It’s no surprise that at one point in my life I dreamed of being a writer for a music magazine. I had no idea what that entailed of course. I did however love listening to music and telling my friends about it.

I envisioned myself, freewheeling across the country in a decked out, tricked out, modified van. Not a 70’s van with a wizard painted on the side, but a comfortable, functional vehicle that had all manner of music equipment built in. It would have a specially balanced record player, tape deck, and equipment to record my voice.

The plan was for me to drive from coast to coast, stopping at record companies along the way to pick up new albums to listen to and review while I was driving. I would play the album on the record player, bring the microphone close to me on it’s articulating cable, and speak my review as I was listening. By the time I arrived somewhere, presumably another city with a record company, I would have several reviews in the can as it were and would type them up and drop them in the mail for the record companies I was reviewing for. Then pick up more from the local record companies and hit the road again. Sort of a nomadic reviewer.

I could live anywhere.

I would sell my reviews to Rolling Stone, and they just might create an off-shoot magazine that was just filled with reviews. Mainly mine of course.

I never quite figured out how I would get paid in this dream job scenario, but when you are 16 you don’t really hammer out all the details.

Years later I thought it would be cool to write for local free papers like I found on campus or in the city, like “The Crazy Shepherd” or “Maximum Ink”.

Years and years later I had notions of writing for online magazines that were popping up all over.

Years and years and year later I started writing The Aural Retentive.

Goodbye awesome van.