Over ninety minutes early and the line is more than one hundred deep. The old roomy and I meet and catch up as some dude directly in front of us chain tokes his way into the sonic abyss that is Record Store Day 2015. Music geek conversations drift through the air only interrupted by my backfiring joke at the length of the line.

“Maybe everyone is here to pick up that One Direction record…”

“I am!” says the woman just two people ahead. Her boyfriend starts laughing at my dumbfounded look.

I think to myself “I haven’t actually met a One Direction fan over the age of twelve” but I hold my tongue; after all, it isn’t even 9AM and pissing people off shouldn’t happen so early on a weekend.

The line moves forward in a civilized manner, which seems rather odd considering that I’ve had vinyl literally rain down…

Just a couple days since I wrote a piece on David Bowie’s Pin Ups and bang! The Big Announcement!

Bowie is releasing a giant box set entitled Five Years 1969 – 1973. The first in a series of new sets, this one will be a 10 albums featuring his first 6 studio records, 2 live albums, plus The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars 2003 Ken Scott Mix. In addition there will be a companion book featuring memorabilia, rare photos, hand written lyrics, press reviews and essays from the original album producers. It will all be available on CD and 180 gram audiophile vinyl.

Just to spell it out, you get:

David Bowie (aka Space Oddity), The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, Pin…

Paying money for a Ramones record any time at any price will never be questioned by this guy. You see, you can talk about best and greatest and define this thing and that, but – without question or argument, if you ask me who was or is, the “Coolest Band” to have ever graced the planet, one word folks – Ramones.

By themselves they could never sell out a stadium. They did not create actual “hit” records that saw airplay on major radio stations resulting in huge sales. They didn’t own a jet, blow millions and become a Spinal Tap influence. Nope, these guys played in bars and earned their fan base one gig at a time, and in the end became recognized as the first and greatest of all punk bands. People know the songs; they jump up and play air guitar, dance or pogo when any number of their…

It isn’t easy to understand how taste and emotional turmoil mix together to breed meaning into songs that were not intended. How a simple line can be grasped on as hormones and depression impact how you hear something, and then you use it like a type of lifeline. So here I am, a young teen, feeling like a big bag of shit, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack is playing in the background at some party. I’m sure there is an unrequited crush somewhere around, because, well, there always seemed to be some sort of unrequited crush going on until I was old enough to not give a shit. (Then it became boy is confused with too many choices… but I digress.)

Now the first half of the Rocky Horror is almost impossible to be depressed to, I mean come on, a bunch of 15-16 year old fools screaming…

One of my favourite artists on this planet is Aimee Mann. Album for album there just hasn’t been a record she has put out that made me doubt where she is going. Even her latest effort with Ted Leo, The Both (which I wrote about a while ago), was an incredibly satisfying union that I hope happens over again and again. (Get it here)

However, Aimee has also provided me with perhaps the greatest example of ‘buy it’ or miss out that I can get.

Coming off an Academy Award nomination for the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Magnolia, Mann released what is probably her most well known record Bachelor #2 or, The Last Remains of the Dodo. The album also included several songs from the Magnolia soundtrack and was incredibly well received by critics and fans alike.

A couple years later Mann released…

I was introduced to Van Halen by a cousin who went to Hollywood High and used to see Roth walking the streets of L.A. pre-fame, and he brought their self-titled debut with him in the summer of ’78 when I was just turning eleven.

It blew my young mind. I don’t know how many copies I blew through in my Walkman in the early 80’s, but it was on there a whole lot. Then for a few years you could count on a good Van Halen record to be the sound of your summer – even if it was released in December, Van Halen made things great. When “the change happened” and Sammy Hagar took over, it still rocked. Despite what hard core Roth fans say, 5150 was an awesome record for Van Halen and Sammy Hagar fans alike. It still gets pulled out on occasion and put on the…

How exactly the musical time cycle works (you know, that comic book like mystical place that makes old things new again) is beyond me, but I’m pretty damn appreciative of it at times.  Such is the case with Veruca Salt and the ‘new/old original line up’ who sound like they just picked up from a few weeks off rather than the 18 years between albums proper. As they put it themselves on Facebook: “hatchets buried, axes exhumed.”

Ghost Notes begins with the self proclamation anthem “The Gospel According To Saint Me” which promises “it’s gonna get loud” in a bold RAWK star posture. They may very well sing it in those pretty harmonies, but there is no mistaking that ‘us against the world’ stance that is willing to blast you away with amplification. The second track “Black and Blonde” starts to chug through the opening chords and that “us” impression…

I lived through it the first time, and it’s taken thirty years for it to stop being a bad soundtrack to everything 1984 and 1985. Maybe you had to be there, but Born In The USA was everywhere. Seven hit singles will do that. People who wouldn’t give Bruce the time of day were claiming to be his biggest fan and scrambling to buy tickets as he rolled into town in the summer of ’85. The local news networks went nuts when they thought it would rain on him… which you know it didn’t if you read my George Thorogood post from a couple days back.

In fact, this may have been the first honest to goodness ‘backlash’ record of my teens. An artist you really like puts out something so big, you get sick of it without ever having to buy the record. Sure there were other big records…

Writing an album review on an artist that you “really” appreciate is enough to give you a stress headache. You weigh the shows, albums and the amount of time you have spent receiving joy from their art against the artists themselves. Not connecting to their new music in a meaningful way is supposedly a knock on the artist rather than the perception of the reviewer… in other words, the whole process of criticism can at times seem rather… well, ass backwards.

That said if you open up a record and the artist has exceeded your expectations, you’re left with the task of tempering your enthusiasm lest you fall into the column of fan over critic.

Except this isn’t 1994 and I’m not writing for a publication. This is a blog and the pretense of professionalism can be used or tossed aside on my own whim. Besides, ‘professionalism’ and I were…