IN MEMORY OF VINYL UNCLE

After my mom passed, I moved to Taiwan in 2019. I was looking to fill the hole left behind with adventure and music. Taiwanese folk music drew me back to the past when the past was the only place I wanted to be. I started collecting records from flea markets and little shops across the city. It’s not easy to find records in Taiwan. It’s a humid little island where records can easily melt or mold away into obscurity.
Most of my collection comes from one man: Vinyl Uncle. We met at Fu He flea market. I had bleached brows and blonde hair, he had an easy smile and an addiction to tea—we made an unlikely pair, but music drew us together. Over the course of a year Vinyl Uncle helped me source one rare record after another. One of my favorite memories in Taiwan was when he invited me to his home. That day he was ecstatic to host a guest and played Er Hu for me while I feverishly dug for records on his rooftop. It was a sweaty, dreamy, perfect, afternoon.

In 2024, my phone was stolen, and with it, Vinyl Uncle’s number. We lost touch. When I finally returned to Taiwan last year, I went straight to Fu He flea market to find him. I showed vendors pictures of the two of us together. Within minutes, one of his friends recognized Vinyl Uncle– in Taiwan everyone knows everyone. His friend gave me Vinyl Uncle’s number, but warned me that his health was failing, that he was dying of cancer and didn’t have much time left. When we finally reunited on the phone I asked if he remembered me.“Of course,” he said. “How could I forget a pretty lady?” I burst into tears, and we made plans to meet once more at his house.

Vinyl Uncle’s house was scavenged empty when I arrived. Only the records remained, the bones of his soul, the last thing he wanted to part with. The cancer made his cheeks gaunt, but his easy smile was the same. I was so relieved to see each other again. We spent one final afternoon listening to record after record. Teresa Teng. Guo Jinfa. Tsai Chin. I left with more records than I could carry and a familiar aching sense of loss. He passed away just a month later.

Through death comes life. That is how I see the records he left me. With the incredible support of Dublab, especially Rachel Day, Sophie Behzadi, and Jenn Zelmer, we have spent the past few months painstakingly digitizing each record in my collection. These three women carefully recorded every groove and photographed the album art, preserving not only the sound but also the visual history. Together, we have brought the past into the present. Through these records, Vinyl Uncle lives on, reincarnated as melody.

View the archive here.