(gentle music)
- My name's Jason.
I grew up hearing a story about my great grandfather's ashes
being scattered at sea, and the wind blew,
and they ended up having to sweep him off the deck.
And then, when my grandfather died,
we went out into the ocean,
and my uncle scattered the ashes over the side,
and the wind blew again,
and I actually got an eye full.
That won't be happening to me because
I press human ashes after they've been cremated
into vinyl records.
(gentle music) (crackling record)
I sort of came up with, "What would I wanna do?"
It was really more like a way of getting used
to the idea of it,
and I kinda took it on as a bit of joke,
and with a friend of mine, Stu, he helped me
put a website together.
I don't know why, Stu, but it seems the road's shut.
How do we get to Barry's Lane?
Can you go up this road here?
- Barry's Lane, what is it the next left?
- Barry's Lane is, yeah, it's just down there.
Just down there, a couple on the left.
(music drowns out speech)
All right, okay, so can we go down there then, yeah?
Thanks.
I just love sounds.
I think that sound, audio,
sounds are much better than photographs.
A lot of the music that I do is based
on sounds that I hear around me.
Even just, you know, hearing your own little sniff
or you hear something happening in the background
which brings loads of memories back,
so, that was probably part of what
made the concept come about.
(deep electronic music)
- [John] I seem to remember when I was a kid,
I always fancied having a museum,
and then one day, I looked at what I was living in,
and I realized that although I had forgotten
the original concept, I just carried on doing it.
So, yeah, I don't throw stuff away very often,
and my mother never threw anything away.
I'm John Hobson.
I live in Scarborough.
I mean, she was Madeline Dorothy,
but she was always known as Madge.
Her maiden name was Winter,
so she was always known as Madge Winter.
She had a phenomenal memory,
and she could remember facts and details.
I mean right up to the time of her death
she was still, you know,
there was nothing wrong with her memory.
It was amazing.
And she did tell good stories.
- We met one time at a pub,
and he mentioned that he had his mother's ashes.
His dear old mum as I think he refers her as, sweetly.
And what he said, which really pricked my ears up,
was that he had brilliantly recorded her
with a mini disc speaking about his family,
about his history, and the family's history.
All the stuff which I think is sort of gold dust
for an Andvinyly record really.
The ultimate as far as I'm concernred.
- I'm sure a lot of people would think it was creepy.
A lot of people would think it was sacrilegious,
but I know my mother wouldn't though.
She would have thought it was a hoot, so, you know.
I think she would have encouraged me, really.
(tapping noise)
- [Jason] Very simple at the end of the day.
In effect, you're making a record as you normally do.
You have your audio, and then from that
they make tin stampers,
which is like a reverse of a vinyl.
Instead of the grooves and the valleys,
you have these kind of mountains, if you like.
And then those plates are used to press a piece of vinyl.
And what we do at that stage
is put that ash onto the vinyl just before it's pressed.
So it's basically squished into the record.
It does compromise the sound.
It's exactly what you don't want to be happening
at a pressing plant, normally,
but those pops and crackles are them.
The good thing about death is it makes you live.
It makes you sort of make the most of what you've got,
and sadly you often hear people say that
when they're close to death, and they know when,
or it's going to be very soon.
That's when most people start to really live.
So I think that, maybe, if we were more exposed to it,
or made to plan for it a bit more earlier,
people might actually have a better life.
He knew about the service before he passed away.
He's got lovely little touches.
Like the barcodes there have the date,
birth dates of him, and his wife, and his children.
And then it's his favorite music on there,
and, again, the label has images of him,
and then, you can hopefully see.
I would, at this moment,
because that's a point I think it changes as you,
happily keeps changing as new things happen.
It would definitely have my voice on there.
(swings creak)
It would, no doubt, my daughters,
and Harriette's voice on there, voices on there as well.
It would have to have some of my music on there.
I'm always trying to write something specific for it,
but it's really hard.
(child laughing)
- I mean, the thing you do notice is the way you are viewed
through the eyes of younger family members.
You really, you put into a mold, which you maybe don't fit.
So I suppose in a way, it would be nice
to have, to be able to record a few stories
to put on to a record
that didn't make me sound like such a granddad.
You know, I'm more like the man,
well, the man I was if not the man I still am.
- It's just something that, you know,
your great-great-great grandson,
or granddaughter could be sitting
in their room listening, reading the cover,
and learning a bit about you really.
And about the time when I am, or was here.
Sound is vibrating.
You, the room, and it's actually moving the air around you,
and that's what's so powerful about hearing someone's voice
on a record, that they're actually moving the air.
And for me, that's powerful.
- [Woman] We took him to Leeds when he was nine months old
because the first two years of our married life,
we spent in Leeds.
So when John was nine months old, the old ladies said,
"Well I don't suppose you'd be going for a holiday
"with the baby being so young,
"but how about coming to us for a while?"
So we went, and,
there was some chappie in Leeds lived nearby.
He had a coach business, you know,
and he used to run trips, day trips out,
and he had this one to Scarborough.
So of course we all went.
(voice fades) (record crackling)
(waves crashing)
(speaking in foreign language)
- I've got another thing here.
We don't just do, um...
There are other things. Could be this, for example. It's a...
It's actually a meteorite that we pressed
in to the record.
And it was an Italian artist.
And that's a meteorite which she had crushed,
and she sent, and on the vinyl and this
is the sounds of a tornado, a volcano, and an earthquake,
which is quite a nice one.
So, I mean, there's other things you can put in as well.
It doesn't just have to be human 'cremains'
I think you call them in the states.