Jack White lives up to Hype.

I don't like hippies and I like hipsters even less. My least favorite part of all the Grateful Dead shows, and Phish shows and all the Dave Mathews shows I've been too has always been the dirty, smelly hippies. It's not their hemp clothing or veggie burritos that bother me. It's the smell. They just don't get the time to bathe  when they're on the road, dedicating their lives to catching the next show in the next city.

I hate hipsters. They're a different animal. Hipsters are supposed to be pioneers of culture. Shunning conformity for individualism. The sad irony is that being cool is their only desire. If a place is the cool place, then they have to be there, if a hat is the cool hat, then they have to wear it. If a band is the cool band, then they have to love them.

Jack White is the coolest dude on the planet. Everything he does is cool. From his style to his music, to his graphical design choices for his Third Man Records. He has the best selling Vinyl album on the charts. Vinyl is climbing the hipster charts with a bullet. But there is a problem with being cool. As soon as everyone thinks your cool, some people won't think you're so cool anymore. 100% saturation on the cool charts is the beginning of the end.

So my excitement and exuberance was mixed with a pinch of trepidation as his current tour is in support of his 2nd solo album Lazaretto (which is an isolation hospital for people with leprosy). I suspected his coolness had peaked. And there was no doubt the show would be crawling with hipsters.

The lines were shockingly long. The hipsters abundant. The fedoras ubiquitous. Black frame glasses.... well those are timeless.  My anxiety grew.  And then Jack White took the stage. The first thing I noticed was the energy. It was quickly evident that this was a rock and roll show. Like a REAL rock and roll show. The MC had told us that cell phone cameras were not allowed. The justification being that it's better to be in the moment than to be documenting being in the moment. It was hard to look away. White moved, and bounced, and jumped and pumped his guitar like a rock star should. He paced his set list perfectly. The crowd took a breath when White allowed us too. Then took our breath away with his next choice from his entire catalog. The bass drum thumped and was the engine that drove the train foreword. But it wasn't just that. Jack White has tapped into the vein of music that fed Blind Willie McTell, Johnny Cash and Jimmy Page. His abiding love for blues guitar is evident even under a mountain of distortion and effects pedals.

Sipping on a bottle of champagne that he set on the drum riser, White told the crowd that someone backstage had told him to save some energy for his 2 night stint in his hometown Detroit. He told to the crowd, that wasn't him. He was going to give it all he had TONIGHT! As White and the band were ripping into a 5 song encore filled with improvisational blues and mind thumping energy, I found myself jumping and shouting right along with every damn hipster in there. He had lived up to the hype. He was worth the price. He was still cool. And my ears are still ringing for it.

Warby Parker

I've worn glasses since I was 6 years old. I tried contacts and I hated them. So glasses have always been where it's at and important for me. As long as I can remember I've always went to Lenscrafters. There big thing was lenses in about an hour. Which I thought was cool because they had that lens laboratory behind the glass windows that you could watch people in white lab coats working on your lenses. SPACE AGE. You might not know this but an Italian company called Luxotica owns Lenscrafters along with almost 90% of every frame brand in the market. Ray-ban, Oakley, Coach, Gucci, EVERYTHING, if you wear glasses, you are wearing a Luxotica brand. It's one of the biggest monopolies I've seen in the market today. And they're expensive now too. Nowadays I get the nice frames with the special space age technology lenses. And recently I went to Lenscrafters to get my new pair. Eye exam with my insurance was $20. Not bad. The lenses and frames would cost me, out of pocket, $425. As I said, space age lenses are needed.
     But recently on CNBC, a small start up company called Warby Parker was featured. They advertise $99 for frames AND lenses. Hmmm. Cheap. No space age. No thanks. Their business model is weird. But on a whim,  I surfed their website and decided to try it. Here is how it goes.

1. You browses a ton of frames on their website, and choose 5 of them you think you'll like. They have  different shapes, sizes and styles, but skew towards urban hipster. The funniest thing is the frames all have WASPy names such as Burke, Felton, Walker, Crane, Winston, Beckett, Huxley. I laughed because if I were writing a novel, or story I could simply pick any two frame names and have my character's. Winston Beckett grew up in Bucks County Pennsylvania and spent his summers on the Jersey shore. His friend Burke Huxley was a bit of a thrill seeker.

2. My five frames arrived in the mail about a week later. I quickly narrowed it down to 2. And with a little help I chose a frame that I actually liked. They didn't look cheap at all.  The Preston Whiskey Tortoise.  yes that is the name of the frames. I put them all back in the prepaid box and sent them  back to Warby Parker.

3. Next I ordered the Preston's on the website. I had my eye exam on paper and they required me to scan it and send it. I was contacted the next day by email saying that my lenses required their upgrade to the SPACE AGE technology lenses. They were exactly the same as the Lenscrafters. The cost? $25. So my total for the transaction would be $125.

