Home Grown: A Tom Waits completist with an ear for vintage hi-fi

Because every record collection has a story.

Home Grown is our new series profiling you lot and your excellent record collections. Taking our cue from the brilliant submissions to the #VFRecordCollections thread on Instagram, we want to share a little of your hard-earned love for vinyl with the world.

Each week, we’ll be profiling a different collector from around the world and finding out what makes them tick. Want in? Send us a pic of your collection and a few words about your collection to [email protected].

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Name: Louis Pedersen

Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Size of collection: 1,200 records and growing. There so many great releases right now! I had more earlier when I was younger, but I’ve cut back a few times, and sold of some I didn’t listen to anymore. I live in a small apartment with my girlfriend and my son, so I have to trim the collection now and then.

How long have you been collecting?

I’m 26 years old now, but when I was 14 I somehow got into old rock n roll. I only listened to ’60s and ’70s rock n roll: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath and so on. I’m from a small town where there were no CD shop, but since I only listened to old music I bought a vintage stereo with a record player and went to the thrift store. Back in 2004 vinyl hadn’t really made a comeback yet, so I bought some amazing records for no money back then.

What part of your set-up are you most proud of?

Since I bought that vintage stereo setup in 2004 I’ve been collecting both vinyl and vintage hi-fi. I’ve have owned some pretty nice gear over the years, but a lot of times I have to sell something to be able to buy something new, so actually it is not really a collection.

Today I am pretty proud of my turntable, the Technics SP-10 mkII from 1975. It’s an amazing turntable, and the best from Technics. In general I’m pretty happy with my stereo setup – it sounds like a stereo system from the ’70s. I’m running a pair a Dynaco MkIII tube amps, and I really enjoy the sound of those amps, it’s very warm and smooth.

On the other hand I’m pretty proud to own a complete Tom Waits collection of studio albums, which is the same with Nick Cave and a handful of other “favourite artists”. If I like an artist or a band I like to have all the studio albums, even the bad ones.

What does your record collection mean to you?

For me it’s like an archive of my life. It sounds a bit stupid, but I like to dig into the collection and find something i haven’t listened to in a long time and remember why I bought it what part of my life it belongs to. Like the other day when I rediscovered Black Sabbath’s debut album. I hadn’t heard that in many years. I almost killed it when I was 15 years old, I heard it every day!

Photos: Instagram