Click and Pops-iversary

This blog is exactly one year old today.

One year ago today, the first post appeared on Clicks and Pops.

In lieu of getting me a cake, here are a couple of things you can do instead:

• Support independent music (go to a show, buy music from your favorite artists).



• Email several of your music-obsessed friends and tell them to check out this blog.



• If you read something you like here, share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites.



• Browse through the archives. If you want, start with some of my favorite posts (about Blotto, my favorite record store, the Ludwig Wittgenstein of Rock, driving through the snow with a time machine, and the piano on the lake). Or just type "alternate universe" into the search field in the upper left and start there.

Over the past 12 months, I've been thrilled to hear from more than a few of the musicians I've written about (both old heroes and new discoveries) whose songs have inspired me. But special thanks go out to all of you -- the regular readers and the ones who show up from odd corners of the world via Google (and stay to check out the blog).

And for everyone, in weren't there a year ago (or didn't look all the way back in the archives), here's a rerun of the very first Clicks and Pops post:
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[Originally posted Saturday, December 13, 2008]

I spent too much of my youth in used record stores.

See, I grew up in a small town with three colleges (and two more a few miles away). There were great used record stores there – one in the back of a head shop on Main Street (specializing in selling foreign cut-outs), one next to a stationary store (whose owner was busted for selling pot – I know, in a college town? Shocking!), and another one that sold hundreds of cheap bootlegs whose “covers” were cheap mimeographs of bad band photos.

And I was patient – I’d thumb through the stacks, always looking for something specific, but always open to what I might find – especially if the price was low. And the price was almost always low, because there were always lots of college students selling their records to the used record stores. Plus, I wasn’t a collector.

That’s important. Collectors care about more about the label and the idea of the record than they care about what’s on the record.

This is what collectors do:



For me, it was always about the music.

And while I own a few records that actually are valuable, their real value for me is what’s on them.

To be honest, when I was younger, I was more like Jack Black’s character here:



(I like to think I'm more tolerant now. So if you wanted to listen to "I Just Called To Say I Love You," I wouldn't say anything mean about you -- but I would leave the room.)

And while I own a few records that actually are valuable, their real value for me is what’s on them.

So this blog is mostly about music (and often about vinyl). Because it’s the music that matters.

Flea Market of Memories

Flee, Market of Memories!

A reader emailed me a few days ago and asked what the first record was that I ever bought.

And I had to think long and hard about it. The first record I bought -- not the first record I asked my parents to buy me or the first record I remember playing. The first one I actually bought.

And of course, the temptation to make up some lie about the hippest, most underground, most amazing record I could think of is very strong. But here's the truth.

When I was around 7, there was a big flea market in the center of our little town. (There might also have been a carnival there at the same time, I'm not positive.) And I had 40 or 50 cents saved up in allowance.

The market had the usual artsy crap (poorly made leather wallets, crocheted bags with lame designs, etc.), but I made a beeline for a covered tent area with stacks and stacks of books and a small crate of records. I decided that I needed to buy a record. With my own money. It seemed like the most grownup thing in the world.

I immediately went for the 45s (thinking I could get more bang for not-even-a-buck) and hunted through them. Now, I was only 7, so I didn't know what to buy and didn't recognize any of the names on the labels.

I guess I could've asked someone, but I didn't want people to think I wasn't cool (even though, at age 7, I can guarantee I was the polar opposite of cool), so I bought something at random: "Kind of a Drag" by the Buckinghams. (I may even have thought that they sounded English and everything English was cool). The woman took pity on me and threw in a pseudo-hip hat that fell apart almost immediately.

But the 45... that was made to last. Now, it was already in bad shape -- major clicks and pops throughout the song, surface noise that made the record sound even muddier than the garage rock (with horns) the band was aiming for. This was clearly a record that had been well loved and well-played by the first owner (and maybe also by a second or third owner) before it got to me.

I had a crappy record player for kids (one step up from a Close & Play) and a few records from my parents (including "Peter and the Wolf," part of a failed attempt to steer me away from rock & roll), but this was the first record I'd selected and the first 45 I'd ever seen. I played it over and over, examining the label for clues (like a pre-teen Kremlinologist). I even played the flip side (and would wonder every time why the A-side was so much better). And although I loved the music, the ultra-hip detachment of the lyrics bothered me... even at age 7. If someone doesn't love you, isn't that a bigger deal than just an offhanded "kind of a drag"? If that's what it meant to be a grown-up, maybe it wasn't something I wanted after all.

I know now that "Kind of a Drag" was the first single the Buckinghams released, that it went to #1 in 1967 (beating out records by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones), and that they weren't English, but were from Chicago.

