Q&A Remix with Gary and Chris Ingalls

Chris Ingalls interviewed his older brother, Gary, who currently owns around 3,000 records. Chris and Gary became obsessive record collectors while they were raised on the collections of their two older sisters, Karen and Julie, mostly during the five years in the ‘70s when they were living in France. For about 25 years, starting in 1985 at the age of 20, Gary worked as a DJ in various clubs around Florida and also at weddings and private parties. He currently lives in Houston where he works part-time at a local record store, Music Town. 

Have you ever bought a record simply because of the artwork?

I do, on occasion, but usually it’s “this cover is so insane, I have to know what the music sounds like,” and it’s usually something under a couple of dollars. But I paid full price for a reissue of Satan Is Real by the Louvin Brothers just because I absolutely love that album cover. The music on it is OK, I guess. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I bought it strictly for the cover. 

Do you have a most memorable vinyl purchasing experience?

It was probably the day I went from a fair-to-middling record collector to “holy shit, this guy’s serious.” That was when a guy gave me his whole record collection, around 1,500 albums, in 1987. I was living on the Treasure Coast (of Florida) and I got to know this guy who was completely sold on CDs, he wanted nothing to do with vinyl ever again. His record collection was in Orlando, where he used to live. He said that if I wanted to drive to Orlando, which was two hours away, I could have them. Up until then, I had maybe three or four hundred records, and by the end of that day, I had close to two thousand. 

This collection he gave me was phenomenal. A ton of Stiffs records, the Jam, Todd Rundgren, all the Sparks records, lots of great stuff, all in great condition. A lot of music that really influenced my tastes, big time. To this day, I’m still pulling out gems from that collection.   

When you go into a record store, where do you head first?

When I walk into a record store for the first time, I just walk in and wait to be grabbed by something. Within 10 to 15 seconds of walking in the door, something’s going to grab my eye and I’m going to go to that. But it also depends on what that store’s specialty is. 

What would you say is the most treasured record in your collection, and why?

Well, you know that we grew up pretty much straight-up, 100 percent classic rock. At the time, anything that wasn’t classic rock was “bad.” Little did I know that I would eventually become a huge fan of funk. I hold a very special place in my heart for the albums that opened that up to me. One of them would be James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, Vol. II. First of all, the cover has a very distinctive ‘60s vibe to it. At the time, I didn’t own a record that looked anything like it. It’s also a much more rigid and thick record than anything else I had from the 70s or 80s. And musically – that album just completely converted me to James Brown, so it’s kind of special to me.   

There’s also a Parliament-Funkadelic album that’s actually more of an EP – The Mothership Connection, Live from Houston. the second side has some singles, and side one – Live in Houston, 1976, OH MY GOD. Just a total game changer for me. The James Brown record is sturdy as hell, it still holds up; the Parliament-Funkadelic one is rather beat up, but it’s still playable. I got them both around 1985 when I first started DJing and I was playing a lot of soul and doo-wop and everything started opening up for me and I started branching out into other musical styles. It was a combination of “I’m getting in the business, so I should really know what I’m talking about,” and “I’ve been listening to rock and roll for about ten years now and I’m kind of bored with what I’ve stuck myself with, and it’s time to find something new and interesting out there.”    

What’s a record that’s in your collection that you’re most eager to share with friends?

Probably the Neal Francis live album, Francis Comes Alive. I don’t know how anyone could not love that, it is such a good album. Most of the stuff I’m into now is kind of bizarre and “out there” in one way or another, not exactly mainstream, because I played mainstream music for a living as a DJ for so long that I got burned out on most of the popular stuff. But this is something that’s right down the middle of the road, there’s nothing weird about it, but I think it’s so good. 

Are you a “completist” when it comes to artists? Which artists do you have the most records from?

Well, I think you know the answer to that (laughs). I have more than 100 Frank Zappa albums. I’ve got everything that he put out in his lifetime, plus bootlegs. Not necessarily first pressings, but everything on the original label, up to when he stopped putting out his records on vinyl. A lot of the posthumous boxed sets, I’m not buying. I don’t have the same completist attitude about Frank that I used to, because there’s been so much posthumous stuff, and it’s so expensive, and a lot of it’s repetitive. 

I first seriously listened to Zappa when I was 17 years old. My immediate response was “I don’t get this, I don’t necessarily like it, but there’s something happening here that I need to pursue. I need to figure out what it is that’s going on here.” The reason I’ve been so obsessed with Frank for so long is the fact that you never really fully figure his music out. The mystery never goes away.

What is/are your “white whale” records?

Well, there are certainly albums that I would love to have if I ever came across them, but the internet kind of ruined that, don’t you think? Also, I tend to be a strictly “find it in the wild” kind of guy. I like to wait for things to come to me, and I get very excited when it’s something I really like. 

