Charles interviews Jennifer Edwards, creator of the YouTube channel Jen’s Addiction, about her passions for music, vinyl, comics, art, and classic horror. Edwards shares formative concert memories—from her first show seeing The Romantics in the early ’80s and learning bass in a makeshift band, to recent highlights like sitting front-row for The Damned in Nashville, meeting Ogre of Skinny Puppy at a monster convention, and taking her sons to landmark first concerts (Peter Murphy’s “35 Years of Bauhaus” and Depeche Mode). She recounts disappointments like a derailed Jane’s Addiction show and a tense, chaotic 1995 Grateful Dead Deer Creek concert. The conversation explores collecting, Discogs, first pressings, and why vinyl’s sound, nuance, and artwork feel more emotionally “connectable” than CDs or streaming, plus her criticism of web-only album credits.
In this episode of Seeing Them Live, Charles welcomes Jennifer Edwards, the creator and host of the YouTube channel Jen's Addiction, where she shares her passions for music, vinyl collecting, comic books, art, and classic horror. A self-described nostalgic with a deep emotional connection to vinyl, Jennifer explains why records are more than just a listening format — they're art you can hold, display, and collect. She and Charles dive into the perennial debate of vinyl versus CDs versus streaming, with Jennifer making the case that the warmth and nuance of a record — the fingers on the strings, the imperfections, the artwork — create an experience that digital formats simply can't replicate. She also shares her adventures in bulk collecting, including purchasing a collection of 3,000 CDs, and offers practical advice for collectors navigating Discogs, first pressings, and the sometimes-murky world of limited-edition numbering.
The conversation then turns to Jennifer's lifelong concert-going journey, starting with her very first show — The Romantics at the Long Center in Lafayette, Indiana, when she was around 14 years old. That experience was transformative, igniting a passion not just for live music but for playing it, leading her to pick up the bass guitar at 16 and briefly front a band called The Llamas. Jennifer recounts some of her best concert moments, including seeing The Damned from the front row at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, catching The Cure on the Disintegration Tour, and watching Neil Peart's drum solos with Rush. She also shares an unforgettable encounter with Ogre, the singer of Skinny Puppy, at a monster convention — a conversation that lasted over an hour and ranged from music to horses and left her feeling that meeting an idol later in life, when both people are in a better place, can be far more meaningful than a fleeting interaction in the chaos of youth.
Jennifer opens up about her most disappointing concert experience — the Jane's Addiction reunion show in Indiana, which was canceled just a few shows before the end of the tour, leaving her heartbroken after looking forward to seeing both Jane's Addiction and Love and Rockets. She also describes her most surprising concert: the 1995 Grateful Dead show at Deer Creek, where the crowd turned unruly, fans broke through the back fence during "Desolation Row," and the band kept playing as the situation spiraled — an eerie precursor to the end of the Dead era. The episode wraps with Jennifer sharing cherished pieces of her concert ephemera, including a Power Station T-shirt from a legendary teenage adventure in Cincinnati (where a photo lab worker handed her extra prints from John Taylor's personal camera) and a pair of drumsticks caught from Jesus and Mary Chain drummer Zach Alford. She also discusses her approach to album reviews on her channel — favoring enthusiasm over critical jargon — and encourages listeners to find their passion, engage with creators, and be part of the conversation. You can find Jennifer on YouTube at @JensAddiction.
BANDS: Adam Ant, Bauhaus, The Beatles, The Bel-Airs, Chic, The Cramps, The Cure, The Damned, Danzig, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Fontaines DC, Gary Numan, The Grateful Dead, Howard Jones, Jane's Addiction, Jesus and Mary Chain, Julie London, The Kinks, The Llamas, Love and Rockets, Madonna, Peter Murphy, Pink Floyd, Power Station, The Psychedelic Furs, Robert Palmer, The Rolling Stones, The Romantics, Rush, Skinny Puppy, Squeeze, Tin Machine.
VENUES: Aragon Ballroom, Brooklyn Bowl, Brown County Amphitheatre, Credit One Amphitheatre, Deer Creek, Elliot Hall of Music, Holiday Star Theater, Hollywood Casino, Long Center, The Metro, Old National Center, The Salt Shed, Soldier Field, Tweeter Center.