Sadly, I lost that 45 over the years, but thanks to the magic of YouTube, here is the first record I ever bought (free pseudo-hip hat that falls apart not included):


By the way, this is video features an extraordinarily bad fake performance: no microphones, guitars plugged in, and no horn players. But my favorite thing is the drummer, who seems to be pounding on a footstool standing in front of a bass drum, then playing snare and cymbal rides and on cymbals and snare drums that aren't there.

Happy Half-Birthday!

Or Maybe Half-Happy Birthday!

This blog launched 6 months ago with a post explaining the difference between collectors and music lovers (complete with video from High Fidelity. (To celebrate tonight, I'm wearing a half a birthday hat and half-blowing through a half-decent noisemaker!)

This was followed by posts on:

• Blotto (The 34th Most Important Band in the World, the most viewed page on this site),


• The Smithereens (Codependency's Greatest Hits),


• Darlene Love (Sacraments in the Church of Rock 'n' Roll),


• XTC (Thanks for Christmas),


• Why those UPS ads drive me up the wall(the Musical Definition of Irony),


• and the Del Fuegos (We Didn't Start the Del Fuegos, which contains my favorite comments of any that have appeared here).

So to celebrate, check out those early posts (or any of the others in the archives on the left side of the screen.

And welcome (or welcome back) to all the readers from all over the world (although none yet from Wyoming or Tennessee). And whatever I did to piss off the people in the island nation of Mauritius (who dropped in once and then never returned), I'm sure I didn't mean it!

And the four people from Homeland Security who visited after I mentioned the TSA, I'm guessing this post will finally bring you back.

Also, I should mention that there are 12 terms that return only this blog when you Google them.

And, as 120 people know, Clicks and Pops can be experienced on your iPhone!

Needle Drop

Vinyl is different.

It’s hot, frenzied, often wobbly and complicated. It passes over you like a wave, washing across your consciousness. You can’t hide from it. You can’t decide which parts you want. But you can become one with it.

Digital is slick. It’s discrete and ordered. You can slice it into units, decode it into ones and zeroes and move them around. Turn them upside down. It’s like watching the world from behind thick glass.

You can watch it. You can sometimes appreciate its beauty. But you never quite become one with it. It’s always a little bit distant and a little bit cold. And, because it’s cold, it’s easy to turn away from it.

When you put a needle down on a record, there’s space. Space to climb into so you can wrap the sound around yourself. And there’s an infinite range of values beyond the simple choice of zero and one.

Yes, records are imperfect. They’re flawed and approachable. And even the noises have personality. The scratches and skips. The clicks and pops. They sear their way into your mind until they merge into the song and become part of the listening experience. A record welcomes you in, gives you a place that’s all your own. And if you let them, the clicks and the pops will embrace you, prop you up, support you.

The silence between tracks on a CD is cold and dead. There’s nothing there. The “silence” between tracks on a record is alive, buzzing with possibilities, humming with hints of the future and distant echoes of the past.

Crouching between the wow and flutter, nestled between the clicks and pops… is a magical place created anew just for you every time the needles drops. There’s noise in the “silence,” a warmth of ambience before the music begins. Sound jumps out at you and redlines when needle hits vinyl. And just for a moment that sound joins your past and your future, transporting you to a more perfect present as you literally become part of the music.

Wasted Youth in Used Record Stores

I spent too much of my youth in used record stores.

See, I grew up in a small town with three colleges (and two more a few miles away). There were great used record stores there – one in the back of a head shop on Main Street (specializing in selling foreign cut-outs), one next to a stationary store (whose owner was busted for selling pot – I know, in a college town? Shocking!), and another one that sold hundreds of cheap bootlegs whose “covers” were cheap mimeographs of bad band photos.

And I was patient – I’d thumb through the stacks, always looking for something specific, but always open to what I might find – especially if the price was low. And the price was almost always low, because there were always lots of college students selling their records to the used record stores. Plus, I wasn’t a collector.

That’s important. Collectors care about more about the label and the idea of the record than they care about what’s on the record.

This is what collectors do:



For me, it was always about the music.

And while I own a few records that actually are valuable, their real value for me is what’s on them.

To be honest, when I was younger, I was more like Jack Black’s character here:



(I like to think I'm more tolerant now. So if you wanted to listen to "I Just Called To Say I Love You," I wouldn't say anything mean about you -- but I would leave the room.)

And while I own a few records that actually are valuable, their real value for me is what’s on them.

So this blog is mostly about music (and often about vinyl). Because it’s the music that matters.