It's The Return Of The Gangsta Blogger

Ah, it's been a pretty good three week writing break. I got to sit around a lot and be lazy for a change. The fiancèe and I had a good time visiting my family in Cincinnati over the Christmas holiday. We're nearing the completion of wedding planning and are looking forward to getting the big day behind us. The Philadelphia Eagles are one step away from the Super Bowl. So life, for the most part, is alright.

One of the best parts of going to Cincinnati is prowling through Shake It Records, which is a gold mine for underground music fans and has quickly become my favorite record store, even above my previous favorite Aquarius Records in San Francisco (though they're still a close second). Located in the Northside neighborhood, the store is two floors of badass, with sections as common as rock, rap, soul, Americana, and reggae mixed in with more esoteric sections such as 60's garage, Bollywood, British folk, and experimental. It's the type of store I have to go into with at least $50 to blow and an hour to kill, yet will still leave wanting more. By the end of my trip I had collected four new albums, but could've easily left with twice as much if I had the money to burn.

(inside Shake It Records; photo by Chris Glass)

As usual, the visit to Shake It has left me longing to live in a city with a great indie record store. Sure, some people may consider things like crime rate, cost-of-living, jobs, or weather to be important factors to look for in a city. Me? I'll take a good record store and music scene any day (well, on top of the aforementioned). While Phoenix has three good stores in Stinkweeds, Eastside, and Zia Records, all of them leave something to be desired. Had I been aware of Shake It's existence when I moved, leaving Cincinnati might not have been such as easy a decision as it was. But oh well, it just gives me something else to look forward to whenever I'm in the area.

Anyway, as intended, I've spent a good portion of the break thinking about where to take this blog. There will be some changes, but most of them will be minor tweaks here and there. I think I've got a decent base to build on and I'll just continue winging it to complete satisfaction. The one major change is that I will only post three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I think this will give me a better opportunity focus on the things I post and hopefully improve the quality by decreasing the quantity. As much as I'd like to (and probably could) maintain five posts per week, I'd like to avoid some of those "garbage" posts that inevitably come with such a strict writing schedule. Of course, you could probably argue that everything I've posted up to this point has been a garbage post, but that would just be mean...bitch.

Regular updates resume Wednesday. I appreciate your lurking and hopefully you'll continue to do so.