When I was a kid, a 20 minute album side seemed to last forever. Now in the sudden silence I hear my joints creak as I get up to flip the thing over. Albums also didn’t used to cost $25. And the inner sleeves were full of tiny pictures of Tijuana Brass and Ohio Players album covers. Those were simpler times.

These LPs are heavy, man. Like those old Deutche Gramaphone platters we weren’t allowed to touch, Beethoven looking all scary on the cover. Real platters, those, thick as manhole covers. They didn’t waste that kind of vinyl on rock’n’roll, though. I remember I had a Jeff Beck album so floppy it couldn’t even frisbee. I tried it once, and it wobbled earthward like the stricken alien ship in Earth vs Flying Saucers. Then I played it and it seemed fine. Not this thing though, if you frisbee’d it you could hurt somebody. Delicately I flip the record. God if I scratch this thing it’s like dropping a whole bottle of Jamesons.

Damn, I remember this tune. “City Boys”. I had the 7″. Buzzsaw punk rock, baby, old school, the real thing. I had this shitty turntable back then turned up to 11 at four in the morning. Oh man, I’d hate to live next to the me then now. Amazing how great this ultra low fidelity recording sounds on high fidelity vinyl. If you’d told Swell Maps in 1978 that someday kids would pay twenty five dollars for this music on ultra high quality vinyl they’d think you were on drugs. Of course, you would be. Those were fun days.

Swell Maps somewhere in England way back when. And while I wish I knew who took the photo, I do know someone who plays a saxophone almost that small.