Q&A Remix With Matt Lavallee

The Q&A Remix is a frequent column on IHTOV in which people from all walks of life answer a set of pre-written questions about their vinyl collection. Today we welcome Matt Lavallee, a Massachusetts musician.

What are your first memories of listening to records?

One day when I was maybe ten or so my dad showed up with an old turntable and a couple LPs - namely Sound Effects Volume 1 on the Audio Fidelity label, and a copy of The Flying Platters. Who knows where these came from - they might have been sitting in the barn for a couple decades. Plugging it in, we found that the motor still worked, but it lacked a needle.

This was no problem: my old man curled a sheet of printer paper into a cone and taped a sewing needle to the small end. He started the turntable and showed me how to hold the paper cone so that the needle lay delicately in the groove of the spinning record. Soon I was fascinated by the sounds of ship’s whistles, jet airplanes, laughing crowds, and so on, emerging from a paper cone. Later on he showed me how to open up a cassette tape and flip the reels, making me the only preteen on the block who knew what a whole Andy Williams album sounds like backwards.

What’s the first area you head for in a record store?

I’m middle-aged, so I’m no longer shopping for records to define my identity in terms of maladjustment to an uncaring world (try Replicas by the Tubeway Army for this) nor to narrate my amorous misadventures to me (Ramones, Leave Home). The old man’s mandate is Chillaxing Vibes while I sip my Old Fashioned. That (and my Berklee education) are what deliver me first to the Jazz section, because there’s really no place where you can get more listenable tunes cheaper than non-household-name jazz records. 

How to do this: When you get to the bins, you’ll find sections bearing names of individual artists (“Miles Davis”, “John Coltrane”). These are always picked over, and what’s left is overpriced reissues - $50 for 180 grams. Spend five dollars on an LP by Ben Webster or Mongo Santamaria and thank me later. The only other section that delivers this much mellow atmosphere for the buck is the box sets of baroque music - plenty of shops still have, say, a complete Brandenburg Concertos sitting around for like $3.

Are you a completionist when it comes to artists? Which artist do you have the most records from?

Only in rare and specific cases do I indulge in completism. It’s far too much rigmarole when there’s plenty more good records out there! I have managed to purchase all twelve of Syntonic Research Inc.’s Environments LPs at the venerable Mystery Train records in Gloucester, Massachusetts - which I’d visit every time my ex-girlfriend wanted to visit one of Essex County’s many quality fried clam establishments, which to her great credit was often. So if you want to hear three or four different kinds of rainstorm on vinyl, or maybe some crickets or the sound of a creaky old ship, come on-a my house.

As for who’s most popular in my collection: A few years back a friend happened upon a box of Erroll Garner records on the sidewalk and nabbed them for me. This was a spectacular stroke of luck and he quickly became my new favorite pianist. We play him so much at my house he’s acquired “third roommate” status. There’s not much you can ask of a jazz pianist that Erroll doesn’t deliver.

What’s the most treasured album in your collection and why?

That’s a tough one. Could be a beat-up old copy of The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer by Mahalia Jackson, on Colortone. I’ve had it as long as I can remember, and it was in a very beat-up old sleeve when I got it. Mahalia of course sings definitive versions of Gospel standards like “Amazing Grace” and “Get Away Jordan”, unlike anything that I could hear anywhere else as a white teenager in 90s Connecticut, unlike anything my friends had ever listened to or even heard of. A perfect, beautiful transmission from a world that had just recently been lost; a secret it seemed only I knew.

Second place is probably my copy of Projections by the Blues Project, which I bought because it was sampled twice on the Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication, but wound up tossing me straight in the deep end of psychedelic rock, which became my raison d’etre for years. When I got to college, the band’s keyboardist (Reverend Al Kooper, of course) was a professor there, and he was kind enough to autograph it for me when I wandered into his office.

What is your most memorable vinyl buying experience?

One day I walked by a window display at a record shop which I decline to name, and beheld a copy of Leona Anderson’s Music to Suffer By. Having recently been through a bad breakup that resulted in moving cities and reclaiming my $9/hour job sucking up to rich people at the fancy grocery store, I knew I’d need it - but the gentleman at the cash register informed me it was not for sale.

“I am really, really going to suffer a lot”, I promised, accurately, before offering a hundred dollars that I absolutely did not have. The asshole didn’t even look up from his price guide, and I didn’t visit that place again until it changed ownership.

What is your greatest “score;” could be on value or just rarity or something you were looking for the longest?

In college I got really into 60s French pop - Yé-yé, some call it - partly because they’re great songs and partly because it was a handy way to signal to art school girls that I was a fun, yet sophisticated and sensitive, fellow, which was a big part of my strategy. Unfortunately this kind of music never made it over the Atlantic pressed to disc, so I just presumed that I’d never actually get my hands on any of it (also how it turned out with the art school chicks).

Fast-forward a couple decades and I found myself on a work trip to Lisbon, where by skipping dinner with my colleagues I made it to exactly one record store (Louie Louie, cool place, check it out) before badly spraining my ankle and catching COVID. But I limped home with a fat stack of Sylvie Vartan picture sleeves so now who’s laughing? if you studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design circa 2000-2003 or so and you want to check these out, drop a line.

Have you ever bought a record just for the artwork?

Of course, I have a whole section of these. Visitors found my way to my bedroom in my first apartment by following the trail of eighteen (18) identical copies of Whipped Cream & Other Delights tacked to the wall. I once picked up off the sidewalk a sleeve of Sniff ’n’ the Tears’ Fickle Heart that didn’t even have a record in it, just to hang it up beside How Much, How Much I Love You by Love and Kisses. How could I live without the disinterested face of the model on Dave Stephens’ Organ Fascination, or Barbara Law’s shockingly horny pose on the back cover of Take All Of Me? You think I’m buying Barbi Benton LPs because they’ll appreciate?

What’s the weirdest record you own?

I inherited a 7” from my mom of James Dean chatting with some pals and playing the congas, which is pretty unusual. “Football Rap” b/w “Funked On Fight Songs” by DJ Rappinstein is the only record I own that’s shaped like a football. As far as off-putting content it’s hard to top Uri Geller’s self-titled debut, which sounds both musically and lyrically like Pat Robertson got into the strong acid (“Oh God, you’re so big, and strong…”)

What is/are your white whale records?

If you’ve got a spare copy of “Ha Po Zamani” by Charlotte Dada with her cover of “Don’t Let Me Down” on the B-side, I will absolutely be your best friend forever. Same goes for “Cryin’ Inside” by the Heart Beats (issued by their own The Heart Beat Record Company), or a nice copy of “Pumping The Water” b/w “Red Lady” by Phil Cordell, or “Sugar Stroll” by Santo & Johnny, or…

Matt Lavallee lives in beautiful Somerville, Massachusetts, where he occasionally can be convinced to jockey discs. He’s a former co-host of the Cool Kids Club radio program, plays the bass guitar in Pledge Pins, and (you guessed it) makes minimal ambient electronic music, too. He can be found at bluesky as @strangebuttrue