Featured Essay: He Told Me To Wash This Way

by Glenn Hansen

My older brother started it. Dave taught me about Rush in the 1970s and let me sit in his room listening to the Marantz stereo setup. I’d kick back with 2112 and read about the temples of Syrinx and its great computers, as Geddy sang and Neal drummed. It was convenient then, to be an audiophile, even if the stereo was in Dave’s bedroom, not mine. He had the whole deal. It helped that Dad sold milk for a living and supplied us with the good plastic milk crates, aka shelving foundation and record storage. Yes, there was a beanbag chair; how did you know?

Dave also taught me about cleaning and storage, if screaming at your little-kid brother can be called teaching. “Did you clean it first, like I frickin’ told you?!” Just a few drops of fluid on the felt cleaning pad of the Discwasher. I still have that, though I lost the little red fluid bottle that nested inside that wooden block. 

He also let me play Elton John and Foreigner, as long as I respected the cleaning process. Later, I’d hear “Dammit, Glenn, put the f’in record in the sleeve when you’re done! Are you stupid?” Like it was urgent.  

In my room

By the 80s, when I could drive Mom’s Buick Regal with the cassette deck, my listening changed. It was way more convenient to drop the Beach Boys on a homemade TDK into Mom’s car, or even better, the boombox, in my room. In that world I locked out all my brother’s screaming orders. In my room.

Then CDs, the iPod, and then Spotify. I played all of ‘em. No cleaning necessary. Convenient, sure, but as good? Ever try to relax in a beanbag chair and enjoy the album art on an iPod screen? Or as Geddy sang it, “Another toy will help destroy, The elder race of man.” Okay, a bit dramatic, even for 70s rock. But now that I am part of the elder race, I want the right mix of experience and convenience. 

And I have vinyl records, plus the old Discwasher. The little red bottle disappeared in the 20th century, but I found a spray cleaner that promised to elevate my listening experience. So I started spritzing and wiping every platter, just like Dave told me to. Until the emptied bottle would spray no more. And the dirt filled my grooves, killed my grooves. 

On a recent visit to Eclipse Records in St. Paul, Minn., I asked Joe Furth if he had any vinyl record cleaner. “No, I don’t. I won’t sell that stuff.” Not the answer I was expecting, though one peek around Eclipse Records and you’ll see the shop is as sparse as a Brian Eno recording. Furth and Eclipse sell vinyl, not cleaners and knickknacks. 

Nonetheless, he offered a solution, figuratively speaking. “Make your own for about 5 bucks a gallon.” For economic impact, he added, “Those store-bought cleaning fluids would cost you about $20; that’s like $300 a gallon.” Furth pointed me to a hardware store for supplies and YouTube for inspiration.

Now the internet lectures me

You already know you should NOT ask Google about that red-hot rash behind your knee. Even more so, do not ask about mixing a DIY vinyl-cleaner solution. Isopropyl alcohol? Dawn dish cleaner? Vinegar? WD-40? Hold on a second. Make sure you are specific with your Google or AI queries. You want to clean vinyl records, not vinyl flooring or the bench seat in your Oldsmobile. 

I did turn to the internet, of course. It wasn’t all bad, though the Alcohol v. No Alcohol debate will spin you right round baby right round, like a record baby right round round round. For the sake of this journalism, I watched too many YouTube videos, including vinyl-ologists who post long video lectures that warn of alcohol’s negative impact on vinyl records, only to correct themselves with more long videos about the good of alcohol. 

IRL, my good friend and music uber-nerd Johnny B said he uses a zero-stat gun to remove static electricity from LPs. This has become a convenient part of his process. That and buying clean records. Start clean, stay clean. Makes sense, but not super helpful in my cleaning quandary. 

Then I found a thing online that broke me. It really sent me analog and I ran to the garage dreaming I could escape in Mom’s Buick Regal with a Chuck Mangione cassette. What was it? The 192-page third edition of “Precision Aqueous Cleaning of: Vinyl Records.” The author Neil Antin writes, in his introduction, “After a 20-year hiatus … an effective, simple, economical, and safe vinyl record manual cleaning process has been developed.” Yep, 192 pages.

https://thevinylpress.com/app/uploads/2024/03/PACVR_3rd-Ed-Ch1_2024-03.pdf

You can get as nerdy as you want with this. And if you’re into shellac-type records, maybe you should check out this resource from the Northeast Document Conservation Center. 

https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/cleaning-discs

Clean yourself

Or not. You should just listen to Joe Furth, like I did, and make your own simple cleaner. My recipe is a standard cocktail of distilled water, isopropyl alcohol and a drop or two of drying agent (I use Jet Dry). I have at least a gallon of this stuff now. And I put it in a handy glass spray bottle that looks nice next to Chaka Khan when she looks at me and gets a warm feeling inside. I feel for you too, Chaka. 

My records are cleaner; my music is louder. But I have not yet found the proper mix of experience and convenience. I’m currently testing different cloths versus the Discwasher. But draping damp microfibers kills the look of my listening space. I’m also experimenting with rinsing my records. I’m too cheap to fork over $80 for the “spin cleaner” record-bathing apparatus. So the internet suggested I could simply shower them under my kitchen sink. This requires three hands, at least, and that’s inconvenient. 

And I’m brushing every day. I may be onto something here. I prefer my new goat hair groove brush. The long blonde strands in its cherry wood handle make me think of Debbie Harry. One way or another, I will get these records clean. 

Glen Hansen is a writer and photographer based in Stillwater, Minn., and I like to tell stories about motorcycles, gardening and power tools. But mostly about the people who enjoy all these things. You can find me at hansenhousecontent.com.