My Life Summed Up In Seven Inches | These days I might pick up an old Motown single or something by The Rolling Stones now and then, but oddly enough, my prime years for buying 45s were in late high school and early college (when I had my cheap record player rigged up through a series of converters to play through the shitty computer speakers in my tiny dorm room). Because of that, I've got a lot of '90s emo records that I don't listen to anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still put on Nothing Feels Good now and then, but that old Texas Is The Reason / Promise Ring split doesn't really hold up for me at this point. Neither does that first Rainer Maria single, even though I do still pop on some of Rainer Maria's later stuff now and then (especially that Atlantic EP, which for some reason was never pressed on vinyl).
So what 45s do hold up? Well, this one comes down to a battle between my early childhood and my teenage self. I still have a single by Ray Stevens called The Streak that I used to listen to as a kid on one of those fisher price record players. It's funny in a stupid but clean way that reminds me of my youth, and if I heard it for the first time today, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it.
However, the best 45 from my teenage years, I still really enjoy listening to. It's an EP called Firecracker by the band Unwed Sailor. It was their first (and best) release, and it features David Bazan (Pedro The Lion) on drums. David Bazan—the melancholic singer/songwriter—is surprisingly one of my favorite drummers, and I think I even sampled the drums on this song to make some kind of beat while I was in college (unlike Brendan's MPC skills, it was definitely not gangsta).
My life came somewhat full circle when Unwed Sailor actually played in my living room a few years back, and I got to drink whiskey with Johnathan Ford. Oddly enough, after so many years of playing house shows in post-rock obscurity, it looks like Unwed Sailor is going on tour with Owl City in the late Fall... here's hoping some young kid winds up with an Unwed Sailor EP and falls in love with it too.
—Ryan Little
In Autobiographical Order:
The Promise Ring - E. Texas Ave (from their split with Texas Is The Reason) (Mp3)
Unwed Sailor - Ruby's Wishes (from Firecracker) (Mp3)
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