I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing. In my imagination it was behind the wheel of a blue ’69 Mustang with windows rolled down and a stereo so loud you couldn’t hear the wind. Dust is flying from behind the wheels and I’m flying at twice the speed limit as “Amphetamine” pushes the speakers to their limit. My hair whips against the front of my sunglasses and the vibrations in my throat tells me I’m singing along, “na na, na na, yeah, na na, na na, yeah.” It’s Saturday, the sun is setting, I have a place to be and I don’t care what time I get there or if I arrive at all. Life doesn’t get any better.

That is how I picture hearing Static Transmission for the first time. It starts in reflective themes and dreamy sequences of “What Comes After” and as CD progresses things pick up as guitar play and energy pick up. By song five, “Amphetamine” you’re lost and you never want to be found. Guitar buzz and stories ring out and you could be at a party of 100 or a party of 1 and it still rings of that late teens/early twenty something energy where everything emanates with the possibility of summer nights. Even as things slow down again it just brings visions of slow dances, crashing waves and fires at the beach.

This is a summer record, full of youth and life, and I want it on vinyl. I want it to spin on my turntable as I look out the window into my backyard and watch the cardinal land in the Japanese maple. It plays as a soundtrack for memories, real or imagined, and it lifts me up into a lighter mood.

BUT

We can’t have everything. It was released in 2003, and as great a record as it is, that was the only year it was released on vinyl. Discogs has copies for sale, but the prices are all in euros and very expensive to boot.

Sometimes we must be satisfied by what we have and leave some dreams in the subconscious where they belong.