Psychic Heat "Elixir"

Into vinyl? Collect em?

Do you remember your first record purchase? I do. However, my collection so far is pretty small and my interest in the beloved wax started only about a year ago.

I used to be an avid CD collector. That was my thing. And I always thought the whole "vinyl" thing was just a contrived and pretentious attempt to appear that you liked music. Which was lame of me...because I had never experienced vinyl before.

But this all changed when I moved to Kansas City. I moved into a house with three other dudes, only one of them did I know prior to moving in. When I walked into the house for the first time, as soon as I opened the door, there right in front of me and across the living room was this HUGE collection of vinyl. There had to be literally around a thousand of em! All sorted and in alphabetical order. And over in the corner was a record player. It wouldn't take long for me to eventually throw one of these things on and fall completely in love with everything about vinyl.

The warm and seldom crackly sound, the experience of pulling out that big ole' disc and reading through the liner notes and lyrics they come with as it plays...you just can't beat it. In a sense it obligates you to become more invested in what you're listening to.

My first vinyl was Psychic Heat's "Sunshower". Which is kind of funny. Because not only had I only just heard about them a month or so before purchasing their sophomore album, they were also somewhat of a local band (from Lawrence, KS. Home of Kansas University. Not far from KC). After years-and-years of becoming so invested in bands and obtaining discographies of my favorites...a local band catches my attention and begins my journey into vinyl.

Check out "Elixir", one of my favorites from the album. It's a psychedelic wonderland. The intro kinda creeps along until the whole band comes in and erupts. There's this cool wah-wah effect on of the guitars during the verses and a killer outro that would have the most dull-minded head banging.