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.

This spin is inspired by Serious Al

These two albums have always been a pair in my mind but I’ve never listened to them both in the same sitting.

I discovered Sunny Day Real Estate with this record, and thought I had discovered the band I would follow for years. I was disappointed and then stunned to find out that not only had they since broken up, two members had gone on to participate in another album I’d recently discovered, The Colour and The Shape.

In some ways, the Pink Album had to be the messy and half-hearted process it was for us to have the Foo Fighters album we have, even if only a few of Goldsmith’s drum parts remain.

This is certainly my favorite SDRE album mostly for emotional reasons but it also gave us emo anthems “8” (the song that originally blew my young mind wide open when I stumbled onto it on the Batman Forever sound track of all places.), as well as the onomatopoeically titled “J’nuh”, with the riff that launched a thousand emo bands.

The Colour and The Shape had 3 huge singles that almost everyone knows but New Way Home is the track I had in mind when I thought about getting this on vinyl. Simply put though, every track is great and the production is bristling with energy.

Shown with “side D” in front.

This is the album that hooked me on Mogwai and though I prefer their instrumental songs in general, Acid Food remains one of my all-time favorite songs of any band. Such a perfect mood with some beautiful, gorgeous, lap steel throughout.

Commence weekend.

D-rug-S under the table is code for something.