LINKS: YouTube at @JensAddiction.
[00:00:25] Jennifer: I mean, nothing against CDs. People have their preference, but there's something not as connectable, or if that's even a word, to me with CDs. I guess I'm emotionally attached to things. I'm very nostalgic, for sure, but part of music is emotion, but it's the whole package. I'm not just collecting a record. I'm collecting art. When you put that vinyl sleeve up on your wall, like you're now playing, wherever you pop it up, and you just look at it, or you're filtering through your collection, some of these are just beautiful.
[00:00:55] Charles: My guest today is Jennifer Edwards. Jennifer is the creator and host of the [00:01:00] popular YouTube channel Jen's Addiction, a space where she talks about the things she loves, like music, comics, art, and classic horror. Jen is a fan of punk, new wave, and post-punk music, but she also loves everything from classic rock to classical music. Her interests in comics also varies from independent artists to industry giants. Jen, welcome to Seeing Them Live.
[00:01:25] Jennifer: Well, thank you for having me, Charles. So I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:28] Charles: Yeah. Thanks so much. I'm glad we have this guest form, 'cause at least it gives me a, a place that we can start, 'cause, 'cause I've been watching your videos. You cover so many things. It's crazy. And it's very good, too. I love it. So we'll talk about Jen's addiction and music, vinyl you collect. And then I have, some questions around that just from listening to several of your episodes, kinda got me thinking about things like philosophical things like, vinyl versus [00:02:00] CD versus the download.
[00:02:01] Jennifer: Yah.
[00:02:02] Charles: All the time, and you were talking about that in one of your episodes. So, maybe you have a magic formula, a way to, make these decisions.
[00:02:10] Jennifer: It depends. Uh, no, I really don't, you know, but I have a very busy mind, I guess. I'm always thinking, I'm curious, and stuff will just pop into my head, and there's a few episodes on there that literally were just, I thought of one thing and it led to something else, and it led to something else, and I go down a rabbit hole and I'm like, "Well, maybe other people are curious about those things, too."
[00:02:30] Like, you know, flexi discs and when they were talking about bone music and, you know, that's another whole, like, not to give things away, but I, things I didn't know. And so, um, it's, it's fun. I like history. I like all that, and it just, I guess it's a great way to just think about things differently, maybe.
[00:02:47] Charles: Yeah, I mean, I have vinyl, I have CDs, I've been downloading things.
[00:02:51] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:02:52] Charles: But it makes you think about certain things, listening to your episodes. For instance, you had talked about Discogs [00:03:00] and I didn't know this, you could create an account and then record or document all of your, CDs or vinyl, and then it gives you the value of these things. So you made a good point, like if you were ever to had to replace these for whatever reason, because my entire vinyl collection was missing after we made a move.
[00:03:22] Jennifer: Oh my.
[00:03:22] Charles: Where the box that it was in was almost totally empty. But you know, I didn't know that. And that's kind of a cool thing. So we'll talk about Jen's Addiction. I got a bunch of questions here regarding your YouTube channel, but I thought, we wanna talk about some of your concerts, and thanks for filling out the form. That's always very helpful. your first concert was The Romantics in 1983.
[00:03:46] Jennifer: Yes. Which I think really it was 8- '83. I think it was '84, when I go back, um, and think about it, 'cause I'm trying to remember my age at the time. And I have this ticket stub, but it doesn't give me the year. And the thing about that show [00:04:00] was it was a local concert. So I grew up in Lafayette, Indiana. It was downtown at a theater called the Long Center.
[00:04:08] They were the only band playing, and they had been at Purdue University, which was right over the bridge from where I grew up at Elliot Hall of Music. They'd opened for The Kinks, but that was in January. So I think they were in between The Kinks and Adam Ant, and they came through. And the thing that made this concert special was it was really my first real concert experience as a teenage girl and as a fan.
[00:04:34] And my mom, for whatever reason, my best friend and I went, and she dropped us off at the door and said, "I'll see you when it's done." And that was crazy to me. I think about it now, so I probably would've been about 14. So I think it probably falls more into the '84. It could've been '83, but I don't have a year on that ticket, but I feel like I was 14.
