was still very important that we released our singles on vinyl as well as digitally. I’m a Northern Soul enthusiast and as such, am part of a small collective of people (the readers of this article included) that genuinely believe that vinyl just sounds better than the compressed digital formats that people are so familiar with in this digital age. And in my opinion, there is no sound stronger than a 45rpm vinyl.
Vinyl for me is special – a real tangible format unlike an MP3. You can’t frame a digital download. You can’t store it in a box in the attic for your grandchildren to find 50 years later and play on a dusty old system that sounds as old (and magical) as it actually is. And you can’t find one in the bottom of a box in a charity shop and then flog it on eBay for ten times the price you bought it for.
My love affair with vinyl began when I was 18. I had just began a DJing residency at The Bar; a club in Hanway Street, located in London’s Soho area which specialised in Mod, Jazz and Soul. I had started the night with another musician friend called James Bone (although he got barred after that night but that’s another story!) and we didn’t own a single record between us! My whole set was made up of CDs (which I didn’t realise at the time was a big NO - not cool at all!). It didn’t take me long to work it out though and before long I was up in my Nan’s loft, trawling through boxes upon boxes of records, hunting out various little gems - the first of which was Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ which was backed with ‘Can I Get A Witness’ the latter is a track which I still play at every single DJ set I do and have done since!
From then on, my quest for a decent record collection began in earnest and I started visiting all of London’s independent record shops (a dying trade which really seems to be kept alive by the medium of vinyl alone) in search of something special. The most memorable of these trips was a visit to a shop in Camden where I came across a 7-inch of N.F. Porter’s ‘Keep On Keeping On’. The price was £8 and I only had £5 on me. I had never actually heard the track before (although I had heard a friend, Mike mention it in the past) so I put it back on the shelf and left. The next time I saw Mike I told him about it, he gasped, his face dropped, ‘You’re gonna be gutted when you hear this’ he said and turned on his computer, brought up YouTube and played me the track. He was right. I was gutted. Shortly after it had finished, we both put our jackets on, ran to the bus-stop, headed back to the shop to find that it had gone. The next couple of weeks were spent frantically searching the Northern Soul sections of various record shops in the hope of finding another copy. Eventually, a routine check on eBay managed to produce the goods and I scored a copy from Holland for just £6 and happy times were restored!
This for me is what vinyl is all about. I probably could have just gone on iTunes and downloaded the track for 79p, but where would the fun have been in that? There is no chase with a click on iTunes and no great feeling about ownership of an MP3 either. Trying to find that elusive copy that only a few people own and everybody wants is real. Vinyl epitomises this elusive side of the game and that is why for me, it is so important to keep it alive.”
—Joei | The Supernovas
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The Supernovas - City Of Smoke (Don Letts/Dub Cartel Remix) (Mp3)
Approved for download!
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