Dust and Grooves Introduction.mov

Dust & Grooves is a photography and interview project documenting vinyl collectors while digging into their most personal spaces: their record collections. D & G helps preserve the integrity and history of vinyl, as well as the musical heritage that goes along with every record in these collections.

This summer, Eilon Paz of Dust & Grooves will embark on a two-month, 11,000-mile, 30-interview Americana journey. This cross-country road trip will hit major music heritage hubs like New Orleans, birthplace of Jazz, and Los Angeles, home of the Chicano Punk Rock scene of the '80s, plus less likely enclaves like Walla Walla, WA. These culture-rich areas will connect D&G with an expansive variety of music meccas and record fans to reveal lost collections and musical oddities. Professional country music archivists in Nashville, basement-dwelling punks on the outskirts of Omaha, and college town record store owners in the southwest will all be documented by Eilon's camera. This exciting road trip will capture the spirit of vinyl enthusiasts and the importance of their collections from coast to coast.

Profiles from both the website and road trip will be hand-selected for inclusion in a future book project. Dust & Grooves: The Book will be the culmination of five years of D&G research and records. Photographs and interviews chosen from the site will be interspersed with an expanded subject pool from the trip covering the secret vinyl goldmines of political figures, athletes, fashion moguls, and everyday Joes. Framed by insightful essays and Q & As, and packed with sharp photography, the book will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, crossing over from die-hard vinyl enthusiasts to also reach fans of pop culture, portrait photography, creative interviews, and music history.

Dust & Grooves is the only project of its kind that documents vinyl lovers and their collections in this most intimate way. The project will continue to help preserve the integrity of vinyl records as well as the many colorful personalities that collect them. As technology moves forward and many music formats go digital, Dust & Grooves helps keep the rich, warm, analog life of vinyl spinning.

Originally from Israel, Eilon Paz has traveled the world, from Australia to Cuba and Argentina to Ghana, in pursuit of intriguing and memorable subjects. In addition to managing his own photography studio in Tel Aviv for eight years, Eilon has shot for Israel's top cultural publications and for the acclaimed cookbook The Book of New Israeli Food (Schocken/Random House). Eilon's work has appeared in worldwide publications such as Wax Poetics, Saveur, Monocle, Conde Nast Traveler, and Delta Airlines Sky magazines, and French music magazine Vibrations. His lifetime of photography experience shines through in his most personal project, Dust & Grooves.