Editor’s note: We reached out to a maverick in vinyl record production, Vince Slusarz owner of Gotta Grove Records. Slusarz recognized early the trend for vinyl records to make a comeback. He left a long career at Kinetico in Newbury to pursue his dream of pressing vinyl records. He set up shop in Cleveland in 2009, and since then, has worked on more than 8,000 individual releases. He’s speaking at a GEL breakfast Friday, June 1, 7:30 – 9 a.m. at Kent State Geauga. Vince also has a fondness for libraries. Here, he recollects his time in school libraries.
In elementary school, kids get up every day at the same time, adhere to the rigid classroom schedule, sit next to the same kids, do homework, rinse and repeat. School library hours were also scheduled, but ahh, books! Books could and did take me anywhere I wanted to go, and places I had never thought about. I discovered the “We Were There” series of historical events and devoured all 36 of them.
And, not just books. In high school, our library had listening booths. You could select an album from the catalog of reel-to-reel tapes and listen to it on headphones. I wore out Procul Harem‘s “Shine on Brightly.”
Books and music: comfort food for the mind and soul, and all for FREE!
Vince is currently reading Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal.
