I should not have uncovered my turntable. I have important things to do. I dont know what they are, but they must be more important than ripping MP3's from vinyl. On the other hand, it is february, and if I went out looking for something more important, I probably wouldn't find it. So I may as well rip some vinyl.

Last night I ripped the Germs (GI) LP. I have the original LP on slash records, and its in pretty decent shape, considering it is almost 26 years old now. I know it's available as part of a compilation on Rhino Records, but I already have it, I dont want to buy it again. The sad part about it is that it is 26 years old! It's a Golden Oldie, and I'm turning into an old fart. Well, I dont know if it sold a million copies, but it wouldn't surprise me. CRASS had all of their albums go gold, but it was never really spoken of.

The time was 1979. Joan Jet was a member of the Runaway's, but she got tapped to produce the album. The Sex Pistols had exploded on their tour the previous year, The ramones had released a few great records by this time, but LA had it's own ethos. And, it's own pathos. I was Three Thousand miles away from LA, and the local bands we had in NYC ( Ramones, Plasmatics, Dead Boys etc ) were much harder than the LA bands. That would change somewhat, but the Germs, and X, were the first LA punks that I had heard of. Black Flag, Bad Religion, the Circle Jerks and the Dead Kennedy's were still to come.