Before creating this painting titled Analogue, I had been listening to a lot of records on my turntable. Yes, I still have my share of older vinyl records and when I am alone in the house working, I tend to play them vs. listening to music with my ear buds.
 
After enjoying the occasional hiss, pop or skip like the old days, I reflected on the changes that have occurred with music in my lifetime. As a music enthusiast, I have been on the forefront of these changes for the last 20+ years. For example, I actually created the first digital music download site in New England back in 2003 when I co-owned a record label in New Hampshire called Granite Rocks Records.
 
Granite Rocks hosted 100’s of independent artist’s music on our site, which enabled them to sell their songs to fans on their own. This also allowed us and other small labels to produce a record for a band, and launch it right away online without the added steps and cost of creating CDs and shipping them to retail stores. We also had our own internet radio station that was connected to the store.
 
Albeit, our site came 2 years after I-tunes, what made it special was that we made the technology accessible to any recording artist or band that wanted to use it (with or without a record label). We only took a small commission for each song sold. About the same time, I took classes at a local recording studio to become a certified Pro-Tools Audio Engineer and then set up my own recording studio in my house. Pro Tools is amazing and has led the transformation from analogue recording/tape to digital recording.
 
These are just some examples of the transformation from analogue music to digital music. Recording, distributing and listening to music seemed to change overnight.
 
Analogue  is meant to celebrate the old technology. The same technology that gave me so much of the music that I still love to listen to today. Believe me, I love the new technology, but there is still something special about listening to an album on a turntable while looking at the details of the album cover.
 
Vinyl is making a comeback, even with the younger generations. That makes an old guy like me feel good!
 
Rock on,
 
Garry