A shot has rung out. A call to arms. A time for action.  Man the barricades. Children of the vinylution unite. Cometh the hour, cometh ye army of vinyl warriors. To fight the assembled digital foes. A bit dramatic? Agreed! But read on…

I find myself at Oval Space in East London for the second Flying Vinyl festival. There was no question of coming back here: the first one in Hackney Wick last year, featuring the charismatic Black Honey, was probably the most exciting gig I’ve ever been to. This year I wanted to meet, and talk to, some of the young people Craig Evans of Flying Vinyl aims to reach. “Gonna start a revolution from my bed,” sang Oasis. Just over two years ago Craig heard that call and the revolution is underway.

Lucy Grinter,17, and Adam Rudling, 16,  are students from Colchester. She likes photography and he has a passion for Maths. Their friends, Amber and Aisling, like classics (sculpture and tragedy) and history and art respectively. In spite of these differences, the thing that unites them is a love for music, and hanging out together at gigs. I wondered what had brought them here and they were unanimous in their description of the journey they have taken. Through a love of Brighton’s The Magic Gang, they discovered Flying Vinyl and took out the monthly subscription. They saw last year’s line-up and decided to go. They have since discovered new music, such as London blues rock band, Hidden Charms and London one man band, Oscar Scheller, by listening to the singles sent out each month.  A subscription gives you a box of five singles per month, along with information about the artists and treats such as polaroids. It’s a bit like a vinyl lucky bag.

I was interested to know what they thought about the price of vinyl. It is considerably more expensive to buy a new release in this format than to buy it on Itunes, after all. Adam agreed that it is very expensive, as did Lucy, who cited the £2 per record paid by her parents in their day. They both acknowledged that you should consider really carefully what you are going to buy, listening to songs first to ensure you like them, before committing to a purchase. There is, however, the element of surprise of opening a Flying Vinyl box for the first time and seeing what is inside.

So, are this group of Essex teenagers unique amongst their peers? Is listening to vinyl the norm? It appears that it is a growing thing, according to Adam. This is backed up by figures released recently: LP sales were up by 53% on 2015, a 25 year high. Lucy continues, “When we started we were the only ones, but it has got bigger, and people listen to mainstream records on it (vinyl) too. Probably about 2% of the school. It depends on the class. If it’s the art class it’s a lot bigger than 2%.” She was really keen to avoid stereotypes, but it was clear that most of the people at the festival were creative, arty in their appearance, and these tend to buy vinyl more than others. The question has to be asked about whether the figure would be higher than 2% if prices were lowered. In spite of the financial inaccessibility of vinyl for most 17 year olds, Adam and Lucy wanted to emphasise that Flying Vinyl records are better value than those sold in high street stores such as HMV.

Is there a solution? Of sorts. Teenagers are raiding their parents’ record collections to have that unique vinyl experience. Adam was given some by his dad, who unfortunately got rid of most of them, not thinking that vinyl would come back in vogue. Lucy has her parents’ entire collections. She has grown to like artists who were initially unappealing. There is something of a cultural exchange, her listening to Kate Bush (“Very good to listen to on vinyl very loud”) and them listening to Tame Impala records.  This fusion of old and new can only be a good thing. You don’t have to hang around long at this gig to hear what has influenced these bands: the Captain Beefheart, Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters of Hidden Charms; the Merseybeat influences on Trudy and the Romance; the Stevie Nicks, Blondie and Chrissie Hynde of Anteros. It’s all there.

These youngsters do still stream and download, but cite several advantages of the vinyl format: firstly, it is a special experience, the whole idea of listening to an album all the way through, turning it over, the crackling; secondly, Lucy says it makes her feel nostalgic for a time when she wasn’t even alive, an experience she wants to pass on to her children in the future; and finally, the quality of sound is different to anything else around. Even when people try and recreate the vinyl sound digitally it remains ineffective.

So where does this vinyl revolution currently stand? It is evident that the children of the vinylution are increasing in number. What is also clear, however, is that there is much more ground to win back from the streaming strongholds, due to the prescriptive pricing of vinyl. Flying Vinyl is doing its bit to make records more accessible to the young, and parents have a part to play too.  Lucy, Adam and friends are intelligent, articulate, frontline evangelists with a key role in proclaiming over the barricades the good news that vinyl is back, influencing others to take up arms with them. To quote Flying Vinyl’s own words: “The revolution will not be digital.” And to misquote Marc Bolan, “You won’t fool the (smart, switched on) children (young adults) of the vinylution.”

Words and photos by Si ©cre8ivation

Featured collage by Lucy Grinter, featuring herself and Adam, along with Laura Hayden from Anteros, Raissa Pardini of Yassassin and Willie J Healey, all of whom performed at this year’s Flying Vinyl festival.