Vinyl recordings are making a comeback, but at KZSM, they never went away. Every Monday night from 10 p.m. to midnight, Rob Roark hosts “Vinyl Confessions,” keeping two turntables spinning to play “nothing but legitimate vinyl.” “In this fastpaced digital world of snippets of music on the go,” he observes, “there is a newfound appreciation of a pressed vinyl disc. Generations old and new can come together over music wrapped in a sleeve of art from a different era; when a needle vibrates in that groove at 33 1/3 or 45 revolutions per minute, sounds will be amplified, and broadcast worldwide.”
Listeners bring their vinyl discs to our storefront studio at 216 North Guadalupe, where Rob plays them on the air and talk about them. Texas State student Annabelle stopped by with her Dad’s “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys to share that surfer sound. Later on, friends and family joined her with their albums, sometimes never before played.
San Martian Jehnny Oh has collected vinyl since her father gave her his old records when she left for college in 2001. “I was drawn more to the art than the music at that time,” she admits. “I used the covers to wallpaper my first dorm room.” She began listening, and gradually added to the collection, so that she now has “a pretty cool curated collection of my Dad’s stuff and mine, gathered from all over the country, including the new San Marcos record shop Alchemy.” Whenever she posted her new acquisitions on Facebook, Rob always invited her to the show in a comment. Finally, when the year was almost over, she gathered up twelve favorites--including The Cleaners from Venus, Tom Waits, Rilo Kiley, Autoclave, Stereolab, and Frank Zappa—and made her way to the studio. “Once there, I found Rob had hundreds more to pick from, and we threw in some Christmas tunes between my picks, plus he had a few picks of his own. I had a lot of fun getting to share some stuff Rob had never heard of and talking with him in between songs.” She plans to return with new finds. “I am super grateful we have something like KZSM as an outlet for me to vinyl confess,” she says. If you’d like to vinyl confess, the door at 216 North Guadalupe is open every Monday, 10 p.m. to midnight. Or contact KZSMSanMarcos@ gmail.com.
