My ashes, your vinyl

When you die, maybe you’d like to be more useful than as an urn on a mantel (waiting to be knocked over and lapped up by the dog), or as fertilizer for soil that will eventually become condominiums. Maybe you’d like to keep making people happy – at 33 1/3 RPM.

For £3,000, And Vinyly, an English company, will press your ashes into 30 LP’s. (See story here.) These are presumably 12″ discs, with 12 minutes of sound on each side. If you want the sleeve to be a creepy portrait of yourself – with your ashes mixed into the paint – pony up an extra £4,000. (See “COVERS” at the company’s website.) Otherwise, you get a plain black sleeve with white text indicating your name, lifespan, and “R.I.V.” (Rest In Vinyl). “Groove is in the heart” has new meaning now.

Presumably the vinyl is black, though a clear splatter option (the splatter being the ashes) would be wicked. (Would that be the Die Hard edition?) I can see the reviews already: “gritty, lifeless sound… a style that’s DOA”.

24 minutes as a sonic last will and testament: for side A, I’d like some of my music, along with some Mitch Hedberg one-liners. For side B, I’d like Metallica’s “To Live Is to Die” (9:47, lyrics), Motörhead’s “Bite the Bullet” (1:38, lyrics), Nasum’s “Fatal Search” (0:28, lyrics), and Napalm Death’s “You Suffer” (0:01, lyrics).

What would be on your final vinyl?

. . .

PS. The only video I found of the ashes scene in The Big Lebowski was in French. That makes it even funnier. See it here.