Interview: Michele Catalano, I Have That On Vinyl
A conversation about records
I love vinyl. I love physical media, but I especially love analog media. Film, of course, is my main passion, but I have a decent enough record collection. Probably over a hundred records at this point, some of them from as far back as high school, many others picked up over the years—including a spree I went on with an insurance payout after my dad’s basement flooded and his old records were ruined—a lot of them used, some of them new, and some still unplayed. I don’t listen to my vinyl records enough, if I’m being honest. But a new site, launched this week by my internet friend Michele Catalano is already inspiring me to dive into my own collection.
I Have That On Vinyl is the site. A great name, and a great passion project for Catalano, who has been writing online since 2001, on her own blogs over the years, as well as contributing to outlets like Forbes, The Guardian and elsewhere. A lot of Catalano’s writing has been about music, and it was her love of music that led me to follow her, first on Twitter, and now on Bluesky, where I am regularly taking her recommendations for music I should be listening to. It helps that, despite a wide age gap, our tastes are very aligned (if you like indie music from the 2000s, you’re probably aligned, too).
The site, as Catalano describes it in her vision statement, is a “collective love letter to vinyl and music in general.” She will be hosting a range of writing, including her own pieces about records from her collection, conversations with musicians, and submissions from critics and amateur music lovers and record collectors alike, sharing in the love of music.
Normally, Friday is when I post my reading, watching, and listening recommendations, but I decided to shake things up. I spoke with Catalano last week over Zoom, and I wanted to share that conversation with you now that her site is officially launched and already full of great things to read.
Corey: You write and post about music a lot, but what got you to actually decide, I'm going to start this site?
Michele Catalano: Back in September, I got an email from my old hosting company. I used to collect websites. In 2004 I bought like ten domain names, because my friend ran a hosting company and didn't charge me anything, so I bought all these names. I did some writing on some, some music review stuff on another, just blogs. And they sold the company, and I haven't talked to her in years, but I got an email saying, you got to do something with these domains if you want to keep them, because we're selling. So I looked at everything I had, and I saw “ihavethatonvinyl.com.” I was like, I didn't remember I had that!
It's a great name for a site.
It’s a great name! So immediately, I was like, “Okay, I'm keeping that one. I gotta do something with this.” And it took me maybe a half an hour to come up with an idea. I was just like, this is calling me. It's telling me this is a project I've got to do, because I'm retired now and I'm looking for something to do. So this was perfect. It just like fell into my lap and I said, “What if I review my record collection?” And then I said, “What if other people reviewed their record collections too?” And we just put everything up on the website, and it just grew from there. I brainstormed with my sisters, and they came up with some really good ideas, to do interviews and Q&As and stuff like that. And within two months, I had almost 200 pitches sent to my mailbox.
Holy shit.
People sent in full essays right away. And I'm like, “Listen, I'm doing this as a passion project. I cannot pay anyone.” They were like, “I don't care.” I underestimated how much people want to talk about their records.
Record collecting has become kind of such a thing. I've got a mess of records, some of them from, my parents, and when you announce the site, I was like, that's such a great idea, because it gets people to actually want to look at their own collection and engage with it, rather than just kind of have it on their shelf and every now and then putting a record on. It’s a different kind of thing. So how much are you going to be reviewing stuff from your collection, versus, bringing other people in?
I’m gonna refresh the site like three times a week. So each issue will have a featured interview, a Q&A where I send out pre-written questions and they just answer as many or as little as they want. Then I'll have a featured essay, and then I'll have my stuff, which is basically, I'm going to be reviewing my albums one by one. I put them in a randomizer. I put them in a spreadsheet and put them in a randomizer, and whatever it tells me to review that day, I will review. It's not really reviews. I don't want to do reviews on the site. It's more like, I'm talking about why this album is important to me.
A review, you can go to pitchfork and read a review of and album.
Exactly. People said, “Can I review albums?” I said, “I don't want to do that. If you want to write about your love of an album, that's great, but I don't want to do any numbered kind of reviews of new albums. That's not what this is.
How many albums do you have?
I have about 400, so it's a small collection.
Whoa, that's not that small. That's pretty big. I don't have 400 records.
A lot of them I have from when I was a teen and when I worked in a record store when I was in my 20s. But I also sold a lot in the 90s, between having everything on CDs and digitizing everything, I just got rid of so much stuff, and now I'm kicking myself. I wish I still had that. So I'm going back and trying to replicate some of the older stuff I missed that I don't have anymore.
What kind of stuff are you trying to replace? Are there specific ones?
Mostly my new wave collection. I really love my new wave collection. I got it all working at the record store, and I'm sorry I got rid of a lot of that stuff. So I would like to get some of those back. And I'm completing things now. I finally got, like, almost every Springsteen album I wanted that I used to have. As I'm collecting newer artists, I’m getting all my Mountain Goats records together. I like to finish a collection.
Do you have favourites in terms of what you like listening to, specifically on vinyl? Or is it just anything?