However, when I first started getting into Zappa, I was at this guy’s house in Orlando, and his roommate was a big record collector, and also a big Zappa fan himself. He pulled a record out of his collection and it was For Real by Ruben and the Jets (produced by Zappa in 1973, the band named themselves after a Zappa album, Cruising with Ruben and the Jets). Within a year, I stumbled across it at a used record store. I bought it and fell head over heels in love with it. It’s high-energy, 50s-60s-ish rock and roll. It’s a party record. When I’m in the mood for it, I tend to have lots of alcohol in my body. So the only time I ever listened to that album was when I was shitfaced. As a result, after many, many years, it was just beat to hell. Never, ever, ever, did I see another copy of that album anywhere. I didn’t realize how rare it was. 

Fast forward to about ten or fifteen years ago: I had a friend who used to go to record shows in Spain and Italy every year, and I needed some money, so I consigned some records to him. He came back from the trip with a huge check for me, and a used but very clean copy of For Real as a gift. So that was my white whale for a while. Nowadays, if there’s anything that’s so rare that I’d love to have, I don’t even think about getting it, because it would be so cost prohibitive. And being able to get anything online has sort of taken the thrill out of it.   

Do you have a favorite live record?

Full House by the J. Geils Band. I love music that has unstoppable forward momentum. When it comes to that, you cannot top that album. The energy on it – they’re throwing it at the crowd and the crowd is throwing it right back. It’s the perfect example of why I love live music. The songs are so good on that album, so much better than the studio versions. Also, it doesn’t hurt that there’s a nostalgia factor there, too – that album and that band were such a big part of my youth. 

Who/what got you got you hooked on records?

Karen (our oldest sister). I’ll never forget this one night. I think you were the only member of the family who wasn’t part of this, you were probably in bed at the time (Interviewer’s note: I was five years old on the night in question – this was in 1974, shortly after we moved to France). It was the first night we had that Phillips stereo. Karen always kept her records in her room, and I guess she used to listen to them on a system in her bedroom. Until that night, we were never really part of her record listening experience. So, all of a sudden, we have a brand-new stereo in the living room, and that night, she DJ’d for us. She played her favorite tracks off her favorite albums, I was there, Julie (our other sister), Mom and Dad. She probably had about 30 albums at the time. That was the day I said, “Oh my God, I know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life – spend it on these black discs!”

Some of the records I remember listening to that night were the Beatles’ “blue” album (1967-1970), which I think was purchased at the same time of the stereo, also Deep Purple’s Made in Japan, Who’s Next, and The Yes Album.  

What’s your favorite headphones album?

For me, headphones are for when I’m not with my stereo. I gotta hear the shit booming out of the speakers. But I do remember one nearly-religious experience listening to DJ Shadow’s Private Press on headphones. 

Do you have a favorite record store? 

Crunchy Armadillo Records, an old record store in Orlando, will always hold a special place in my heart, mainly because it’s where I got my first 20 or 30 Zappa records. But the thing about record stores, it really comes down to is who’s behind the cash register more than anything else. You’ve got to have a decent selection of records, of course, but outside of that, who do I want to hang with and talk music with, and who do I want influencing my purchases?

What is the last record you listened to?

I just finished side one of In a Silent Way by Miles Davis, and now I’m listening to side two of Igor by Tyler the Creator.

What’s the last record you purchased?

The Blasters, The Complete Concert (a Record Store Day exclusive)

You have a lot of 45s from your days as a DJ, and you recently began buying them again. What’s the attraction? 

What’s really blown my mind is how different my 45 collection habit is to my LP collection habit. They’re different in so many ways. For example, I’m so lax about the condition of 45s because they tend to be in bad shape. I collect them for the love of music, like I do LPs, but also because I look at them as little slices of music history. The fact that somebody bought this record contributed to the fact that it was well known. It affected, in a very minute way, its chart position – and I own this thing, and I love the fact that it has this kid’s name scrawled on it, or even better, an address sticker. These records were probably bought by kids who didn’t buy them because they were an investment, they bought them because they heard the song on the radio and loved it, and had to own it. 

Chris Ingalls is a Massachusetts native and lifelong music fan who learned how to write while stationed in the U.S. Navy for seven years as a broadcast journalist. Since 2016, he has contributed nearly 500 reviews and features for PopMatters and is a former contributor to the now-defunct experimental music website Tome to the Weather Machine. He’s also an occasional guest on the music podcast Losing My Opinion. He currently lives in the leafy suburbs of Melrose, Massachusetts with his wife, son, dog, two cats, and lots of records. He’s on Bluesky and Instagram @ingalls1969.

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