Not Fit For Print

The record is on the return, my friends, and all one has to do is stop by Happy Trails or Fred Meyer to see the evidence of stacks of wax.

Personally, I think it’s pretty cool. LPs really sound warmer and deeper than compact discs. Need proof? Led Zeppelin may be perhaps the easiest band to notice the difference with. Plus the artwork is like a keepsake, not a throwaway, which is what happens with many CD liner notes. CDs get packed in CD booklets, after all, so you can carry around 100 of the suckers, right?

So, anyway, I’ve been on a little bit of an album buying spree. New U2? Check. (Great, great stuff, by the way. Totally agree that it’s the best since Achtung Baby.)

But, hey, I also understand that CDs are pretty darn portable. So I was more than stoked when I went to Happy Trails and bought “Keep it Hid,” the new Dan Auerbach album. The record came with a CD, so it was like the best of both worlds. (Another solid album by the way, and while you can hear traces of the Black Keys, I’d compare it to 60s classic rock rather the muscular blues of Auerbach’s day gig.)

Other bands also are doing similar things, or providing digital downloads with records. And let me tell you, this trend is going to help the record industry a ton. You can’t copy records, y’know? Going old school and new school at the same time is wicked smart.

Here’s a pretty darn good article from the LA Times about vinyl’s comeback.

The only drawback of this trend? I bought my record player about eight years ago, when I could get awesome old albums with ease, sometimes for as little as 50 cents. That day has long passed, and even used records are climbing in price as albums become a hot commodity.

Still, it’s amusing, especially at Freddy’s, when I see “Boston” or some other album I own, selling brand new for $15 bucks or more.

*****

On another note, as you can tell from the headline, yep, I made the change from vegetarian a couple of weeks ago, when I was heading home from Bend, totally drained, and could only find a Subway to eat at. The tunafish sandwich I had in Sisters wasn’t exactly a glorious first fishyterian meal, but it did the trick. Still, I couldn’t help but thinking, “If they only would have had tempeh!”

On another note, hooray for Aomatsu and excellent sushi. My second fishyterian meal was there, and it was ohmigod good.

So, overall report on going vegetarian: It wasn’t easy, but there were no negative drawbacks, besides not being able to order pizza very easily while out with friends. Lost a bit of weight, felt fine, yadda yadda yadda.

My No. 1 tip for local vegetarians? Never leave Corvallis. Heading elsewhere and eating out proved to be the most challenging aspect of the experiment.

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