It’s really anything. To me, vinyl is a very tactile experience, and a lot comes with it. My favourite album is Aztec Camera’s High Land, Hard Rain. It's my original copy from 1983. When I take that out, it's an experience. Listening to it is an experience to me, rather than just hitting play on Apple Music. It's looking at the cover, knowing I've had this since I was 21 years old. Playing it with all the sounds that come out of it right now, because it's not a pristine record anymore. It's the overall experience that I'd rather listen to a record. And there are days where I don't listen to records at all because I don't want to get up and flip sides all the time.
It has its drawbacks. It’s so funny, I'm obviously more of a film guy than a music guy. But in film, I'm very much pro celluloid, filming on film, but also projecting on film. You get into these debates, and at a certain time I think they were more reasonable debates to have, about whether the quality actually still better on film. I remember that being a thing with vinyl and even CD, where people were like, “I don't know, is the CD capturing the full range?” But you know what? At some point that's not the issue. The thing that I like with going to see a film print, especially an older film print, is it might be scratchy, sometimes even too scratchy, like it kind of detracts a little bit from the movie itself, but that's evidence of its history as a physical object. That's every performance. You know what I mean?
Exactly. Yes.
On vinyl, it's even more like that, especially if you bought it as a teenager, all of these things, that’s your life on a record.
It is! It’s my history. It's contained in these records.
In the scratches and everything.
It all tells a story. My mother used to play the Beatles while we were cleaning, and “A Day in the Life” used to skip. And to this day, I don't want to hear it without that skip, because that's part of its history to me.
Totally. Obviously people can get a bit fetishistic about that stuff, but no, that's real. Especially these days, with AI and everything, it's like, I want things that are real.
Yes. I want things that are tangible, that are real to me. That that I found myself, first of all. That's a big thing to me too. Certain records, I'm like, “I discovered this record on my own,” so it becomes part of me, too.
And I assume that's the kind of writing you want as well. When you were saying you don't just want reviews of the music, it's not really about the music exactly.
People are sending me essays that have made me cry. They're just talking about their connection with records or one specific record, how they came about these records and the stories behind them, and a lot of them have to do with family and passing down from parents and things like that, reminding them of when someone was sick. There are really a lot of poignant stories.
I like the idea of what you're asking people to do, which is, actually look at this music and understand what it means to them, rather than like what it expresses about their identity or something. You know what I mean? It's like, what does it actually mean? I don't think people do that that often. We have our favourite music, but we don't think about it.
People don't get introspective about their choices and what they're buying. And asking them to be introspective about it. Why did you buy this? What did it mean to you when you listened to it? What does it mean to you to hold it in your hand? Where did you get it from? I want them to engage with the stuff they have.
So I’m sorry to ask, but how old are you again?
62.
Okay, that’s not that old, but I'm constantly impressed by how much you've kept up with relatively new music. My mom's basically the same age as you, a little bit older, but she’s not into music in quite the same way. I mean, she listens to Top 40, but like all of the indie music and stuff you listen to, she’d probably have no idea about any of that stuff. Is that something that you've just nurtured your whole life?
I was always, especially when I started working at the record store—I was, like, 20 when I started working at the record store, and that's when I really started. I mean, I had records before that, but I wasn't collecting records or anything like that. Records were a social thing. We put them on at somebody's house, you know, when we were all together, and sometimes we would talk about them. But it didn't peak until I was in my 20s, and I was like, “This is how I want to engage with records. I want them to become a part of my life.”
But a lot of it has to do with my kids. Once I graduated high school, I moved on musically. In high school, I listened to a lot of the typical classic rock of the 70s in early 80s. Once punk came out, and then new wave came out, I left all that behind. I was like, there is so much more out there than the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. I started to go to record stores, I started to go to clubs. I wanted to hear all the new stuff that was coming out. And that just stayed with me. But as I got older, I kind of started to get into a little funk. And then my kids got to the age where they started to listen to a lot of new music. And my daughter would always say to me, “Have you heard this? Have you heard this? I want you to listen to this.” She would always make me listen to her records, Taking Back Sunday, things like that.
Oh, wow!
She got me into Taking Back Sunday and Brand New.
That's amazing, because I think your your daughter and I are probably about the same age. I'm 36.
Yeah, she’s 34.
There you go, yeah. So that's like me and my friends. Like, I have a friend who, would constantly be like, “You gotta listen to Brand New.”
My daughter really got me into that, and then I just went from there, started discovering from there. And I started bringing home stuff for her, saying, “You got to hear this.” And we still do it to this day.
Oh, that's amazing.
Yeah, and she was my concert buddy for a while. She moved to LA though. We used to go to shows together all the time.
My dad would sometimes listen to new stuff that way. I remember one time actually, because he was dating some woman whose son was in some band, he had somehow heard Bright Eyes. One time I played something, I think I played a Bright Eyes song in the car, and he was like, “This sounds like Bright Eyes.” I was like, “Wait a second. How do you know about this?” We went once to see R.E.M., I think it turned out to be their last tour, and they had Modest Mouse and The National opening. He got into to Modest Mouse a bit, so I was that in the car for a while. That’s a fun connection to have. When I think about that music, I actually think about my dad a lot, even though that wasn't originally how I came to it, you know?
