Hey all,

Earlier this week, we lost a musical mainstay in our hometown area. The Sound Station in Westfield, NJ was destroyed in a fire on South Ave. The record shop had been there for as long as I can remember, withstanding the decline of record sales over the years and somehow managing to stay open. For it to stay open for so long given the state of the industry and then to go down in flames like this is just unfair.

I remember killing time in there during my high school days with some buddies. It was a smaller shop, but sometimes we’d just hang out in there and shoot the shit with Bob the owner. And although he probably never knew our names, he’d always engage us and was always very cool to us. My favorite memory in there was when my friend tried to bait Bob into betting him that he wouldn’t drink what was a basically double shot of some insane hot sauce or something like that. Bob wouldn’t take the bet, so he went on telling a story. As he was talking, my friend quickly drank the hot sauce and some of it got in his eye. Bob’s look of disbelief as the kid ran around the store like a lunatic from the burning sensation was priceless. Ooooooh good times…

I wanted to pass along some info for people that want to donate to the recovery of Sound Station. If you go here: http://www.indiegogo.com/helpsoundstation you can contribute. So if you’ve got a few bucks to spare in the name of independent music, I encourage you to visit that site and donate.