The post to which the world replied "No Shit, Sherlock."

So, I was obnoxiously ignorant enough to start a blog called LP's on the Jukebox without actually owning a record player. Got one for Xmas.

At first last night the only one I had to put on was one I'd bought as a novelty at a thrift store in Joshua Tree, CA two years ago. It was some best of compilation from a Boston radio station, that I got because on the front for some inexplicable reason was a bear in a pair of shades and a bomber jacket playing a guitar made out of a Boston street map, the neck being Comm Ave. The cover was better than the content.

Then today, in a frenzy I bought three albums, all new, totally not adhering to the dregs and discovery ethic that I swear I will uphold from here on out, but COME on, how could I not ensure that now that I'd tested the bugger, that the first voice I should hear on my newwww medium would be someone worthy to be heard in that much accoladed fashion of vinyl.

I see Small Change. It's 22.99....can I really spend so much on an album? After all, wasn't the point of this to pick up second-hand copies, hear history in the cracks, see some scrawled happy birthday on the liner notes (that would hopefully lower the price.) This needs some pondering. Or rather, I need time to come up with the proper rationalization, as it turned out.

I snag Death out of the New section as well, then find the small bin marked Country. My fingers were crossed for Patsy Cline, and then my heart stops. Look who has his own special tab. Townes. Van. Zandt. Double album. 16.99. Live at the Old Quarter. Pancho and Lefty on the first side.

My fingers pick it up before I tell them to.

And yes, I have to go back and pick up Small Change. Townes, I love ya, but there is only one man that can fully test vinyl for me. And that is Tom fucking Waits.

So yeah. Vinyl is good. Analog. Shoulda known. Film looks better because of its literal nature and all its little imperfections. After all what you're hearing played back to you is the actual imprints that the sounds forced into an actual material, not the way that a computer interpreted those sounds.

Listened to the whole thing with mounting excitement as I do all the Xmas unpacking I was far too lazy to do the night before, and it builds until...

Smitten. I'm swooning, I'm actually swooning as I hear that match strike and the first velvety tones of that lonely saxophone on the beginning of Small Change. The man himself, he's whispering in my ear, and it's dirty, and it's warm, and I can even smell the whisky on his breath as he rasps that Small Change got rained on with his own .38.

Hang on, I must put on Side Two again. After all, at some point later tonight, I am due a shower, and my usual mediocre rendition of Invitation to the Blues is going to get a bit of an oomph to it.

I. Am. Floored.