Tell us a little bit about yourself: Name: Clive Young; Age: Card-carrying member of Generation X; Occupation: I’m the content director for a website and magazine about pro audio, so I cover anything happening with studios, broadcast audio, concert tour/venue sound and the equipment that they require; For Fun: Record collecting (shocking, I know), running around with our daughter, and jamming with friends in a pick-up band we call C.R.A.P (Clive’s Rockin’ Attic Project). We’re terrible; it’s great.

 In our emails, you mentioned meeting your wife at an Anti-Valentine's Day party. Care to elaborate? Yeah, that’s true. Valentine’s Day fell on a Friday that year, so a mutual friend held a Black Friday party, where everybody single could come drink and grumble about how stupid all those love-struck idiots were. Naturally we hit it off. 

Favorite album: This week, it’s the remaster of The Smiths’ “The Queen Is Dead.” The new edition did a lot to breathe life into the boring slow songs on Side One.

 First album: Wings’ “Back To The Egg,” which I still maintain is not nearly as bad as people think.

What albums in your collection would be perfect for a romantic date night at home? “Digital Dream Sequence” by Trioscapes, of course! Just kidding. Back in the day, I had no game but I did have a copy of Bryan Ferry’s “Boys & Girls” album, which is kind of the same thing. Update: I have been assured by my wife that I still have no game, except Scrabble.

 Best breakup album? Been a while thankfully, but I recall that Love & Money’s “Strange Kind of Love” was pretty good for twisting the knife in your own ribs.

 Since we're talking about love and music, who were your musical crushes? Eleanor Whitledge from The Goops was pretty appealing, but I probably have to go with Cathy Dennis.

What are your favorite places to snag records on Long Island, in case any readers are traveling through your town? Shhhh, don’t tell anyone but we have the best record stores on the planet. Seriously, the more I travel and check out stores around the world, the more I realize how spoiled I am to live here. Of particular note are High Fidelity in Amityville (a quarter-mile from the Amityville Horror house), Infinity in Massapequa and Vinyl Bay 777 in Plainview, which may be the weirdest record store I’ve ever seen—it’s in a grotty industrial park, but you go inside and it’s like record shopping in a nightclub.

Favorite Enjoy The Ride or Enjoy The Toons release: Hands-down, it’s that gorgeous tri-color version of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme. Great job!

Favorite album artwork: This week it’s “Blood Music” by Chapterhouse.

 What have you been listening to more frequently lately? Secret Machines’ “Now Here is Nowhere” – forgot how much I liked it until I picked up the vinyl reissue; Houndmouth’s “From The Hills Below The City” – I put it on for the first time in a while and it holds up; Tears For Fears’ “The Seeds of Love” – an endlessly dense album that works and doesn’t at the same time.

Which album do you wish you had on vinyl? I have a few pressings of Guru’s Jazzmatazz Vol. 1, but wish I had that Vinyl Me Please opaque blue edition from a few years ago • McCartney’s solo albums from around the turn of the Millennium would be great, but they run $200+ a pop these days so they’re out of reach • A truly pristine copy of David Sylvian’s obscure instrumental EP, “Words with the Shaman,” because that’s a Top-5 of All-Time record for me, but have yet to find a copy that isn’t noisy during the quiet passages.

What album would you like to be pressed on vinyl? Where do I begin? The ‘That Thing You Do’ Soundtrack—How is this not out with a bonus screen-replica 45 of the title track? Somebody’s leaving money on the table • Before he became the go-to producer in Nashville, Dave Cobb was the very Gilmour-influenced guitarist in an Atlanta band called The Tender Idols. Their forgotten “Distressor” is one of the great lost albums of the 2000s, throwing the entire history of British Rock into a blender, from the Stones to Floyd to Sex Pistols to Radiohead, and pouring out one killer song after another • Will Owsley’s “Owsley” is a phenomenal album top to bottom; in particular, “Good Old Days” is a gorgeous piece of picaresque songwriting, and to wit, probably my favorite song of all-time • Ivy’s “In The Clear” (and related, Fountains of Wayne’s “Welcome Interstate Managers”) • Best-ofs by power-pop classicists Cherry Twister and Splitsville would be awesome, if extremely unlikely. 

Any albums you are looking forward to grabbing in 2018? I’m currently waiting for Simple Minds’ new one, Walk Between Worlds, to show up in the mail; the last one in 2014 was unexpectedly strong so we’ll see if they can keep the streak up.

 If you could have dinner with any musician (dead or alive), who would it be and why? Probably McCartney. I would love to ask why and how he nurtures his creativity, because he keeps creating stuff at a time in life when anyone else in his position would say “why bother,” especially since he doesn’t need the money and has nothing to prove. I find that incredibly impressive—that’s a hell of a lot of effort to put into something where your sole impetus is “yeah, why not?”

If you were on a desert island and you could only fit three records safely in your suitcase, which ones would you take with you?  Donald Byrd’s “Fuego” ’cause it’s the happiest jazz record ever • Sparks’ “Lil’ Beethoven,” ’cause I’d need something to make me laugh • Maybe that Trioscapes album, because it mixes fear and beauty so well and that’s probably what being on a desert island would be like. Plus it would scare the wild animals away.

If you are interested in becoming Record Collector of the Month, send an email to michele@enjoytheriderecords.com to claim your spot - we are already booking into 2019!