How (not) to clean your vinyl

Last week a friend of mine rescued a big bag of 45s from the skip at the charity shop where she volunteers. Knowing how much I love my vinyl she invited me over to do some cherry picking over a lovely pint of Cornish ale. She would give the rest of the records to a friend, who makes bowls out of them. To be honest I thought it was going to be 99% rubbish, but I was amazed of what came out of that bag! These were all singles from the sixties, I think from a jukebox (as they had no sleeves). There were The Beatles and The Stones, there were some crooners (Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones), some rock 'n roll (Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker, Brenda Lee) and some Motown and soul (Al Green, Sam Cooke, Ike and Tina, The Supremes, The Four Tops). I also took a few with intriguing titles, like The Human Jungle/Onward, Christian Spacemen by The John Barry Seven. Lucky me!!

Now I didn't expect these records to be in mint condition (they came in a plastic carrier bag - without sleeves...). But the biggest problem was that they were disgustingly dirty! So I went on the internet and Googled for cleaning advice for vinyl. Enter Nerdworld. I found all sorts home made recipes for cleaning fluid, using various amounts of distilled water, washing up liquid, isopropyl alcohol, acetone, Triton X-100, and/or tile cleaner. There was one guy who swore by using a diaper (a cotton one that is). Big no no's are using ordinary tap water and playing your records wet. A good way of drying them is putting them on a drill and then spinning them at the highest speed! Though this might be a myth.

They probably need a good clean in one of those machines, which "will apply the record cleaning solution, properly scrub the record and finally vacuum the dirt and liquid off leaving you with a dry and pristine vinyl record". But with these records 'a blind horse couldn't do any damage' (as we say in Holland), so I thought I'd just give it a go with some water with a few drops of washing up liquid and some cotton pads. I probably broke all the golden rules of record cleaning, but it helped. Somewhat. Just look at the dirt that came off!



Ieeew!! It took me an entire evening to brush and wipe them all off, but here they are now, nicely stacked in crisp white sleeves that I ordered on eBay.


Listen to a few of the treasures I received. Luckily for you guys I don't have one of those USB record players, so these MP3s are with out the crackles, scratches and dust :-)

I am extremely happy that Fingertips I and II by Little Stevie Wonder (aged 12 at the time!) was saved from the bin. It's a live take cut in two, so the jam just continues on the B-side. "Stomp your feet, jump up and down and do anything that you wanna do!"

Little Stevie Wonder - Fingertips I & II. Get it here (YSI).

Nice bluesy swing/big band tune, until 'Raelette' Margie Hendrix rips it up after a minute and a half. Holy shit.

Ray Charles - You Are My Sunshine. Get it here (YSI).

Another gem is Al Green's beautiful Tired Of Being Alone. But the B-side Right Now, Right Now is also a great track. Very funky, very Papa-Was-A-Rolling-Stone-esk.

Al Green - Right No, Right Now. Get it here (YSI).

Worth a clean right?!