This used to be my mother’s copy of The Band, which I consider to be one of the best albums of all time. I had such a strong connection to it that, when I decided that I would start my own collection I asked her if I could have it. She reluctantly agreed and this kick started my lifelong obsession with collecting records. I remember hearing it every Saturday morning when I was a kid, without fail, along with the best of Van Morrison (but I liked this better). This record is such an anchor to my childhood that, to this day, every time I hear the opening chords of Across the Great divide I get a wonderfully vivid picture of playing with my Star Wars figures in our family’s big brown beanbag, and the crackle of the vinyl reminds me of the rain on the old corrugated iron roof out the back of our house, which is decades gone now. So not only is this the oldest record in my collection but it’s still my favourite.

It was 1984, I was in year 7and my love for music was starting to turn away from the top 40 mainstream. At the time, I had a mate who owned U2’s Under a Blood Red Sky on VHS. I borrowed this and for a whole summer watched it every day! That Christmas, this same friend gave me a $5 gift voucher to a Record Store in Hornsby, a few suburbs up the train line. Off I went armed with $5 to spend and keen to buy a U2 “cassette”. The cassette was $12.99 and I didn’t have the budget to spend that much. Instead, I found their new EP, Pride in the bins for $4.99. So off I went home with my first record but with no record player to play it on. It didn’t matter as this began a love affair with music that is just as strong today!

i found this in my attic its a classic and is a mastpiece of all time, its legendary and will go down as the number one classic of all time

we bought our house about 18 years ago,
one day after living in the house for about 5 years, at the very top of the bedroom cupboard laying flat we discovered “Let there be rock” we’d put stuff on it without realizing it was even there.
so immediately rushed out and bought a turntable.
So it came with the house, our record collection has grown quite a bit since then.

I grew up hunting bargains from an early age with my mother in Op Shops all over the country,as I got older I stumbled upon a place called 78 records over in Perth,amongst others,but I bought this record recently atRocking Horse Records in Brisbane,the magic of combing through bins of gold is not lost on me,and my kids now join me on my travels.

It was the first vinyl my dad got me, I was 7. That was the day my world changed. I have been a massive fan since.

The first record I ever got.
It was 2006, I was 16 and going on my first road trip with my dad in my recently purchased 1972 falcon, where I was at the wheel with my Learner plates on, leaning to drive. The whole road trip we were laughing and playing the song ‘the final count down’ by Europe, which for one reason or another we found hilarious at the time. Towards the end of the trip we stopped at Rutherglen. Dad and I both raided a local op shop and met up at the end to see what goodies we had got. I picked up a book, but dad said ‘close your eyes, you won’t believe this’ and so I did… and as he told me to open them, there was ‘the final count down’ on a 7″ record in his hands. We both laughed our heads off at the odds of the find considering the absurd amount of time we had spent listening to it on our trip! We laughed at packed it away into tie car and made our way home.
When We eventually got back from home and unpacked, the record was nowhere to be found. Neither of us could remember where it was put, and so it was forgotten about. I started collecting more and more records from that point on, but was always sad we lost that first record.
Fast forward 10 years and Dad and I have decided to restore my falcons interior, which meant pulling apart everything from front to back. Seats, carpet, everything. I was going through and clearing out the boot and i saw a Melways wedged in behind the back seat and boot area… thinking it was just junk, I pulled it out but felt there was something rigid inside, and so I opened it up, and there… sitting safely between the pages… in all its glory… was the Final countdown record we had purchased all those years ago. We couldn’t believe it. It brought back so many funny memories of that trip, and how it started a passion of collecting records. The above picture is of that very record sitting on my now-restored 1972 falcon that we drove on our trip. One of the best memories we have and it only took 10 years and a running joke to make!

I’ve always been a Beatles fan and am always for the lookout for any pressings to add to my collection. Very early on when I started collecting Beatles albums, I was looking through a pile of old records in a second hand shop in Tasmania. There were the usual ones you find, but I came across an old copy of Revolver. It was quite cheap (can’t remember how much), and just stored it for some time. This is one of the oldest, original records I have. After a while I did a little research on the record, looked at the matrix number and discovered that this copy was one of the first UK pressings – the few that were actually withdrawn. This is the earliest possible pressing featuring the withdrawn mix of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and the rarest E.J.Day Cover. Apparently there’s about 600 of these. Anyhow, it always pays to dig deep in second hand stores, op shops and even tip shops as you never know what’s there.

Christmas 1976. I was 8 years old and had seen Abba for the first time on our new TV. I asked Santa to bring me the record arrival.. sure enough, Christmas morning there it was. this record was played every day and I knew the words of every song. I think gave me my interest in music which I still very much have today over 40 years later

In year 9 or 10 ?.. Somewhere in the Nineties, I picked this epic slab of wax for 50 cents at a primary school fair in Western Victoria..
From that day a love for records was born! Digging through op shops, garage sales any ware that had an old crate of lps waiting for me to discover forgotten riffs. This addiction led to me doing my work experience at Corduroy records pressing records.
The habit is real.

I digress.. back to the epic Volume 4, This riff heavy monsterpeice has everything from driving riffs of “Supernaut” Blissed out instrumental cuts like “Laguna Sunrise” and moments of indulgence with “Snowblind” and “Changes”
I don’t know if I will every find such and influential lp for such a score ever again..
The search continues