Nearly seven years ago, I met my wife (she's the beautiful one at center-left in the picture above) and my concepts of music -- among other things -- changed drastically. Before then, I kept my genre preferences firmly held within the rock tradition: classic rock, punk rock (admittedly "poppy" as far as punk goes), and alternative rock were the flavors that I enjoyed. (I shied away from metal, being a relatively passive person.) But when Sarah came along, she not only brought along the promise of lifelong happiness, but also a knowledge of indie music, folk artists, and a broad spectrum of more "underground," non-commercial sounds that eventually shaped my overall musical tastes. And with the indie genre came a new method of listening to music, a medium that at one point seemed dead, then became characteristically "independent" and counterculture, and now shows more promise than it has in the last forty years: vinyl.
