Getting into vinyl is as much about nostalgia as it is about having a physical artifact, or having something to pass on to my kids, or the audio quality, for me.

And simply put, there is nothing more nostalgic to me than this band and this album.

Most people don't know Kings X anymore, but there was a time when they were considered a "band's band" and very influential.

I first knew them as the band my god father was in. He was a larger-than-life figure who I knew I was named after, but didn't really know and who showed up in my life only intermittently, but always with the right gifts at the right time for me and my development.

He gave me my first guitar before I was born, and he patiently taught me the Drop D tuning when I clumsily tried to show him a song of theirs I thought I had figured out. Later, when I was developed enough to really appreciate what it meant, he gave me some of his old amps.

By then, I had re-discovered them as an actual band, myself a young but maturing musician who could appreciate the artistry aside from the person and the gifts.

Gretchen is not their best album. In my opinion that goes to Faith, Hope, Love or Dogman, but this was the peak of the Sam Taylor era, when Kings X were defining the weird corner of metal they would inhabit for decades to come. Heavy, groovy, melodic, with Beatlesque harmonies. It's all here coming together on Gretchen Goes To Nebraska.