Parliament, Prince…..It was a soul journey and an education. I remember going to stereo sections at the mall just oggling the components making mental lists of all the best cartridges, styli, speaker placements, etc. I was hooked. 

Today it’s all changed of course. I can’t tell you how many records I have checked out on Mac laptop speakers or tinny earbuds and hit the skip button….and I know you have too. Convenience has changed everything about our culture and vinyl actually brings us back to the meditative ritual that music listening once was. Stop, take a minute, power up, and put that record on. These days in  their various domains, designers ape each other to maximize sales. Risk is rarely taken for fear of losses. In music we are composing on laptops with the same sounds from the same apps for audiences wearing pricey vintage Hendrix T-shirts sipping champagne cocktails and pumping fists in the air to four on the floor electro beats. All in a nights party sure. Yet in the midst this irony: we are at a critical mass of technology yet discovering that in many ways the joy and the meaning has been lost. Vinyl is a return. It’s the Noam Chomsky of pop. It is a reminder that perhaps the internet must feed the “innernet” and an analog LP and it’s listening ritual can usher in the re-discovery of our spiritual and root connections.