Two years after the initial digital release of Japan Guitar Shop’s debut album, Done You Right, it’s now available on vinyl. LengPleng sat down with JGS co-founder Cove Aaronoff and Tony Lefferts of Pearl of Asia Records / Space Four Zero to revel in the glory of the LP in general and this one specifically.
Cove: It’s extremely grounding for me. To hold it, to look at it. I saw someone who, when they first saw it, hugged it. I think that’s so cool.
LP: I’m no audiophile, but I do like the size of a vinyl LP, that you actually get big artwork.
Cove: The cover is a painting – a picture of a painting. With a vinyl LP you can actually see it, it’s not just a little thumbnail on Spotify or Bandcamp. It’s actually a big painting that was commissioned for the cover, that is rolled up in a closet at Colin’s mother’s place. We’ve never seen the actual piece.
Tony: You should get the painting here.
Cove: We’ll get it eventually.
Tony: At first I was not sure about the cover, but it’s come out really good.
Cove: Tony came up to me after the Dengue Fever show and suggested we go into vinyl with Done You Right. I’m astonished by the sheer number of people that have been involved in creating this artefact – it’s a long list. It’s hard not to feel like a passenger, in the best kind of way. We include a lot of acknowledgements on the back by name, but we missed a lot of people. Chris Gehringer, who mastered the album for digital release, also mastered it specifically for vinyl. We had that done when we could only afford to pay for the mastering, knowing that we may not be able to get to vinyl, but if we ever do we’ll be ready. So when Tony talked to us we were ready to go.
Tony: Makes my job easier.
Cove: It’s totally DIY. Frank Scarfone is our official guitarist now, he’s on the record alongside other former band members like Lewis McTighe, Arone Silverman, Matteo Dembech, Ricky Haldemann, many of whom aren’t here in Cambodia anymore. Frank also worked on the cover design. There’s also a feeling of completion, it’s a different experience from when it was put online or shared digitally. It’s like this movie is done now.
Tony: We’ll certainly sell out the run.
Cove: We did a run of 150, and Tony gifted us a good number of them, and I think over half the available records got picked up right away. Mostly to the people that it’ll mean something to, just to own it, in ten years, just to have it in their hands.
LP: It’s interesting to contemplate that once upon a time these songs were just an idea in a head, then working with other people to make them into a sound artefact that could exist when you played together, and now you have something that exists in the world.
Cove: Digital is one thing, it exists, but somehow putting it on vinyl makes it the past, it’s now the past to me. You’re revisiting something that already happened.
Tony: It makes it more substantial, it’s the medium that it should have been, originally, before there was any digital. It’s a completely different sound, it’s fuller. It’s night and day if you listen to them side by side.
Cove: There is a resurgence now, on independent labels in the west LPs are starting to take off again. I’ve been having people over to listen to vinyls lately – put on the record, sit down, actually listen. Turn it over to play the other side. There’s something more community-oriented than the constant bland background of the digital experience.
Tony: There is demand for vinyl here too. My new Sinn Sisamouth Groove Club Volume 5 – I’m selling three, four, five, six copies a week at the shop.
Cove: There’s a line in the sand, the resistance to AI and all that. There are kids showing up at shows holding vinyl up, like a sign or a symbol, bringing vinyl to the show to wave in the air like a lighter. Bringing things back to community, making things authentic again. I don’t know… I’m just happy to have it.
Tony: We’re excited to have them on Pearl of Asia, hoping for many more releases for Japan Guitar Shop.
Cove: They were pressed in Australia?
Tony: Melbourne.
Cove: We got a video sent of them coming off the press. The dream. It’s also wonderful now because this is happening at a time where we’re evolving into a different band, working with different people – the same band, but it’s a whole different group of passengers, making different kinds of sounds, still within the Japan Guitar Shop framework. So for the vinyl to show up while we’re mid-stream with other stuff, it’s a cool sensation. We’re in the middle of recording our second album right now, and really excited about it. It’s really dark and bluesy, with Felix McFadden and Chema Rodriguez and Frank.
Pick up your copy while you still can at Pearl of Asia Records / Space Four Zero at #25 St 240 in Phnom Penh.