4. Now the weird part.

This is the picture I had to take using my webcam. That is a credit card over my mouth, as per Warby Parker's instructions. This is to help measure pupillary distance so as to help align the lenses properly with my eyes. Doing this was a pain to get right.  It took 3 people. We couldn't do it on an Ipad because the program uses Flash. There was a moment when I questioned my decision. But we got the picture, and I sent it off with my order.

5. The next day I recieved an email saying that my glasses were being made. 2 days after that they shipped and 4 days after that I received them in a fancy embossed box that contained a fancy embossed glasses case that said Warby Parker on it.

6. The glasses fit fine. They work fine and look fine. I've very happy. The frames are made in China and Warby wouldn't tell me where they get their lenses made. But I am guessing it's in America based on the turnaround time. Overall, not a bad deal. So cheap that I could order a second pair, or a pair of sunglasses and still not be near what the Lenscrafters pair would have cost me. Not ready in an hour and they don't say Armani on the side, but a third the cost. Is Luxotica worried about Preston Crane or his troubled older brother Felton? They should be.

So the next time you see me, ask me about my glasses. If you even notice that I got them changed.

The Return of Vinyl, Collecting 101

I've been telling anyone who will listen for the last couple years that vinyl is making a comeback. It's been making a comeback for 5 years now.

Sales of vinyl reached a 15 year high in 2013. It was the ONLY music category to grow at all. Arctic Monkeys had the most vinyls sales with their album AM. Haven't heard of them? Well then you're old. It's the first year in a decade that The Beatles Abbey Road HASN'T been in the top 10. The list was filled with Daft Punk, Queens of the Stone Age, Vampire Weekend, Justin Timberlake, and some other shitty bands. What? Pearl Jam didn't make it. Even though they released an album on Vinyl. (Their pressing was messed up, producing warped copies that they had to reimburse fans for). I've been pillaging my fathers collection for years. But I've reached a point where now I must purchase my own if I want to keep up with the wave of classic album re issues and new albums. 

Vinyl is not for the faint of heart. It takes dedication and commitment. It takes research if you want to collect vinyl beyond just listening. For example, Led Zeppelin II. Contains the mythically classic songs, Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker, Ramble On, What is And What Should Never Be. Pure Rock N Roll bliss. Gotta have this album in your collection right? Well shit, there are so many versions with varying degrees of sound. The HOLY GRAIL is a Robert Ludwig mastered version, pressed at Sterling Sound. good luck. it goes for $500 sometimes on Ebay. wha? why? Just download the damn thing on Itunes for $.99 right?  Pshhhfff.  Ok there are things you must know about Vinyl first to understand this beast.

1. Our ears hear in analog. Vinyl done right, is recorded and played in analog. When is the last time you HEARD a vinyl album? I am willing to bet all you listen to now is compressed mp3 files on your crappy earbuds while you're jogging, or maybe some laptop speakers that sound like dog farts. Digital can only replicate the sound wave. Vinyl IS the soundwave mannnnnnnnnn (hippy voice)...

2. When is the last time you TOUCHED your music (no, not in that way)? Vinyl requires you to hold it, touch it, smell it, feel it, before you hear it. You flip through bins at swap meets and flea markets. You now become aware that Record stores STILL EXIST. And that artists actually take time to put together a piece of art that you can hold in your hands. Um yeah. it's slightly different than clicking a cursor on a button like you do for everything else you buy.

3. What if I told you that vinyl is so far ahead of digital that good recordings, matched with good equipment can produce something called a "3D soundstage" ? Technology is better than ever today. And the entire process is a modern marvel. If done right, vinyl today will not just CRUSH digital, but will out do older vinyl pressings. Turntables and speakers are so advanced that you'll swear the musicians are in the ROOM. Why so much for an old Led Zeppelin pressing? Because sometimes the new issues aren't as good. They are from digital sources, or they are remastered crummy etc. So you have to find the BEST version of the music you're after, seek it out, go after it and get it.

4. Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi (Pictured Above), Poison and many others, released their biggest albums with covers that were either banned or censored. The Slippery When Wet cover was only issued in Japan. SO find one of those in Mint condition and you've got a rare one. Today's bands are doing things to make their vinyl rare and collectible as well. Such as colored vinyl like red, blue, clear, green etc. And they only print 500 or so copies.

5. 90's vinyl is by far the hardest to find. This was the golden age of the CD. Some artists never released ANYTHING on vinyl during the decade. If they did, it was very small numbers. Which make it harder to find and more valuable. Sting, Bob Dylan, Dave Mathews Band and Pearl Jam all have vinyl releases from the 90's fetching $200-$500 online now.  So maybe they re issue them. Nirvana re issued Nevermind on vinyl. $30. But it still isn't an original pressing from 1991.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to vinyl than even I imagined. Did you know that there are needles for turntables that cost $10,000 ? what the what? 

If you have a collection that you want to get rid of, hit me up I'll take them off your hands....