Stephen Mejias

When I was younger, in my teens and early twenties, it happened all the time. On a whim, I'd go out to a small rock venue, and be absolutely shocked, ignited, devastated by some young, unknown band. Afterwards, I was always too shy to speak to the musicians, but, if I had any extra cash on me, I'd be sure to head to the merch' table and pick up a demo, maybe even buy a button or t-shirt. The feeling was as intoxicating and brilliant as New York City's snow-covered streets on a sunny winter day. This band was now yours to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, or until they signed to a major label.

I’m not going to get all flowery and poetic on this one. I’m just going to say: Buy this record.

For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTI on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.

Ceramic Dog's Party Intellectuals wins the award for Best Album of 2008 That I Never Wrote Anything About.

Last week, my wonderful coworkers completely surprised me with a delicious birthday cake.

Yesterday's episode of Sunday Morning on CBS included a segment with Herbie Hancock, whose River: The Joni Letters won two big prizes at the 50th annual Grammy Awards: Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

It seems like forever ago that I became interested in Santogold's music. In fact, however, it's only been four months. What made that time so hard to stand was that I couldn't listen to her music as much as I wanted to, in the way that I wanted to. Sure, I could listen online. And I did. But that wasn't enough.