Author’s Note
This is the essay I was working on when J died. As I’ve mentioned, a lot of this site had become a conversation between Jason Warden (ne Tom Q./SpaceAce/Robotron, or as I refer to him when speaking and writing, J1) and myself, talking about music via our vinyl record collections. While I was never going to be able to replicate his deep dives into obscure musical acts he thought deserved more attention, my autobiographical rambling had an engaged audience of at least one person. The records I’m discussing here would have another bonding moment. Not saying he would’ve liked all the bands, records I’m writing about, but he loved to talk shop. Also, we both lived through and came up in roughly the same era of pop, punk, and alternative/college rock—one of our early bonding moments was discovering a shared love and deep knowledge of Robyn Hitchcock.2 His taste was a lot more wide ranging than mine but we had so much in common musically. We got each other’s references.
Not only was I hoping to get him to contribute a companion post (discussed below in the Boston hardcore section), one of our shared jokes was the story in the first part of the Preface.
So I’m going to be directly addressing this to J. I hope the conceit isn’t ghoulish or strained. But, sincerely, most days I find myself thinking of conversing with him.
This one’s for you, J.