[00:04:52] And, it was mind-blowing to me. I'd seen live music before. My parents would take me to different events. But this was [00:05:00] totally different, and it kinda changed me. At that point, I was hooked, and it wasn't even just I wanted to see live music, it was like I wanted to play music.
[00:05:08] I wanted to be part of whatever that was. And that's, that's where I wanted to go. So it was exciting. I was ... I still kinda get goosebumps thinking about it. It was a charged night, and maybe it was just through the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, but it was a ton of fun.
[00:05:23] Charles: Yeah, 'cause you're, you also said, you realized that, you could see a band live that you also hear them play their songs on the radio.
[00:05:31] Jennifer: Yeah. It was crazy to me. Like, 'cause you listen to it, it doesn't seem real. Like, it seems out... Like, it, it just didn't seem tangible, and then there, there they are. You see their pictures and their posters, and, you know, back in the '80s, I don't know if they do it today, I'm kinda out of the mix, but, um, I don't buy teenage fan magazines anymore.
[00:05:51] But when you did, I mean, it was like posters and, you know, like The Beatles kind of thing, right? And it just doesn't seem tangible or real, and they [00:06:00] seem otherworldly, I guess, at, at that point. And I thought, "Man, are, are you kidding me?" Like, you can be that close to something that you seem so disconnected from. It, it was like magic. I didn't understand it, but then it was like everything was clear.
[00:06:13] Charles: That's a neat way to look at it too. And when you're young like that, like at least for me, I didn't understand, like, band comes out with an album and then they have a tour and they play songs from the new album. And I, just like, "Oh, I wanna go see, you know, Pink Floyd or whatever."
[00:06:28] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:06:28] Charles: I didn't understand how that all worked.
[00:06:31] Jennifer: The thing I do remember about the show though, was that they were singing Talking In Your Sleep? And I remember I had just been hearing it. I would always listen to Casey Kasem, and my girlfriend and I would, when it came on in the morning, I had a portable cassette player, so one of those handheld ones that was about the size of a book, right?
[00:06:47] And I would find the longest playing tape I could find, maybe 45 minutes a side, and I would hit record and push it up against the speaker and just record the whole show. And then we would replay the songs all [00:07:00] week long. And I remember recording that one. I think it had been on the top 10 or top 40 that week, and thinking, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
[00:07:07] This is fun." And then th- there he was singing it like they were singing it to me. But I was really entranced watching them play their instruments. Like, that really got to me. Like, I'm not a singer. I'm probably like the Lucille Ball of singers. I'm not a singer, but I love music and I like playing instruments, and I had done those kinds of things, but I'd never seen a real electric guitar or a real bass guitar, and I thought, "Wow, this is..."
[00:07:32] My dad was a drummer. I watched him play, but I never saw those things really. I didn't feel like... And I, that connected. That was, I would just fixate on the guys playing their instruments and I was like, "Whoa. I wanna do that. That's what I... I wanna do that." It was so cool.
[00:07:46] Charles: So did you start a band or get into a band like in high school or anything?
[00:07:50] Jennifer: You know, in high school into college, I was a makeshift bass player. I got a bass when I was 16, electric bass, and I was like, "I'm gonna be like Bernard Edwards from Chic." That was my [00:08:00] guiding light. And, I had a girlfriend who was a drummer, and we tried to pick up like a singer and another guitar player, and I had friends that would help me.
[00:08:07] And I didn't know much. I knew just a few chords, but we could fudge through some songs. And, we called ourselves The Llamas. But I really didn't do much with it. It was hard, you know, at that time. But, some of my buddies played in bands and went on to do a few other things, and they were always very supportive, and they humored me by letting me sometimes play along.
[00:08:24] But I was a passionate bass player from afar usually. But I played other instruments in high school. But I really to this day, if I could be a, a bass player in a band, I think that would be the coolest thing in the world.
[00:08:36] Charles: Yeah, that's awesome. I only played the trumpet, you know, fifth and sixth grade or something but that was about it.
[00:08:42] Jennifer: That's pretty good. I did saxophone and mellophone and, like, all that, you know, all that stuff all the way up to about college, high school, college age, and then you have to decide, like, you can either do music or you do art or w- There's never enough time to do everything you wanna do.
[00:08:56] Charles: Right.
[00:08:56] Jennifer: And that's when you start, things start making the cut.
