In the late 1980s, I stood in a record store near where I grew up, facing a critical choice. I had saved up some money from chores and mowing lawns, and early one Sunday morning, I decided that I was going to discover new music that was outside of the comfort of top 40 radio hits.

I had a shitty record player and even shittier speakers from a garage sale I scored the day before, and all I could think about was the independence of choice and exploration. I was tired of what I was hearing over and over on the radio; sterile, predictable, often vapid and repeated on the hour, every hour. I knew there had to be more out there.

Thumbing through the plethora of musical choices, I saw a classmate come into the record store and pick up some pop cassette that had a hot song of the moment on the radio. I hated this classmate, and his choice in music only encouraged me to not be a stooge like him. My money wasn't going to go to music he would like.

I was about to leave empty handed, but something caught my eye; 2 albums side by side, with curious names and intense artwork on their covers. It didn't look like anything I had ever seen. The song titles couldn't have been more outside what I had been listening to, and I was instantly compelled to buy these records.

The Cramps - Bad Music For Bad People
Dead Kennedys - Bedtime for Democracy

I rode my bike home like I was on fire, one hand on the handlebars, the other firmly keeping the records under my other arm. Rushed to my room, and frantically setup the record player for it's maiden voyage.

The Cramps album confused me immediately. It sounded like Elvis had eaten a medicine cabinet and went to the studio. It was chaotic. It was crazy. I fell in love instantly because it wasn't ever going to be in the top 40.

The Dead Kennedys was a completely different animal. Furious, laser pointed at topics while pummeling out a metric shit ton of music in some of the shortest songs I had ever heard. This album is solely responsible for my lifelong connection with punk. Jello Biafra's lyrics also introduced so much commentary on how dysfunctional the US was and had been consistently, that it encouraged me to seek out truth from non-official sources. I wrote down so many things he had said that I found myself spending hours at the local library trying to learn about topics kids my age wouldn't even consider as worth the time.

This is one of my favorite memories. I wanted to share this with you because if you are overwhelmed and needing a temporary disconnect from this timeline.... get some headphones and listen to something that brings you better feelings.

We all deserve some grace.