Skyscraper National Park: Reunited

By Fraser Hayes

Some music just sounds better on vinyl.

I don’t know if this statement is contentious. And if it is, it shouldn’t be. This is particularly true with older music, but I believe there are many artists that are recording today who would truly benefit from a larger listenership on vinyl.

I have been a Hayden fan for many years. He has recorded a number of interesting albums that have not received much interest in the mainstream (I don’t know how often ‘interesting’ albums make it into the mainstream). The first time I heard ‘Skyscraper National Park’ was the first day in a long relationship with this album. Exploring a range of emotion, this album has found a prominent place in my heart through a roller coaster of life journeys and realizations.

I recently made my way to a record shop in Edmonton with $20 in my pocket and subtle anticipation. It is a different kind of excitement than going to a garage sale or to the Goodwill. Searching for used records is a exercise in archaeology, excavating and throwing aside less valuable rocks and minerals, in search of your respective ‘holy grail’; flipping through endless copies of ‘Rumours’ or ‘Charlie Pride’s Greatest Hits’, hoping that the next one you see is Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’ or a listenable copy of the ‘White Album’. When you go to a record shop, you are expecting to spend a bit more money, usually looking for albums, recorded from the 1990s onward, with a reasonable price tag. When looking for specific records, you have a number in your mind that you’re willing to pay for them and, if you do find them, what the chances that you will find them again in the near future. So this, I suppose, is more of an exercise in economics, taking into account concepts like cost vs worth, supply and demand, and food or music. When I found Hayden’s ‘Skyscraper National Park’ for under $20, it fell well within my accepted parameters.

Now as I said before, this album has been a go-to for me for a number of years, but, alas, I had never heard it on vinyl. Having had my record player stored in a shed for the last month while I have been organizing summer work, I hauled it out and set it up in a less-full, more comfortable shed next to it. Wading through cobwebs and the spring cottonwood fluff in the air, I finally got my speakers wired and positioned; Hayden seemed to be the most appropriate pick. I dropped the needle and was instantly taken by his sound in a way that I have not felt since the first time I heard it almost ten years ago. I thought that this feeling would never be replicated again, which is always a sad thing to think when remembering some of the albums that have literally changed my life and will never be new again, only rediscovered. The first song ‘Street Car’ has always felt like an open door to me; it has a simplicity and melancholy that is instantly welcoming, inviting me to wallow in feeling. The first noticeable difference in this vinyl copy was the mix itself, digital music tends to ‘normalize.’ It’s not that digital music isn’t crisp or clear, it’s that it doesn’t lend itself to the idea that some tracks on a song should be quieter and that, by there very nature, they require the listener to, well, listen more closely. These are the sounds that you have to concentrate to hear and are therefore inherently more poignant. This seems to be much better represented in an analog format. I think this is especially important for artists like Hayden: songs recorded in a more organic way, like the raw buzzy guitar tracks, the sound of a guitar being set down, the murmur of the crowd on a live recording, or a quick back-and-forth between band members. Some may see this as a flaw, thinking it sounds unfinished and amateur. For me, these subtleties draw me closer to it, emotionally. You know what I mean:  ‘I got blisters on my fingers’, ‘cookie’, “see if you can spot this one”: I store these little things, somewhere in my brain, then, when I hear the album again, it reminds me that we have history, that we’re old friends. So for this reason, having a beautifully presented, well-priced record will truly improve my quality of life. It will find it’s way to my turntable platter in this old dusty shed more than most of my records. Maybe as often as the CD use to make it’s way to a hot breath and rub on my shirt in my first old truck many years ago. We are reunited.