What to listen to next? Where do I begin? Where's all my money?

Today, there are so many ways one can listen to music that an obsessive like myself can go into convulsions just wondering how in hell I'm gonna listen to even half of this shit (even while my heart soars when considering the possibilities). I have a subscription to Napster which allows me to load just about anything from their massive database onto my mp3 player. I truly love this. I have a subscription to XM satellite radio which allows me to listen to stations organized categorically by music type, era, genre, etc. I truly love this (Beyond Jazz is worth the subscription price alone!). I use online services (free!) that match music to individual artists by style, meter, instrumentation, chord structure and what-have-you such as Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm. I truly love these. I patronize questionably legal Russian music sites that cater to frugal types such as myself by selling an amazing amount of music, new and old, for unbelievably low prices. I truly love these. I am very happy with the sheer volume of music available to me.

But it's not the same - not the same at all. It's too easy.

In the seventies, in my early teens, it sometimes took months to save for an album. It was an art to convince my mother that I couldn't live without the latest Zeppelin LP. Merely obtaining batteries so that I could share my music with friends via my cherished GE Loudmouth portable music generator was work! Believe you me, when you have to choose between Kiss Alive, Aerosmith's Toys In The Attic, and Zep's Physical Graffiti in 1975 because you only have enough for one album, you truly appreciate the moment when the the vinyl hits the turntable and the needle drops gently into the groove.

Frequenting a record store was (and is) a religious experience for music lovers such as myself. These stores are few and far between of late. My brother Garry and I made a pilgrimage to Tower Records every Christmas day for many years, since we'd both receive many Tower gift certificates, owing to our mutual love of minutely organized noise.

Ah, those were the days...