Welcome to Reference Tracks, a series from KLH where we talk to people in the music and audio business about what songs, albums and artists they listen to when testing out a stereo or speakers.
This edition is with Jeremy Parker, better known on Instagram as @radiowithdrawal. Here, we talk about Radiohead opening his world to better sounding music, how they served as an escape port during a Mormon mission, and how ending up an influencer was never the plan.
When you think about it, the word “influencer” is something we all know and understand, but which applies to a vast, mostly unrelated group of people. It can be someone who tells you which model trains are the best; or a teenager showing off vintage WWE T-shirts; it can be a Kardashian; it can also include Jeremy Parker, the vintage audio enthusiast who posts as @radiowithdrawal.
Parker started posting on TikTok as a way to promote a podcast he was working on right before the pandemic, which he recorded digitally, and then fed back through analog equipment. He found, to his surprise, that the videos showing the vintage gear he had to do so got more engagement and views than podcast clips.
“More than anything, it was just me showing the equipment, so I gradually thought, alright, let me showcase my music room too, since that was always kind of my meditative space — I had the recording gear, an old turntable and other stuff. It just picked up steam on TikTok, and that turned into a live-streaming thing, where I'd stream the music I was playing,” he remembers.
“Then, I don't know; all of a sudden I'd repost to Instagram, and it just blew up on Instagram, and now I'm here. It was never intentional. I've always loved music, but I didn't expect to become an influencer, if that's the right word. It's funny, because even my mom's like, oh, you have a million followers, you must be making bank. Everyone assumes you're making a lot of money, and it's like… maybe I'm doing something wrong, but you don't make much. You get free stuff, and money here and there, but not really.
Even when I'd see an account with a million or a few million followers, I'd think damn, they're raking it in. But that's not necessarily the case. It's still cool, because you get great stuff. I think it's just funny what the outside world thinks versus what it's actually like on the inside.”
Since he’s on the inside now, we talked about what music he uses to test stereos, and how he used to listen to Radiohead in secret, which led him to using Hail to the Thief as his main reference track. 
KLH: Do you remember a moment when you were younger—because nobody starts buying audiophile gear from scratch—where you were like, oh man, this could sound incredible? Is there one record, or one time listening to a stereo that really blew your hair back?
Jeremy Parker: I think when I was 15, I had a buddy who had an old orange Volkswagen Beetle. He decked it out—well, his older brother who had the car before him—decked it out with a really good stereo system, which is kind of a contradiction for a Beetle, but it had one. I remember him playing me two albums I'd never heard before.
One was the Weezer Blue Album, which had just come out at the time, the debut Weezer album. But the bigger one, which also had just come out and really blew my mind, was the live Radiohead album, I Might Be Wrong. I'd never heard anything like it.
My favorite band growing up was always Jamiroquai. I had all their albums, and I wasn't like a Rastafarian pothead or anything, I was a Mormon kid, I just loved that acid jazz stuff, and I'd never heard anything like it. But this Radiohead live album in particular playing in the car as we were driving around… that made me go to Best Buy and buy one of those black three-piece systems everyone had at the time: CD player, cassette player and two speakers built in. I was eventually able to add external speakers to that too, which I also got from Best Buy.
I just created this massive '90s setup, I don't even remember the brand, but that was the thing. I just had a big black stereo system so I could get this Radiohead album, which he'd burn onto a CD for me. That kind of opened the door, and then I got into Portishead, Massive Attack, Morcheeba, all that trip-hop, Tricky—which is very different from the music I play now. I play a lot of '70s stuff these days, but yeah, I think that's what started it. 
A lot of that music has a lot of detail. Like, those Jamiroquai records — I think people think of them as pretty straightforward, at least the U.S. perception. "Virtual Insanity" is the hit, the pop song. But there's actually a lot of sonic stuff going on across all of those records. That's interesting.
So now, today, when you're looking at different equipment, what music are you playing to judge whether or not something's up to snuff, or worth purchasing, or worth featuring in your setup?
I think I get kind of sentimental with it, because the album I usually use is Radiohead's Hail to the Thief. I use that one because—while I'm not actively Mormon anymore—I went on a mission when I was twenty. I was sent to Taiwan as a missionary. You're not allowed to listen to music there, not allowed to do any of that. You can listen to religious stuff, but I smuggled in a Sony Walkman CD player and cut open my pillow to hide it. I only had that Hail to the Thief CD.
At night there are three other guys with you, your companion and two other elders living with you. So, I'd put it on the lowest volume and listen to fall asleep in my bunk bed, hoping no one ever caught me. And no one did. So that album has a special place in my heart, and I know it so well because of that.
So I usually play that one, and I know what it's supposed to sound like… it's never done me wrong.
That’s one of the fun things about this series—even the most dyed-in-the-wool audiophile people, it becomes a sentimental thing. For a lot of people it's the first record they got on vinyl that's how they test a turntable, or whatever the record is that they loved most as a kid. So what are you listening for in Hail to the Thief? What tells you, okay, this is good?
I think particularly the first track has a lot of bass to it, and... I don't really know. I just listen to see if it sounds good to me in terms of where the speakers are placed and where I should be standing in the room.
But I've never been one of those guys who has to have four different pressings of an album. I get people who are into that, and I don't see anything wrong with it, but I've never been like, oh, I have to get the remastered version, I have to get the Japanese version. I've always just been like, okay, cool; I put the music on and zone out. That's it. As long as it sounds good to me, I don't trip too deeply about it.
Right, because at the end of the day, you're not a scientist. You just want to listen to music.
Yeah, I mean, I'd make more money if I were a scientist—that'd be great—but, you know, I'd be going into space or something instead.