[00:08:59] Charles: Well, that's [00:09:00] interesting. So from there, I thought maybe we could talk about your best concerts, Jen, and you kinda have this, like, multifaceted, in this category.
[00:09:09] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:09:10] Charles: You have a couple of things that I thought were interesting. A lot of people, their best concerts usually have occurred when they were younger, you know? But you're saying, or you said that some recent examples of, uh, your best concerts were recent, recently occurring concerts, like The Damned you saw in Nashville, front row.
[00:09:34] Jennifer: Oh, yeah, front row. Smashed up against that rail. It was great.
[00:09:37] Charles: Yeah, I mean, I can see that. You know, you have the means with which to get better seats and do things.
[00:09:44] Jennifer: Well, th- this one we paid our dues. we got there early. I sat on the floor. Like, I claimed my turf, and we didn't ... We got there maybe an hour before the show or however early they let you in. It was at the, uh, Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville. The Bel-Airs [00:10:00] opened for them, so we sat through the whole opening act, waited for the change, and then The Damned came out and we didn't move till the show was over.
[00:10:07] No bathroom breaks, nothing. It was pretty hardcore. So that was ... We- I felt like we earned our spot there. But man, it was so fu- I would never... If you'd have told me at 15 I could see The Damned in, uh, you know, 16, 17, up, up close like that, no way. Like, they played in cities I couldn't get to. They played overseas.
[00:10:27] That was not a tangible ... It was like a dream scenario that would happen. And to think now that all the bands I love, I'm seeing. And you're right. You're right. Age does give you that ability to buy tickets and do things that you couldn't have done when you were really young. The clarity too, to like see them.
[00:10:46] Charles: Right.
[00:10:47] Jennifer: It just feels different. I mean, I had some great concert experiences, obviously from the time I started up, up till today. I mean, just a few concerts. The beauty of the internet, you can pull these shows up and listen to them 30 [00:11:00] years later. That moved me. Like seeing The Cure on the Disintegration Tour.
[00:11:04] I'm a Rush fan. I still think about listening to Neil play drum solos. They give me goosebumps. I get kind of emotional. But there's just something so great about going to a show with my husband and we share that together, and it's like discovering music all over again, but I don't know, it just feels better. I don't know. I love it.
[00:11:23] Charles: Yeah, I have similar experiences with my wife. We go see bands all the time, and, we go to this place called The Salt Shed in Chicago.
[00:11:31] Jennifer: Oh yeah. Yes.
[00:11:32] Charles: And, if you get there early... I mean, they have seats you can buy. And they're rather expensive compared to the general admission. But yeah, if you get there early, I mean, you're at the barrier basically. Cause you're right. I mean, that was, like, so hard for whatever reason when you're younger. It was just more difficult. You're with your friends, and you have to like, corral them to come with you.
[00:11:53] Jennifer: For the money. Who had money, and you look at the, the concert ticket stubs, and they'll say $15, $20, $10, [00:12:00] $7, and you think, "Well, what do you mean nobody had any money?" But that was a lot if you were in high school, or your parents couldn't always just...
[00:12:07] I mean, I was lucky. I was an only child. I think I had a different set of circumstances than my friends with brothers and sisters and, you know, I didn't have to share anything. So I think I was super lucky that way. We were close to Chicago, but I couldn't always go there. Bands that I wanted to see didn't come to Indianapolis.
[00:12:26] Like, that, for, it was like their kryptonite. They would go to every state around us, but they would never come to- And that would've been closer. That would've been way easier for me to do. So it was, it was frustrating
[00:12:39] Charles: Yeah, there is something about that, like being older and seeing these bands, whether they're older bands or new bands. But you also mentioned this guy, he's from Skinny Puppy, right?
[00:12:49] Jennifer: Yeah. Ogre the singer of Skinny Puppy, and I, oh my God, when I ... And I grew up, of course, like I said, New Wave, punk, and then when industrial music came in, I was a [00:13:00] huge Skinny Puppy fan. That, like, revolutionized my brain. Like, I still love, love, love them. So I think it was probably 10, 15 years ago now, whatever it was, he was at a monster convention, and I thought, "Oh my God, I'm, I'm gonna lose my mind."
