Why I Built Vinyl Quest

There was always music in our house growing up. My parents had a Zenith Allegro cabinet in the living room — one of those beautiful pieces of furniture that was also a record player. Sinatra. Johnny Mathis. Charlie Daniels. Johnny Cash. Those records were the soundtrack to my childhood.

Hurricane Opal took most of them. We lost nearly everything in that storm. The only record that survived was Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. I still think about that sometimes — out of everything, Cash made it through.

Music Was Never Background Noise

My parents were never afraid to take me to concerts. Tina Turner. Chicago. Neil Diamond. Janet Jackson. These weren’t just shows — they were events, experiences burned into memory. Music wasn’t something that happened in the background at our house. It was the main event.

Then the 80s happened and MTV brought music directly into our living rooms. My first concert without parents was Mötley Crüe and Lita Ford at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. After that I was hooked — Metallica, Pink Floyd, Blind Melon, Jimmy Buffett, Lenny Kravitz. I chased music the way some people chase sports.

That’s still true today. Every morning starts with a record. Not a playlist, not an algorithm — a deliberate choice. Side A, needle down, let it play. There’s a ritual to it that streaming will never replicate. The weight of the sleeve. The crackle before the first note. The commitment of flipping to side B.

The Problem I Kept Running Into

I love the hunt. Walking into a record store with no agenda, flipping through the bins, finding something unexpected — that’s one of the great pleasures of collecting. Stores like Criminal Records in Atlanta and Graveface in Savannah remind you why the physical experience of digging will never be replaced by an algorithm. Every bin is a different conversation.

But I kept running into the same problem, over and over. I’d be driving and a song would come on the radio. Something I hadn’t heard in years, or something new that stopped me cold. I’d think — I need to find that on vinyl. And then adulting would happen. The moment would pass. By the time I got to a record store I’d forgotten the artist, the song, the feeling that made me want it.

Or I’d be riding my bike and something would shuffle up on my headphones — an album that deserved to live on my shelf. And then I’d forget.

Inspiration for the hunt is fleeting. You catch it in a moment and if you don’t capture it right then, it’s gone. I didn’t have a place to put it. I’d search Discogs when I remembered something — but Discogs assumes you already know what you want. It’s a library, not a guide.

What Vinyl Quest Actually Solves

I built Vinyl Quest to solve that specific problem first. When you hear something that moves you — on the radio, in a coffee shop, mid-ride — you open Vinyl Quest, do a quick search, and add it to your Quest List. The inspiration is captured. You have an action plan for the next time you walk into a record store.

No more forgetting. No more standing in the bins trying to remember what you came in for. Your Quest List is your hunting list — ranked by priority, waiting for you.

But I wanted to build something bigger than a list. New collectors face a wall that experienced collectors forget about — they don’t know what to add to their Quest List in the first place. That’s where The Curator comes in — an AI vinyl advisor that thinks like a knowledgeable record store owner, helping collectors figure out what belongs on their list.

The Stores That Made Me a Collector

I live in Pensacola, Florida. We have Revolver Records on Palafox Street and Easy Going Records across town — both run by people who genuinely love vinyl. These aren’t just retail stores. They’re community spaces for collectors. Walking in and talking to someone who knows the records, who can point you toward something you didn’t know you needed — that’s irreplaceable.

Vinyl Quest is built to connect collectors with stores like these. When a store posts new arrivals, the collectors hunting those records see it. The hunt becomes a community, not a solo mission.

For the Next Generation

My daughter was twelve when she asked for a record player for Christmas. I didn’t think much of it at the time. She’s fifteen now. She has her own collection. Deftones. TV Girl. Foo Fighters. She hunts records the same way I do — with her own taste and her own quest list in her head.

Watching her fall in love with the ritual — the search, the find, the moment of putting a record on for the first time — that’s when I knew Vinyl Quest wasn’t just solving my problem. It’s for every collector who feels that pull.

Beta launches September 15, 2026. First Press founding membership is limited to 1,000 collectors. If the hunt is part of your life too — I’d love for you to be one of them.

— Jamie Walker, Founder