My name is Mike, and I live in a small town north of San Francisco. I was born in 1944, am married, and am currently raising my two teenage granddaughters. I am retired after having worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 25 years. I was in the Marine Corps during the early Vietnam years, after which I got married and had 2 children, a girl and a boy. I went to college on the GI bill, graduating with a Master's degree in English from Sonoma State, and then I went to the University of Washington on a teaching assistantship. After that, I went to work for the Post Office, and we moved back to California.
In the meantime, my kids grew up and my son began to play bass guitar in various rock and roll groups, the best of which was The What-Nots from Santa Cruz, CA. They produced 2 wonderful CD's in the late '90's, pictured below, both of which are very rare today. (Come to think of it, they were very rare about 2 weeks after they were released.)
The What-Nots 2 CD's: Pretty cool, Huh?
To help support this group, I made them a website and started "The Alterna-Punk Nation" webring, which eventually had over 750 member sites, before I had to disband it. Yes, for a time I reveled in the glory of being a true punk Ringlord. Here is the total number of wonderful What-Nots CD's that we sold over the website, even with all of the help of the mighty Alterna-Punk Nation Webring: zero. Yes, the shopping carts remained empty, the spiders built their webs on the pitiful small stacks of What-Nots CD's, and the cashier at check-out fell deeply asleep. Well, maybe it was never really about money in the first place. And even today, after 50 years of rock and roll, I remain a dedicated fan. During my 25 year stint with the USPS, I listened to mainly rock and jazz and latin music through my headphones, turned up loud enough to drown out the machinery, which may have something to do with the continual tinnitis (ringing in my ears) that I experience nowadays. So much for my "golden ear." And, consequently, I tend to defer to those with better hearing when it comes to judgements about ambient noise or subtle hums left in the restored music.
I have always loved records. My favorite toy when I was little was the steel-needled phonograph that never seemed to have enough power to give me a merry-go-round ride when I sat on the turntable. Now, in my twilight years, I often think of all of the records that are gradually disappearing, many in garbage pits (and I too am guilty of making frisbees out of LP's that I once thought were inconsequential, and probably were, and yet . . . ). I fantasize that many of the more obscure titles will be lost forever if hobbyists do not take the time to digitize them and preserve them for future generations.
Little Richard: The Head-Bomber
Ah, here's one that brings back memories. In my early teens, I was the proud owner of 3 LP's: this one, "This Is Fats Domino," and the "Elvis" album. My father broke them all over my head in 1957, which wasn't easy, because they were, after all, unbreakable. My father was not normally a violent man; I think maybe there were just too many "balapbapbooms" cutting through his Lawrence Welk. Fortunately, these records are certainly not rare, so there was no great loss, but it was pretty traumatic at the time.