"another day of listening to my late father’s record collection"

November 21, 2024 9:06 AM

Jula is listening through her late father's record collection one album at a time on TikTok and Instagram under the name Soundwaves Off Wax. In an interview with Discogs, where you can see which records she's listened to, Jula explains the origins of the project, and talks about her dad. She has made a playlist on Spotify of her favorite songs, as well as one with all the albums. To give a flavor, the records are by artists such as Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Pointer Sisters, Culture Club, Connie Francis and Lou Reed.
posted by Kattullus (10 comments total)

The Bonzos!! Three cheers for her father and three cheers for her, as she seems to get them.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:38 AM on November 21 [5 favorites]

So nice! I was pleasantly pleased to see that I'm already following her on the insta. I'll have to share this with my kids...
posted by lotusstp at 10:02 AM on November 21 [1 favorite]

I have my dad's record collection -- he was decluttering the house after mom died in 2020 and wanted to get rid of them, so I took them on. I'm a record collector as well, but I did pick a bunch of the better ones to sell. (he's still around and hopes I make some money off them).

My dad was a pretty specific collector, in that most of the collection is hard rock or heavy metal from the 1960s to 1980s, when he was in his teens/twenties. A lot of the albums were only ever played once, when he recorded them to tape cassette for more portable listening, so the entire collection is amazingly clean; in the early 2000s I bought him a turntable and equipment specifically to digitize his collection, along with a Minidisk player to put them on (he still listens to the MDs).

There are a lot of weird Scandinavian imports, which are apparently rare and valuable if you can track down the three people who both: a) know the band and b) don't already own a copy. When I had some of the good ones priced and for sale at the antique shop they rarely sold, but when they did the people who bought them thought they had literally found buried treasure.

They're taking up a lot of space in my basement but I still have a lot to go through to decide whether they go into my collection, get sold someday, or just get donated to the thrift shop. I'll get to them one of these days, or maybe the kids will be doing the same thing in twenty years when I'm at the same point in my life.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:15 AM on November 21 [4 favorites]

Bless you Jula, and bless your dad! His taste has large swaths of overlap with mine. Your project has caused me to reflect on my own eclectic collection, and how I will pass it along to my daughter, who grew up listening to Ivo Papasov, Goran Bregovic, Abe Ellenstein, Santana, Desert Rose band, and much more.
It has the added advantage of not taking up space when delivered in this form. As an only child (but there's nothing 'only' about her!) she'll get plenty of other stuff when the time comes.
I don't do Insta and the Tix, but perhaps this will change my mind if I can pass my gratitude on directly. Mabruk!
posted by Citizen Cane Juice at 10:23 AM on November 21 [1 favorite]

This is a wonderful project she's taken on. I'm not sure exactly how I'll get to really dig into it - like Citizen Cane Juice, I'm not on Instagram or TikTok - but I'm very glad to know she's doing this, and I appreciated the Discogs interview and collection.

Thank you so much for posting this, Kattullus!
posted by kristi at 10:45 AM on November 21

I don't have my father's records anymore, but since he wasn't a collector it's pretty easy to list. Dad liked:

1. Olivia Newton-John
2. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
3. The Carpenters
4. Olivia Newton-John
posted by JanetLand at 11:28 AM on November 21 [8 favorites]

My kids were pretty surprised by my 400 or so albums. In the car, since they were little when I could not take another Barney song, I made the rule that the driver picks the music. Naturally, I picked Sirius 23, The Grateful Dead channel. You know things are a bit excessive when your 11 year old son says, "Oh no Dad. Not a 41 minute The Other One." Or, "Jerry sounds terrible. Was this right before his diabetic coma?" Anyway, I would change the station, but I soon found myself back listening to the Grateful Dead. My kids did grow up to tolerate if not actually like the Dead.

When my daughter got older and went away to college, she called me one day about two weeks into school to thank me for exposing her to all the classic rock. My kids would rummage through the attic and they found my 500+- cassette tapes of just live shows. I am not sure they even knew how to play the cassettes, but they all wanted them. Then, very recently, I broke out my albums and turntables. They were amazed at the collection. Maybe 3 or 4 Grateful Dead albums. The rest were an eclectic bunch.

My favorite album of all time? The Four Tops Live and In Concert. I have my mom's old Sinatra albums. I have maybe a dozen Broadway soundtracks. Of course, The Who, the Stones, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd (How do you pronounce that Dad?), Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley. Sly and Robbie.

My dad was not into music. It is too bad because I think it would have been a way to connect. I am hoping my kids start fighting over my collection one day.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:49 AM on November 21 [4 favorites]

My dad’s still around, but his vinyl record collection is the same as it was when I was a kid (he moved onto CDs pretty early). It’s been interesting seeing which of those albums I’ve independently ended up listening to over the years, as he seems to have had a bit of a penchant for prog rock/krautrock at one point. Those were just “the ones with the weird covers” for me as a kid.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:13 PM on November 21 [2 favorites]

I have my son’s father’s records, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:04 AM on November 22 [1 favorite]

For you Bonzo listeners, she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.
posted by The Half Language Plant at 10:20 AM on November 22 [1 favorite]