Knee jerk. I get an email from Plan 9 Music every week with the New Releases. I spent some time in Virginia in 2000 and I signed up for their newsletter, lingering like a chronic itch. With my rapid scan across the list certain bands trigger my post-hypnotic suggestion to drop what I’m doing and load up amazon.com and add to my wish list; on bad days I shake off my stupor and wake up at the record store with a bag full of CDs. At some point I no longer have a choice when it comes to buying new records that come out. That doesn’t always work out as far as actually enjoying the music, but sometimes I’ll catch myself in a “Ooh, this is… actually… really Good!”

One example that I remember distinctly was back in October, 2000. I was in Charlottesville, VA when I learned of U2 and “All that you can’t leave behind”. I was probably doing something important, but I blacked out and woke up in my car parked outside of Wal*Mart loading the latest U2 CD in the stereo. The Irish lads had struggled a bit with their image and artistic vision for … over a decade … so I wasn’t expecting much more than my involuntary subconscious programming was prodding me. I bought into U2 many years before with “War” when they drew me out to a new register of emotional intensity and imagination. I was even rabid tracking down rumors in 1984 of their new release “Unforgettable Fire” when I met Jim at Shenanigans here in Provo. I was rightly possessed by the album for years. I even made a deal with Jim after I moved away from Utah that I would only buy the next U2 tape from his shop, and in 1987 I suffered a few extra days for him to ship it out to me. MTV taunted me “With or Without You.” Cue up the U2 bender when I got the package.

Something a little bit awkward happened next. In the Fall of 1988 I heard about “Rattle and Hum”. I was serving a church mission in Germany with some very strict rules, including no MUSIC! I risked eternal damnation to slip away to a record store to buy the new record, as well as to indulge in the aural lust of actually listening to it. Repeatedly. Of course I was elated at first, but then I realized it wasn’t really the same band anymore. Over the next long string of releases I repeated the process of compulsion and disappointment, until I was shamefully tearing away the crinkly plastic wrapping, practically shivering in the cold, sitting behind a dumpster in the bad part of town. But I felt the magic again with U2. Somehow I make an irrevocable connection with some bands and, love them or hate them, I unconditionally buy their new releases. Thankfully, many of these bands spared me by splitting and calling it quits and I’m free from the compulsion, except for when they take up solo projects and I recognize their names on the New Releases list.