Like my daughter will always say, anytime she hears Incubus, she thinks of her childhood. Me playing that album constantly in our apartment.
For me, that stuff is more like classic rock. The Beatles and Deep Purple and whatever else my dad was playing at the time. But that's one of those things with music, it ends up soundtracking your life in way, yeah. You have these associations.
A lot of the stuff I write is about associations. What do I associate this record with?
Have you got ones coming up that you're really looking forward to writing about or have written about already?
The first album I'm writing about is my favourite album, the Aztec Camera album. I figured that’s my favourite one, I have a really good story to go with that. That's my first one. And the second week I'm going to write about my favourite Christmas albums. And after that, it's all going to be kind of random, unless there's something coming up that's an anniversary of an album, or something like that that I want to write about, but otherwise it’s gonna be very random. But I have the first two planned out.
And you said you got a ton of submissions. How have you been plotting that out?
The interviews, I'm really excited about. Steve Sladkowski from PUP is the first interview. Then I got Chris Walla. I got Eric Hudson from Foxing.
Holy crap.
Yeah, I got some really good stuff coming up.
That's amazing. How'd you get Chris Walla? That's so cool.
We followed each other on Twitter and Bluesky.
Now way!
And we got to talking, and when I said I was doing the website, he said, “I would love to do that.” He was a great interview, really personable, really nice guy.
I mean, his music. That wasexactly the right time for me. That Death Cab for Cutie stuff, especially when he was in the band. Like, specifically when he was in the band. I'm looking forward to that. Then that's, that's great. When you're thinking about what the site is, obviously it’s a labour of love, a passion project, and you're not paying at the moment. Are you hoping to actually develop it into something that that might bring in money.
I don't want to make money off of this. I don't want it to be a job. I don't want it to be a chore. But I do want to pay people who are helping me and who are submitting, so I'm hoping to get, like, a sponsor, maybe a local record store or something. Just put a banner up, say the site is sponsored by Looney Tunes records or whatever. Even if I can pay a writer $50, it’s something. I’m very lucky that these people have all said I'm going to do this for free, and I have no problem doing this. It floored me, how many people wanted to do it for free, but I that's not something I want to keep doing forever.
I think people just love this stuff, right? You go on Letterboxed, or any of these sites, or Discogs, or whatever. People just want to express their relationship to art. They might not be professional critics, but they want to express these things.
I do have some critics who are doing some writing for me, but most of these people are just regular people with their own little record collection. Some people have 20, some people have 2,000. It’s just a way to let them express themselves and say, “Here, this is what I'm listening to, this is why I'm listening to it.”
Not to spoil ones coming up, but have you got any that were particularly interesting that you could share?
There's this one where a guy talks about how he met his wife at a record store, and they still have the record that they bought, and they play it every Valentine's Day, because they met on Valentine's Day, and that's why the record is important to him. It's little things like that.
Yeah.
I have people who are musicians and talking about making a record.
Oh, that's cool.
So I’ve got a lot of different perspectives. From collecting to— I got people who gave away an entire record collection, talking about why they lost that connection with their records, and now how they feel about having given it all away. People who were handed down records from their parents. It's a lot of different perspectives on record collecting.
You’ve also got to be getting an interesting diversity of music choices coming in.
Absolutely. I’ve got rock, I've got soul, I've got rap. I wanted to get everything covered. I wanted to make sure that as I took them in and decided when they were going out, I want to schedule it so it's kind of like you're not seeing the same kind of music every day.
Have you learned stuff about areas of music that you weren't as familiar with.
I'm actually listening to a lot of music, albums that people have told me that they love. I’ve been listening to a lot of them, finding really interesting things to listen to. Totally out of my wheelhouse.
Have you listened to anything good?
One of the reasons that I love following you so much, on Twitter and now on Bluesky, is that you're constantly posting the music that you're listening to. And in my case, a lot of it is kind of in my wheelhouse. But it is stuff I’ve often not listened to, or not heard of. I’m kind of interested in your feeling about being this kind of curator and educator, in a way. Because that's kind of what you're doing.
I love it. To me, the greatest pleasure is when I put out something on social media and say, “Listen to this album,” and somebody gets back to me and says, “I listened to it and I loved it. Thank you.” I love that feeling.
It’s wonderful.
I got very involved with the DIY scene, with all these smaller bands, and I keep pushing them, because I want them to have an audience. I want them to grow their audience. And if I can help them get their songs out there, I'll do it, you know? That's basically why I'm doing it. I want you to listen to that Foxing album. I want you to listen to the stuff I put out there. You never know what you might find.
I’ll be back over the weekend with my Reading, Watching, Listening post for the week, and I’m planning a couple other posts over the holidays, including, finally, the next Five-Star Three-Star Cinema Club entry, so stay tuned!