I love listening to recorded music- old, medium-aged, and fairly new. No surprise to anyone. Two things happened in the last week that impact one “camp” of my enthusiasm: vinyl records. One looks pretty bad; the other is unquestionably very, very good. Let’s start with the bad. Sorry.

If you are a vinyl record fan, you may have heard that there was a devastating fire at Apollo Masters in California. They were one of two facilities in the world making blank master lacquer discs, the first step in turning a recording of your favorite musicians into a vinyl record. And they supplied 80% of all such discs. And they were the source of virtually all cutting styli for the lathes that do the actual etching of the music into the master lacquer from which records are pressed. Think plenty of materials to make cars from but 80% of the gas is gone, and note the use of the past tense. The fire burned everything. Their web site indicates there is a more than reasonable chance they cannot recover.

This is not good. The other company, the one in Japan that makes the remaining 20% of lacquers, has already said they are at capacity with their existing contracted customers, and they are not taking any new ones. The happier talk I have read since the fire says things such as the Japanese company will be able to ramp up (they’ve said they can’t), mastering facilities have inventories of blanks already in house (highest bidder “rationing”?), and a sort of nebulous “smart people will figure this out.” One wag even said, “There may be no Coke, but there is still Pepsi.” He had no idea how powerful his analogy would be in making Scott realize the gravity of the situation. The unhappy talk is best summarized by a friend who is an insider in this esoteric world. I’ll paraphrase his response when I asked him what he was seeing: It’s not good. People are having adobe bowel movements.

I also noticed that all the happy talk was coming from The Music Industry, while the real concern, including the bad BM’s thing, comes from people who make records I care about. Records that are painstakingly made to represent the music on the master recording as closely as possible and, interestingly to me, records that contain “good music” (your definition may be different). I’m guessing there likely won’t be a problem getting lacquers for the titles that Target stocks. But if your tastes run to the more esoteric it might be time to worry.

Now for the very, very good. Next Thursday, the 20th, we will host another one of our seminar-parties for AMG, the second in less than a year. There is a reason this comes when it does: The Viella Forte. “The Big Dog” of record playing machinery. It’s in the house. And it is making music of the Third Kind. Really, it sounds as though it came from another planet. And the First and Second will be ably represented by the Giro and standard Viella.

In preparation for the event, we have done several things. We have ensured the presence of Garth Leerer, a white knight in the world of analog music and a longtime friend, and Ken Bowers, the newcomer to Musical Surroundings, but who brings not only significant credentials, but the requisite “really good guy” demeanor that Garth seems to surround himself with.

It could be a party just spinning music right there, but we have stacked the deck. Charles E. Fromage will bring their snack-inary skills and Stock House Brewing Company will fortify with brew. RSVP. We really need to know you are coming. And you should!

THREE STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK