The locked groove was a single second of “The Vengabus Is Coming” stretched into eternity. But as the stylus hit the skull-and-crossbones sticker, the music inverted . The happy horns became a dirge. The bassline turned inside out. And a voice—not sung, but spoken—whispered from the run-out groove:
He dropped the needle on A1 – “We Like to Party! (CDM Hardhouse Remix)” — but it wasn’t the version he knew. The kick drum hit like a collapsing star. The “boom-boom-boom” warped into a sub-bass pulse that rattled his fillings. Then the vocals pitched down, slow and slurry: “We… like… to… party…” — and the lights flickered.
Here’s a short story inspired by the Vengaboys – CDM Vinyl Remixes — imagining the vinyl as a mystical object that warps time, memory, and reality on a summer night in 1999. Side B, Locked Groove Vengaboys -Cdm Vinyl Remixes-
“That one’s cursed,” said the shop girl, not looking up from her cigarette. “Three people returned it. Said it makes the room smell like chlorine and cheap glitter.”
Leo woke up at sunrise on the roof of The Groove Merchant. The record was gone. In his pocket: a silver marker, and a white sleeve with new handwriting: The locked groove was a single second of
Leo laughed and paid eight guilders.
He tried to lift the needle. It wouldn’t move. The record played on. The bassline turned inside out
Leo found it buried in a milk crate under a torn poster of Cher. No barcode, no label art—just a plain white sleeve with handwritten in silver marker. The vinyl inside was heavy, translucent orange, with a locked groove on Side B that the previous owner had marked with a skull-and-crossbones sticker.
“You wanted the remixes. You didn’t ask who was remixing reality.”