[00:13:15] Again, you're older. Like, I, there was no way if I'd have seen him playing in Chicago or any of those places, like, that was ... their stage shows are extreme and intense, and the crowd is intense, and, and I don't think he was in a good place back then. He was probably doing drugs and things that he'd mentioned.
[00:13:30] We talked at this monster show for, it felt like days, but it was probably, it was probably an hour and a half or more. We just, just, he had free time and we just kept chatting. And I said, "Man," you know, I just, about his shows and, and I wish I'd seen them then and how cool that would've been. And he's like, he's like, "I wish I'd have, I'd have been more present, too."
[00:13:49] He kinda made that comment. Like, you know, he doesn't remember some of those shows. And he, and then he said to me, "I'm so grateful I met you today because it's way better now. We're, we're [00:14:00] much more in a better place. This is a, a better conversation and a better way to be kind of thing." And I thought, " You're so right." Not just because I thought he was the greatest, but I did think it was true.
[00:14:11] Charles: I mean, he's, yeah, he's being honest, right? He was
[00:14:14] Jennifer: Right.
[00:14:14] Charles: Meeting him back then would've been, yeah, a disaster sort of.
[00:14:18] Jennifer: I think it probably would've been heartbreaking, you know, where you just kinda wave or see somebody and they just flutter on and, and don't give you a second glance, but he was very, yeah, it was very thoughtful. We talked about music. He told me about horses. Like wh- I did never in a million years thought those were the kind of conversations.
[00:14:34] And I like that. I think the biggest thing when you meet, I like meeting people that I, that do great things, but I'm a terrible, like, I, I just kinda get blank. Like, I don't feel, you know, it's kind of an odd situation, but I would rather talk how you and I are talking. I'd rather have those conversations, like real, like, you know, how are you? How did you get to this place? What did you think about this? Like, but that time I got to have it, and [00:15:00] that was, again, that's like a 17-year-old's dream right there. He took a picture with me, and it does look like we, we were going to the prom. We were, like, standing, like, if I had a corsage on my wrist, it would've been perfect.
[00:15:10] Charles: Cool. So what was he doing there? In what capacity?
[00:15:13] Jennifer: He had done that rock opera, I'm trying to think now, which, was it Repo Man? So he was sort of there in that capacity, I think, kinda talking about solo projects, his sort of monster horror connection, and of course a lot of horror fans I think were Skinny Puppy fans, so it kind of made sense. But, I was like, "Wow, never. Never." Blew my mind.
[00:15:35] Charles: That's, a, great story. I love it.
[00:15:37] Jennifer: Yeah, my son was with me too, and he was just like, "Oh my God, Mom, could you stop smiling?"
[00:15:42] Charles: Oh, god. Yeah. That's great. But then also part of your best concert is with your sons, taking them to their first concert.
[00:15:53] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:15:53] Charles: That's really cool too. It's important and it requires some thought probably.
[00:15:59] Jennifer: [00:16:00] Yeah.
[00:16:00] Charles: As to how you're gonna do this, where you're gonna go, who you're gonna see.
[00:16:04] Jennifer: Well, and as it worked out, so my oldest son, he's currently, he's 27 now. So in 2013, his first show, um, and he would've been about 15 years old, we went to Indianapolis and we saw Peter Murphy, and that was the 35 Years of Bauhaus show.
[00:16:22] Charles: Oh, ok.
[00:16:23] Jennifer: And I don't know if, if anybody who's listening or yourself are familiar, Old National Center in Indianapolis has a larger venue space, and they have these like, uh, kind of a downsized space and a downsized space, and it w- used to be a, I don't know, probably like a Masonic lodge or something at some point.
[00:16:39] So it has a lot of weird rooms. But I think he was in a large space, and then it just became smaller and smaller. So the size of that room, again, to see Peter Murphy in a room that I could've, I just could've sat at the table and touched him, like, uh, blew my mind. And he was up to going. My cousin had tickets, they had a spare set, and they're like, "Do [00:17:00] you guys wanna go?"
[00:17:00] And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, we do." We do. He enjoyed it, and I think it kinda changed him a little. He really likes to go out and do things and see things and experience things, and I think that really kinda blew his mind a little, that volume and that intensity. And when he was little, I, uh, both of my boys, I played music all the time, and we'd just dance around like crazy people, and hearing songs that were familiar to him, and he was like, "Wow, this is super." I think he felt a little maybe like what I felt like with The Romantics, but his mom was with him. I don't know.
