During the summer of 1990, I entered the Record Exchange, my hometown indie store, to buy my first Beatles album. Hard to believe that an audiophile like myself didn’t own a single Beatles LP at all. At one time I copied a friend’s parent’s scratched up White Album on to cassette, and I once recorded the second side of Abbey Road off the radio when Akron’s WONE played it in its entirety during one of those late night “album sides” half hours of airtime, but I had never made the commitment of laying down my own cash and purchasing one of their albums. Perhaps because so much of the Fab Four’s material was consigned to the oldies station, I didn’t take an interest. In 1990, I was a wreck, unsure of who I was, unclear of my place in the world, uncertain about my career choice. I was a 20-year-old college student, confused and lost. (Huh, imagine that.) (more…)