Fernando Rojo (Nerfa) is a Senior Producer/Creative Director at Antfood, living in São Paulo. He grew up listening to all kinds of music and playing acoustic guitar. Today, he spends his time practicing flute (as a newbie), playing bass in a rock band and washing dishes.

How many records do you have in your collection?

Currently, 300 - 400 LPs + 45RPMs. We have a huge CD collection of 600 CDs to. Almost all of these are classical, but the LPs are more eclectic.

What’s the first record you chose and bought?

The first LP that I bought was from a compilation called Hits of the Moment that had an ice cream on its cover. It is a disk from 1984 and I don’t have it anymore. I was about 9 years old, and the first track was Lionel Ritchie’s Hello. I was probably in love with someone at school. It’s a cheesy ballad, but a great love song… Or maybe I liked the image of the ice cream? I don’t know.

The album also had songs by Yes and Genesis. This probably helped open my mind or ears to pop and rock music - since we only played Brazilian music in my home.

In The Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson

What’s your favorite album art? King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King, and Tom Zé’s Todos os Olhos. You should research the full story of the cover from Tom Zé.

Which record would you say is a cornerstone album in your collection?

The only two genres I don’t listen to on vinyl are classical and jazz as the dynamic range is too big. If my pickups are not perfectly adjusted and the disk itself isn’t in good condition, I’d probably hear more noise than sound.

It’s hard to choose just one record, but it would be Cabeça Dinossauro by the Brazilian band Titãs.

Can you name a record that helped you form an interest in music?

Probably one of the albums that my mom used to listen to when I was a child - maybe Caetano Veloso’s Bicho, Jóia or Velô. Velô has a thing with Haroldo de Campos’ concrete poetry - which made me feel curious and scared - and it contains a huge, beautiful booklet.

What’s next on your wishlist? I’m waiting for a 4 disc Neil Young box set to be delivered. It’s the Official Releases, Volume 4. Young is perfectionist in terms of sound - he even tried to launch a high-definition digital system called Pono, but it failed. His concern about sound quality always reflects on his vinyls.

You can only recommend one album to friends for the rest of your life - what do you choose?

There are too many good albums in general, so it wouldn’t be fair to recommend just one. Also, my friends would go mad if they were been forced to listen to just one disk forever.

What’s the most underrated record you own? Why?

Tubaroes Voadores, from Arrigo Barnabé. I think that only one of Arrigo’s songs played on Brazilian radio, and it is from another record. When I was young, I used to go to a Brazilian show house called “Lira Paulistana” to see the whole Paulistan vanguard play live - Arrigo, Itamar Assumpção, Rumo etc. They were independent artists and used to pay for their own vinyl pressing processes. Even if there was a record label involved, only a few disks were ever pressed. They never entered the retail music market (until the arrival of the CDs), so their vinyl albums were really hard to find.

Fun fact: Tubarões Voadores isn’t on Spotify. It’s a very cool record that became part of my musical background. The booklet looks like an HQ and was designed by Luis Gê, a cartoonist (underrated as well).

Nerfa’s Record Collection

Where’s your favorite record store?

Nowadays, I mainly purchase records online. You can find anything there - it just depends how much you want to spend.

During my childhood, there were just a few (and big) stores. HI-FI, Bruno Blois, Breno Rossi… All of them selling national and imported disks. We used to buy the most popular records there. As a teenager, I went to “Galeria do Rock” (Gallery of Rock, in São Paulo), and to other disk pawn shops around town to find more specific albums. I remember going to one of these stores and asking the owner for a fake copy of a cassette - which took about 10 days to get ready. You could go to these stores to find great albums for a great price, but it required a lot of patience.

Why do you collect records?

It was never really intentional. I never had this plan. I started to listen to music, accumulating vinyls and I never really stopped. My collection has grown and shrunk too many times in my life.

In the past, the only way of listening to music was on the radio, live, LPs or cassettes. So you had to save money to buy just one disk – if you liked it, you would keep it. When CDs arrived, vinyls lost their market value. I remember exchanging about 40 vinyls for just one CD - which made me very happy, by the way! It was normal for people to get rid of entire LP collections and turntables. Some of these listeners never returned to LP’s, but I never sold my full collection. They were always with me, even if they weren’t playing.

Vinyl is a different way of listening to music. It’s not a random playlist running in the background while you do other things. When you put a record on, you open, look, touch, and smell the well-crafted booklet, and you pay attention to the songs. You think about the idea behind that album - realizing that even the order of the songs matters. You read the credits, you learn who plays each instrument and when it was recorded, etc. It’s a different sensation and a deeper way of connecting to music. The next 20 minutes of your day are reserved for that only, until you have to flip the vinyl.

Streaming platforms have another purpose - which is great. You can listen to almost all that exists and, sometimes, the algorithm surprises you with great bands and songs. I like both experiences. One adds to another.

But, even so, I collect physical records and not playlists