Liner Notes

Words from our Editor and Owner

Elsewhere: AOL, Catfishing, and Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

It’s fall 1996, I’m newly separated and I’m staying at my parent’s house with my two young children while my husband gets his shit together long enough to pack up and leave our apartment. I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I exist on a diet of coffee, mini Snickers bars, cigarettes and vodka. I ghost-step my way through life, existing in a wavy haze, not sure where I’m going or even where I am.

Ode to the Mountain Goats

My first exposure to the Mountain Goats was on YouTube, maybe 12 years ago, a video of them doing “No Children” live, where the audience was doing the heavy lifting in singing. The lyrics demolished me; the unbridled catharsis with which the audience sang floored me. There was such an obvious connection with John Darnielle and the band and I knew I had to find out more. Within a week, I was a superfan.

My Springsteen Journey: fandom, divorce, and reconciliation

My first exposure to Bruce Springsteen was in 1973 when an older cousin played “Blinded by the Light” for me. I was intrigued by the song, I liked it enough, but not enough to dive into the album it was on. I was eleven. I had better things to do. The song stuck with me, though, and played in my head a lot. I enjoyed the pace of it, the wordplay. I also thought Bruce was hot.

This Story's Old: Reckoning with Brand New's "Deja Entendu" in 2025

[Liner Notes is a regular column in which I (michele) randomly - i use an actual randomizer - choose albums from my collection to write about]

The year is 2003. I am stuck in a brutal marriage - my second - and I am trying to extricate myself from the relationship but I don’t know how to do that. It wasn’t as easy with my first marriage where I just told him I wanted out and he complied (bitterly). There’s some mental/emotional abuse in this second marriage and I’m afraid to anger him. It’s a terrible time for me. I’m drinking, I have bouts with sleep paralysis, there are frequent panic attacks, sometime a dozen in a day. I have effectively separated myself from my heart and soul. There is nothing left in me.

The Trick to Getting Into Trick of the Tail and Genesis

The Squonk is of a very retiring disposition and due to its ugliness, weeps constantly. It is easy prey for hunters who simply follow a tear-stained trail. When cornered it will dissolve itself into tears. True or False?

I first learned these words in late 1976, months after Trick of the Tail was released. I memorize them because Kevin’s older brother Sean told us to, and I wanted to impress Sean more than anything.

Growing Up With the Beatles

I am nine years old. I wake up with the sound of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” drifting into my room and I know. It’s Saturday and I’ve got chores to do. I think it’s my turn to vacuum and I sleepily head into the kitchen for some breakfast before I start my task. I eat through “Getting Better” and stare at the cereal box during “Fixing a Hole.” I know I have to get started if i don’t want to waste my morning inside. There are friends to see, bikes to ride, baseball cards to be traded. I trudge into the living room where my mother already has the vacuum out for me and my sister is dusting.

Q&A Remix With...Me

The Q&A Remix is a recurring column under the new releases heading. I give people a list of 15 questions and they pick out the ones they want to answer. Thought I’d give it a go myself.

Have you ever bought a record just for the artwork?

 Not the sleeve artwork, but the album artwork. In 1980, I bought True Colors by Split Enz which had designs and colors etched into the record itself. I believe that was a first, or at least the first I had seen anything like that. I had to have it.

Poetry, Lyricism, and David Berman: a Mourner's Chronicle

I used to fancy myself a poet. I was in high school at the time and, spurred on by the words of my then idol Jim Morrison (i know, i know), I penned cryptic, dark, scattered poetry meant to be read by no one but myself. I was afraid to show anyone my oddly metered words, for fear they would at best ridicule them or, at worst, not understand them. There were few things worse to my teenage self than being misunderstood, and to have that done over poetry would wound me.

Happiness I Cannot Feel: Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and the Turmoil Within

 I was eleven years old when I first heard Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.”

I don’t think anyone intended for me to hear it. A well-meaning cousin bought me a compilation album called Superstars of the 70s. I think he wanted me to listen to certain tracks, help me discover the music he liked. The Beach Boys. The Doobie Brothers. Crosby Stills and Nash.

At first I gravitated toward the Yes cut, a three minute version of “Roundabout” (and I would only later discover there was another 536 minutes of the song). There was Hendrix and Deep Purple and various other hard rock songs — all edited down to a radio-friendly three minutes or so — that excited me as I worked my way through both sides of all four discs.

There's a New Wave Coming

Liner Notes is where I go through my collection one random album at a time and write about what each one means to me. Today, I have an essay about new wave music; so much of my collection falls into this genre. This is about my memories of these records - Michele

It’s been said the music you listen to in high school is the music that stays your favorite forever, but I’m here as proof that this is not necessarily true. I graduated high school in 1980 and spent the next three years cultivating an entirely new personality based around the music I was listening to.

Do You Feel Like We Do - a tale of Peter Frampton and friendship

I was reunited with some albums I parted ways with a long, long time ago when they somehow ended up in possession of my sister. I hadn’t seen them in years, but I thought of them often, wondering where those REM and U2 and XTC records went to. Little did I know they were residing in Rhode Island with my sister, who recently surprised me with a canvas bag filled with those albums.

Christmas Music Selections

I’m a sucker for Christmas music. I start listening right after Halloween and will usually let it linger until New Year’s Day. My listening covers a wide expanse; I love the standards (the Drifter’s version of “White Christmas” tops my chart), but I also love a treasure trove of covers of those classics (Bright Eyes has an amazing Christmas album with covers) and original holiday songs by a variety of rock, punk, emo, alternative bands and musicians (Sufjan Stevens does it best). 

Discovering the Dark Side of the Moon

It’s 4am and I am listening to Dark Side of the Moon. It’s Saturday; the world won’t wake for another couple of hours, so I keep the volume soft, as if it might wake the neighborhood. The lights are out and I am high. Conditions are perfect for a listen to this album.

I was eleven in March, 1973, when DSotM came out. Even though I was already dipping my feet into the rock pool thanks to older cousins who introduced me to Black Sabbath and The Who, I was not ready for Pink Floyd. I was not ready for this specific record. There was too much nuance, too much “weird stuff” as I put it back then. “Money” was all over the radio and I liked the song a lot, but I just didn’t want to labor through the whole album.

Letter From the Editor

Welcome to the inaugural edition of I Have That on Vinyl.

The greatest Christmas of my life happened in 1974. I was eleven years old and the euphoria I felt upon receiving my very own turntable was something that would be hard to replicate; all Christmases thereafter were ruined by the fact that I peaked at eleven.

Ode to K-Tel

There’s a picture of me, taken on Christmas morning. I’m about eleven years old and I’m holding two K-Tel records, beaming like I just received the greatest gifts ever. And in a way, I did. Those records were the gift of music. They gave me the ability to pour through a collection of songs to find something I liked without having to splurge all my saved allowance on a ten or twenty 45s.

WALK OUT TO WINTER: falling in love with—and to—Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain

It’s snowing; thick, large flakes coming down at the rate of two inches an hour. Work is closed and I don’t have to go anywhere until Wednesday afternoon, so I’m huddled up on the couch with a cup of tea, writing this and occasionally looking up to see if it’s still snowing. Part of me wants it to snow all day. I love the feeling of being homebound, forced by winter to do nothing but cuddle with cats and listen to music.