[00:17:32] Charles: Yeah. My mom, she took me to my first concert, and she took me to a bunch of concerts with my friends and stuff, and till we were, like, old enough to drive. But man, yeah, she probably took me to, I don't know, maybe 10 different shows.
[00:17:45] Jennifer: Sure.
[00:17:45] Charles: Over the years. And then your other son saw, Depeche Mode, right?
[00:17:49] Jennifer: Yeah, and that was cool, be- that was the Spirit tour. We saw them at, um, I'm tr- the Hollywood Casino. Did that used to be Tinley Park? I'm not sure.
[00:17:58] Charles: Oh, yeah, the [00:18:00] Tweeter Center. I mean, it's had so many names I can't even remember them all. Yeah, I was just there this summer. Credit One Amphitheatre or something maybe it's called now. Something like that.
[00:18:09] Jennifer: Well, that was the 2017, so that was the last Depeche Mode show with Andy. And man, a- again, he was 15. I don't know what it is with this magic 14, 15-year-old age, but that was his favorite band, and one of my favorite bands has always been Depeche Mode. So that, that was really cool, and we were both sort of singing, and he was just sort of kind of blown away with the intensity of it.
[00:18:31] And then fast-forward to just a couple years ago, we took him to Nashville to see them for the Memento Mori Tour, and I don't think he could've stopped smiling for days. So it's just, but he loves music. He is always listening to music, and we share a lot of the same favorite bands. So he's an '80s, an '80s fan for a modern kid, which I love. Both the boys, share a ton of music in common.
[00:18:55] Charles: Well, your most disappointing was Jane's Addiction, which I, you know, I love the name of your [00:19:00] YouTube channel.
[00:19:01] Jennifer: Yeah, thank you.
[00:19:03] Charles: It's, awesome. It's so great.
[00:19:05] Jennifer: It's tongue, tongue in cheek, for sure.
[00:19:07] Charles: But yeah, I had a couple guys on here actually who were at that show. They were photographing it and writing about it, reporting on it. And, uh, they had been on previously, and then, I was literally interviewing somebody else, and they sent me this email like, "We were at that show." You know, it was, it was crazy. Yeah, that was, pretty bad.
[00:19:28] Jennifer: It was b- and it was so sad. You know, I remember when they first, I remember seeing them at Lollapalooza. I remember seeing them, I think it was at the Metro, you know, when they were just first starting. And I know they didn't always have the best relationship as a band, but to get back together and be so close to being at the end.
[00:19:48] I mean, there were only a few shows left. And to have Love and Rockets with them, which was such a huge, that was a huge thing for me, to see Love and Rockets. And my husband hadn't seen either, and I was just like, "This is gonna [00:20:00] be great, and I can't believe they're in Indiana, and I, it's only gonna take me an hour to get there." And, it was heartbreaking. And I just thought, "Man, you can't get your stuff together to just...
[00:20:09] Charles: Yeah.
[00:20:10] Jennifer: You're so close. Like, that makes no sense." I was kinda heartbroken. I was heartbroken I missed the show. I was so amped up for that show. And it's funny to think of it as my most disappointing show, because I'm sure, like I think I might have mentioned, there are always shows where people don't perform...
[00:20:25] Charles: Yeah.
[00:20:25] Jennifer: Their best level. But at least you're seeing them. They're out there. I don't know if they phone it in, but they're still there. But to not get past yourself long enough, you're in such a fortunate position, and you can't just keep going for three or four more shows? That was, ugh.
[00:20:43] Charles: Yeah. No, I know they were gonna play Chicago either before or after Indianapolis, and, that sealed my decision. Like I was telling you, it was on a Tuesday night, and I'm like, "Eh, I don't know." But couldn't go, cause of that.
[00:20:55] Jennifer: And I remember getting on Instagram, I think I was on Love and Rocket's page, and I kept sending messages, [00:21:00] as many people did, that just said, "Just keep going. Just keep going." Just keep going. I'll show up anywhere, just keep going.
[00:21:07] Charles: Yeah. And I've heard people say, who I've interviewed, for the most part, the crowd will cut you some slack. You know, 'cause I was reading things where Perry Farrell's voice w- wasn't sounding good.
