FELLOW BLOGGERS: SUMMER SPINS

For this new issue of our Fellow Bloggers column, not only we’re giving you records, we’re also giving you cats! What else could you ask for? The cutie pictured above is called Summer. Her owner, AJ Martin, is a music lover who even named his website after her (something that would have been too risky for me, as my cat is called Weezie. People would think I’m running a blog about The Jeffersons and I don’t want to let them down, lol). On Summer Spins AJ mostly writes about his vinyl records, as well as the concerts he’s attending. It covers modern indie rock for the most part, with reviews that are both well written and eye-catching, enhanced by very good images picturing the records themselves, all the inserts and whatnot. Those things make his posts a good read even when I happen not to be really interested in the artists he’s talking about (I think the only time I ever read an article about Father John Misty in its entirety it was on Summer Spins. Trust me if I say that it means a lot). After reading his virtual pages for almost one year, I thought he was a perfect choice for our second Fellow Blogger on this column. Here’s what we chatted about.

I think you’ve been collecting LPs for some time (since early in high school you said on your site), so I see it took some time before you decided to blog about this passion of yours. How did you decide to start Summer Spins?

That’s right, I’ve been collecting music on vinyl since early high school. I didn’t start Summer Spins until this year actually, in January 2017, but I had been posting music on my Instagram (@aj_martin_) for quite some time. Part of what drew me to vinyl is the visual aesthetic and experience that comes with it. It’s naturally easy to photograph, and I added more and more to my captions over time. It picked up more attention than I ever thought it would. Eventually I wanted to try my hand at writing some long-form reviews, like you’d read on a professional music journalism site, but also place some focus on the vinyl record itself. The packaging, the sound, and of course, the music. That was when I decided to create Summer Spins. I learned quickly that it takes a lot more time than I expected, but I’m always writing for it in the background of anything else I’m busy with. I have a lot of respect for anyone that can find the time to post regular reviews on their blog!

One thing you explain is that the name comes from Summer, your cat. Don’t you think you should add a picture of her somewhere? Does she ever try to scratch the spines of your records? I had this big problem with Matilda (one of my two cats, she unfortunately passed away earlier this year) in her early days. Every time she wanted to grab my attention, she started to scratch the spines. Many of my outer sleeves are still pierced from her claws, sigh (she stopped doing that after a couple of years thank goodness).

Yes, I should! I had started working on a logo that incorporated her, but graphic design is not my forte. When I came up with the idea for a blog, any name I had thought of for it was either too lengthy or already taken, so Summer Spins was my placeholder. Eventually it just became the name I went with when I realized I probably couldn’t top it. I’m sorry to hear about Matilda, but at least you have her claw marks to remember her by! Summer used to like to use the spines or the cabinet I keep them in as a scratching post, but I was able to put a stop to that over time. Anytime I saw her doing it I’d just pick her up and she eventually forgot about it over time. Luckily there was no damage to the actual sleeves, just the plastic outer ones I keep them in.

When I got interested in music (as a little kid in early 90s), LPs were quickly fading away and the market was mostly ruled by CDs and cassettes. I used to buy LPs too because some of the stuff I wanted was hard to come by on CD (and I loved the bigger artworks anyway), and that’s how I started to love the format. What about you? You say you also think of yourself as part of the resurgence, so I’m curious about the reasons why someone in your age range gets fascinated with this way to enjoy music.

I’m currently 19 years old, so when I was growing up everyone listened to music either on CD, or digitally. I don’t remember a time before MP3 players. Once I began getting really interested in music, listening to it digitally wasn’t really satisfying enough. I started buying CDs because they were cheap, came with the little booklets to flip through, and included extra artwork and photographs. There’s really no special experience with listening to music on CD though, so after buying my first record I was hooked. A lot of the music I was raised on, classic rock, was cheaper on vinyl too, so it was easy to build a fairly big collection without spending too much money. Looking through my collection, deciding what I’m in the mood for, then cleaning it and placing it on the turntable is about as involved as I can be in listening to music. That’s what drew me to vinyl. Not to mention the bigger artwork and all the fancy colors the music is pressed on these days. Anyone in my age group can’t really be considered part of anything but the resurgence, unless you were raised on it. I think the natural aesthetic of vinyl is what draws so many teenagers to the format.

As I was discussing with Kyle from Not Your Dad’s Vinyl blog in another post, the new generation that embraced vinyl after its recent resurgence has a different way to relate to “oldies”. Seems it’s cool liking classic rock now, you go online and see all these posts of young people scoring old mainstream rock records… I think you wrote you grew up on classic rock, though Summer Spins definitely revolves around contemporary music. I was wondering if that’s because you deliberately chose to keep it current or just didn’t have the chance to write about older stuff.

A good chunk of my collection is records released before 1990 and would mostly fall into that classic rock category. It was what I was raised on, so I always had more of an ear for that stuff. With music that’s been around for anywhere from 30 to 50 years, almost anything that’s going to be said about it has already been said. I think people are also more interested in reading about contemporary music they may not have heard before, instead of a Styx record from 40 years ago for example. Eventually, I would like to start adding some reviews of classics. Maybe it’d be more of a discussion piece than a review though.

One thing I like a lot about Summer Spins it’s the pictures, as they are always eye-catching. What kind of effort is there behind them?

Thank you, I appreciate it! It actually doesn’t take too much effort to set up the picture or edit it. I still take everything on my phone. The only time-consuming part would be getting a nice picture of every part of the record’s packaging. One thing I wanted to do with Summer Spins is to include detailed photos of the packaging for each record. It’s one thing I always enjoy looking at, but never really find online. I spend a lot more time taking photos and editing for my Instagram actually.

Another point of interest is that your reviews are informative not only about the music (which is the most important thing, of course), but also about the “physical” features of the record (the quality of the pressing, the artwork, the jackets and the sleeves…). To me, that makes them an interesting read even when you’re writing about artists I’m not usually interested in. How do you approach the writing routine?

When it comes to writing the reviews, I almost always start with taking photos and writing on the packaging details. There are so many people that write reviews, you could go almost anywhere for that, so I include the review of the physical album as a way to stand out. Dissecting and putting my thoughts on songs into words is the most difficult part, so I usually save that for last. By the time I’m done with the packaging review and writing any background on the album, I’ll have already listened to it a few times and will have a more cohesive idea on what I think of the music.

Your setup is listed on the website as well and I think it’s a nice one. How did you put it together? Did you do some research and decided on those particular components or you happened to find some of them by chance, gave them a shot and were satisfied?

Thank you! I did a lot of research putting it together. I’m on a financial and spatial constraint, so I couldn’t get exactly what I wanted, but I’ve had the same setup for about two years now and couldn’t be happier with it. Like most people, I started with an all-in-one unit, made by Crosley, and then moved to a slightly better quality all-in-one turntable. When I decided it was a hobby I was serious about I then went about putting together the setup I have now. I researched each component I’d need to buy and just bought what I could afford at the time. The U-Turn Orbit turntable was probably one of the best purchases I’ve made. I’ve got hundreds of hours of use out of it and it still sounds great and runs smoothly!