Why I’m taking my kid to the record store

I’m a sucker for traditions.

For instance, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday because of the smell of stuffing at 8 a.m., the annual high school reunion breakfast and football game, the family members hanging out, the propensity for drinking just a bit too much Belgian strong ale, and hate-watching the Cowboys game at 3:30 p.m.

Every summer I plan a homemade shore dinner, in which I typically combine a bunch of shell fish, potatoes and corn in a giant stove pot. Every spring I soften up as baseball approaches. Every October I have to have one — just one — pumpkin spice latte, and every March have to have one — okay, two — Shamrock Shakes.

If you know me, you know I embrace change. We’re meant to change. If we don’t change, we don’t evolve, and thus we don’t learn from our mistakes, become better stewards of the world, and leave this world in better conditions for future generations. But I clutch hard onto traditions. I hate letting them go. And if there’s ever an opportunity to start a new tradition, I’m quick to set it up.

One of the great things about parenthood is the ability to create new traditions all the time. Baby loves taking walks at 5:15 p.m.? We’re out the door at 5:15 p.m. Baby loves when I say “One, and a two, and a chicka-boom-achick” when I remove her shirt for bathtime? I’m chicka-boom-achicking every single night.

This one I’m kind of forcing on Genevieve. Once every two months she’s accompanying me on a trip to the record store.

I have a slight collection of vinyl, and slight because I never needed to collect before about one year ago. Then, on my 32nd birthday, Sarah bought me a turntable. Suddenly I had actual reason to sift through crates at record stores across America, a tradition of my own and the only shopping instance in which I can lose myself for hours. See, I’ll look at every front cover, typically check out the back cover, read liner notes to find out who played on what, and sometimes even remove the record to judge its condition. And I go in every crate; nothing is too treacly, too twangy, too jazz-handsy for me. If it’s interesting and inexpensive, I’m liable to leave with it.

Currently the collection fills one cubby of our IKEA Kallax (the official shelving unit of yuppie parents everywhere), and half of it is hand-me-downs — tons of Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Saturday Night Fever. But the other half are my acquisitions, including Huey Lewis & the News’ Sports, Paul McCartney’s Tug of War and Joe Jackson’s I’m The Man (my favorite music era is probably 1978–83). Plus there are a few gifts, including Tame Impala’s Currents (an important album in my life) and Big Star’s #1 Record (ask me about that if you’ve never heard of it). But it’s about to grow out of the single Kallax cubby. Now we have a tradition, and that means more vinyl, and that means more Kallax.

We continued the tradition this Thursday. I packed Genevieve into the car, and we drove across the river to the closest record store, a shoebox (is there any other kind of record store?) that can fit about 10 people comfortably, or seven people and a guy carrying a flailing 18-pound girl at his chest.

Okay, flailing isn’t being nice enough. She waves. All the time. At first it was while walking the streets in the carrier, and that’s pretty awesome, because people in their cars would peer at us and smile and wave back. But then she started waving at everyone — friends, family members, us. That’s the funniest. Literally as I’m writing this Sarah is vacuuming the house while wearing Genevieve in the carrier, and as Genevieve rolled by with the vacuum, she spotted me and gave me a quick wave. “Hi Evie, good to see you for the 700th time today.”

She’s loving this. People wave back and smile, and she just beams, typically with a stressed wheezing sound, which is probably her way of saying “RIGHT BACK AT YOU.” It’s cute (though going through this series of events 80 times a day gets a bit repetitive).

Thursday, as we walked into the record store, she went right at it, waving at the woman working at the counter and wearing the Jeff cap. Then when her co-worker walked in, wearing his black vest and Misfits pin, she started waving at him. Each customer who entered received a wave, and most reciprocated, often stopping to watch her and smile for about five minutes. Again, cute, but they’re also staring in my direction, and I just have to stand there and play along. I’ve never had so many attractive women stare in my general direction.

Meanwhile I continued my tradition of thumbing through an endless array of records, most of them Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. Genevieve would whine after 25 seconds of staying relatively still, so I’d bob, change my position, anything to keep her somewhat satisfied while I ensured I didn’t miss that Pages album I’ve been longing to buy. Other times she’d extend her toes as far as possible to feel part of the records. She even grabbed a couple records and pulled them from their crates. None of them were very important.

I bought five records during my stay, including Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker and a $4 copy of Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything?, one of my all-time favorite albums. I plan on listening to a couple during an upcoming night off, paired by a nice bottle of red.

Genevieve behaved well, which is wonderful because I can’t imagine how boring it was for her. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she loves record stores. She might, because she loves pulling out records from the Kallax. (Honestly, she grabs the Huey Lewis & the News record most often.) Plus, before she was born we were playing records in the house, and I would show and play her records frequently during those first few months of life. I’ve danced to “PYT” as she laughed (probably at my dancing), and I’ve held her tight listening to “In Too Deep” (yeah, I’m a sucker for ’80s pop). We’ve jammed out to “TSOP,” and she’s watched mommy and daddy cry while listening to all of Tapestry.

I regularly associate music with life moments. It’s just the way my brain works. I’ll hear “Take on Me” and instantly recall being in my first crush’s living room way back in the late 1980s. “Good Life” by Kanye West transports me to the apartment I shared with my buddy a few years after college, where we played tons of beer pong and fantasy sports. It goes on. Music plays a vital role in my life; I can’t live without it, and I’m almost always surrounded by it. I grew up with cassettes and mastered recording mix tapes from radio plays. I came of age in the CD era, making mix CDs for friends, girls and me, myself and I. In college I fiendishly downloaded everything on every service imaginable. I had a deep iTunes library in my early 20s. In my late 20s I had music in about 10 different places, grabbing what I could when I could. And now I make Spotify playlists in my spare time. I’ll grow with whatever comes my way. As long as there’s music, I’m there.

Records are relatively new for me, but I love that they exist, because they force me to sit back and let the groove play out. They make me relax and appreciate nuance, aura and, most importantly, the present. Spotify music keeps me focused on something else (right now I’m letting 12-inch remixes play out as I write). Pandora is fine for dinner. In the car I like something I can scream out. But a record demands me to stop and listen, and it demands me to be patient, be careful and be peaceful.

Genevieve doesn’t get that, and she won’t get that for quite a while. She’ll have some other method of listening to music, and she’ll in time figure out what works best for which situations. I just hope — whatever way she listens to music — that she loves music. I mean can’t live without it, can’t imagine memories and moments without some soundtrack playing nearby. I hope she gets excited about a key change. I hope she squeals at the most perfectly executed flourish, like in Electric Light Orchestra’s “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” or Arcade Fire’s “Sprawl II.” I hope she devours it all, craves more and seeks out weird stuff, local stuff, any stuff. I hope she listens to someone one night and says “this sucks,” because not all music is great. And I hope she calls me one day and says “Dad, I just saw the best concert in my LIFE.”

Way back there in the deepest recesses of my brain, I know that’s why I’m starting this tradition of taking Genevieve to the record store. For all of that.

But on the surface, I just want her to hang out with me at a place I love. Maybe wave to some people. Make a couple friends. Stay happy.