Bruce Jenkins Bentleigh East, Melbourne, 1969 How different from tinny snatches of tunes captured from passing transistors: like smells drifting from strangers’ kitchens. This time I would actually hear an album on a real stereo.
Andy Griffiths Heathmont, 1976 It was a sleepy Sunday afternoon in Heathmont sometime in 1976 when I disappeared down the rabbit hole of Alice Cooper’s dark and twisted nightmare. All appeared—on the surface, at least—to be well with the world.
Nathan Johnson South-Eastern Australia, 1985 Sometimes we travel far away and I feel like we’ve reached the end of the world. Wagga Wagga, Yass, Goulburn. I trace our route excitedly with a highlighter on my fold-out map of Australia.
David Oke Tennessee and Alabama, April 2016 Some of the small towns we passed through were obviously buoyant and surviving well. Others had a few too many vacant stores with grimy windows and closed down gas stations.
My grandparents' garage, Reservoir, 2001 Alessandra Bergamin As I pressed rewind and play once more, Nonno abandoned his re-reading of Il Globo to shuffle across the tiles and play a game. Taking my hand into his own short, stout and tanned fingers, he gently twisted each of my fingertips from side-to-side. Tick-tock-tick-tock, he said, his Italian accent adding an extra vowel to the end of each word. Ticka-tocka-ticka-tocka.
Bedroom mirror, Melbourne, 2015 Iryna Byelyayeva It never goes the way you think it will. It’s never the album you thought would get you through the hard times, or the songs you expected would lull you into contentment.
Sam Lawry Princes Park, Melbourne, summer 2015/16 My jogging app keeps choosing love songs, especially about new love. It’s definitely trying to tell me something.
Vin Maskell Moggs Creek, Australia, 1983 to 2013 Part 2 of our three-part series about family, a beach house and its record collection: from The Screaming Tribesmen to The Girl From Ipanema.
Lorraine Pink The Netherlands, 1974 Bowie had opened my eyes to the world of art and creativity and the possibility that I could be anything I wanted to be. I could reinvent myself. Suddenly the world was an exciting place.
For Paul Chai, music and travel are inseparable. A photo might trigger a memory, he writes, but the right song will trigger a feeling.