Don’t Sleep New York

Record-ings




An exploration of the records that make me, as remembered through my vinyl collection.
 

How often can you say you recall the exact moment that you heard a song for the first time?

On June 20, 2015, at 9:35am I was driving in my hometown of Plainsboro, NJ. I can’t say for sure where I was going, but i know this to be true: I was lost in an incredible soundscape of polyrhythms and swirling strings. 

That morning, Sangeet, a show on WPRB 103.3FM, community-supported, independent radio in Princeton, New Jersey, served me up a gem from the motherland. 

I promptly scooped this German vinyl pressing of Muik fur Vina, a collection of Shrimati Rajeshwari Padmanabhan’s music for veena and my morning routine was changed forever.

My AIM screenname was just arpan. For a long time, I hated that I didn’t have a cool screenname, showcasing my interests and randomly generated numbers to indicate individuality. Like s0ccerboi69. 

Eventually, I came to appreciate that my mom made my screenname years before I logged in for the first time. Years after that, I saw the lyrics for the song Time Bomb by The Dismemberment Plan int the profile of an old summer camp counselor who I looked up to. 

The Dismemberment Plan sits in the pantheon of my favorite bands, discovered first through the lyrics of this beautiful song.
Shoutout Rohit for unwittingly putting me on

I discovered a lot of music in 8th grade through a combination of non-linear musical history via Wikipedia and the freedom of Torrenting (plus my first teraybte external harddrive). When classic prog rock found me, I was a ripe weirdo, ready to embrace bands like Gong, Van der Graaf Generator, Yes, and of course, King Crimson.

Knowing this album back to front only helped me socially when years later I immediately knew the answer to a trivia question “What song was sampled on Kanye West’s “Power”?

“21st Century Schizoid Man” by King Crimson was a right of passage for me. 8th grade me was obsessed and even learned the saxophone part.

This album soundtracked my summer after graduating high school. Nostalgia baked into 42:55 minutes of pop punk, ska punk, power pop ballads.

I discovered Bomb the Music Industry at a time in my life where I thought that was the sickest name for a band and years before I actually worked in said Music Industry. BTMI concerts showed how to be rowdy and caring at the same time. 

I even cameo’d in the documentary about their final days, interviewing Jeff in his Brooklyn apartment, while I wore a fashionably off kilter beanie.
   

In the spring of 2015, I decided to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon despite the fact that I was never a runner nor did I find joy in the art of running.

I trained in Prospect Park every night and eventually settled on Thugger’s seemingly endless catalog to get me through hours of building up toward a 13.1 mile run. Barter 6 had just come out and kicked off every run. I’m still triggered by the blown out bass hit of the opening track “Constantly Hating”. 

Years late, while working for SoundCloud, I was part of a care team for a pet snake that Young Thug unexpectedly sent to our office as part of a promotion campaign for Slime Language.
Don’t Sleep New York, LLC