Indie or punk records pressed to vinyl were almost always guaranteed to fit onto a single side of a 90-minute cassette. I couldn’t tell you who lent it to me, but I had access to a cassette copy of Fugazi ’s Repeater and dubbed it easily onto the A-side of a blank tape, (the B-side would later be used to fit a copy of Death ’s Individual Thought Patterns , a weird “any port in a storm” decision). I didn’t properly own this record (or really even give it a full, undivided listen) until a little while later, after In On The Kill Taker sold me on the genius of this band. After that, I was all in and listening nonstop. CDs seemed to starve for content, the 70-minutes of allowable space enabling an excess of additional tracks at points. If you purchased CDs in the 1990s, how many of them were overlong and packed full of songs, or featured that “hidden track”? And, if they weren’t, how many music-buyers out there felt ripped off? Surely you weren’t all that thrilled to pay the asked for $...

When The Beatles ' entire catalogue had been remastered in 2009, I penned a three-part review of the box set for No Ripcord.  For the band's 1966 release, Revolver , this is what I had to say : "In a way, Revolver is a bolder album than Pepper was, an experimental hybrid clashing symphonic string arrangements ('Eleanor Rigby'), rock n’ jolly 'Singin’ In The Rain'-styled ditties ('Good Day Sunshine'), kid-friendly sing-alongs about friendly aquatic transports ('Yellow Submarine'), Eastern influences ('Love You To') and the decade’s introduction to psychedelic rock n’ roll ('She Said She Said,' 'Tomorrow Never Knows'). An absolute plethora of influences and styles at work and they marry perfectly onto Revolver with nary a concept at work, nor a marching suit to hide behind.  Revolver is Beatlemania’s actual 'good riddance' and the very reason they couldn’t go on as a touring band. As a continually grow...

Imagine me in third grade, a rare cancellation of a Cub Scouts meeting resulting in extra nighttime TV viewing. I think it was 1986 when MTV began airing reruns of The Monkees , a television comedy series of which I’d never heard or known. My parents, though, had very amused looks about their faces, the types of warm smiles you’d see on people as they greeted familiar friends. It was the episode where The Monkees inexplicably wound up in a ghost town, which, (if I remember correctly), was being used as a hideout by some crooks. The humor was slapstick, perfectly suited for a 9 year old. I thought the show was funny and that was pretty much the extent of it. My record collection began with this tape. As time went on, I wound up really getting into the show, which developed into an obsession with the music. Once I discovered my father had some Monkees records stacked in his hard rock treasure trove of 60s/70s vinyl on our third floor, I camped out in front of the turntable...