[00:21:19] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Charles: I mean, he's, uh, what? I don't know, 65 years old at that time or something.
[00:21:24] Jennifer: Who am I to judge?
[00:21:25] Charles: Yeah, and I mean, his voice is crazy, you know, in the height of their fame. Yeah, who could reproduce that decades later? Uh, that would, that'd be a tall order. But, you know, I think people would cut him some slack, given, what he's tasked to do,
[00:21:42] Jennifer: Right?
[00:21:42] Charles: But, I don't know. Who knows what'll happen in the future?
[00:21:44] Jennifer: Probably nothing.
[00:21:45] Charles: Nothing. Yeah, unfortunately.
[00:21:47] Jennifer: Love and Rockets can go on their own, that would be great.
[00:21:51] Charles: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Jennifer: There's a reunion tour. A Bauhaus reunion would be, wow. I mean, I know it's been however long ago since they did that, but [00:22:00] man, that would be something. I would love to see that. Talk about a voice that's changed but sounds amazing is Peter Murphy.
[00:22:06] Charles: Yeah, he's got a cool voice. I love his voice.
[00:22:08] Jennifer: His last new album was Silver Shade. Some of those songs were just beautiful. The power in his voice was amazing. Yeah, I'd, on a heart- heartbeat I would, I'd be there.
[00:22:18] Charles: And, for your most surprising, Jen, you have this Grateful Dead show you went to in Deer Creek that's 1995.
[00:22:25] Jennifer: That's right, July 2nd.
[00:22:27] Charles: Yeah, and the, fans kinda took over the security detail sorta, right?
[00:22:32] Jennifer: Yeah. You know, that could also be filed in my most disappointing show really. And really not even most disappointing show, because they continued to play to my surprise. But everything leading up to that, and we did see them at Jerry's final show at Soldier Field. And, you know, kinda did the Deadhead thing several summers, and started with friends.
[00:22:51] We would go and, and watch them when we could, and that particular summer we were hitting every show we could. But to think we had, you know, in your own backyard and they were [00:23:00] gonna be there and everything was great. But you could tell over the course of that year, going into maybe even the previous year, the vibe from the fans was changing.
[00:23:10] You know, obviously I wasn't of the, the age to appreciate them live when they were a new band or in the '70s. And I'm sure some of those folks would look at us in our early 20s then and be like, "Yeah, what do you know?" But I feel like a lot of us, we were there for the music, and it was a party, but it was fun.
[00:23:31] I mean, people were nice to each other. But you could show up at Deer Creek and it, it was a party in the parking lot. And I mean, shoot, I remember braiding people's hair for money or for whatever. Like, I did all that stuff. We got what they call Miracled. You know, you put your finger in the air and you wait for someone to hand you a ticket, and you can get into the show.
[00:23:51] And we got bailed out that summer. We had tickets, and just as we're going in the gate, one of them was a counterfeit ticket. And so who I [00:24:00] was with couldn't get in, and he got, somebody shook his hand over the gate and said, "It's so good to see you. I haven't seen you in forever," and you know, "buddy," and passed him a ticket stub so he could get into the show.
[00:24:10] And just all these great things, but at the same time there was a rumbling. People that I think weren't chasing the music, they were chasing drugs or something. They were, it was escapism that just wasn't a healthy one.
[00:24:23] Charles: Yeah. Yeah, the parking lot turned into, 'cause a lot of my friends are Deadheads. I've seen them a bunch of times from over the years. And, yeah, you're right, the vibe in the parking lot. The parking lot was, of course, of a Dead show.
[00:24:38] Jennifer: Right.
[00:24:39] Charles: And the vibe changed, got a little, you know, aggressive.
[00:24:43] Jennifer: There was a lot more feeling of like, "I deserve to be there." And there was, I think, this underlying feeling that I got even as it was happening that the band wouldn't care. That, that's what the band was about, right? Like, they're, they wouldn't care. And I th- I thought nothing could have been further from the truth.
[00:24:59] [00:25:00] And when you get into the parking lot early in the morning, as you may remember, sometimes, uh, at Deer Creek, you could walk around or drive around to the back of the lot depending on where you were, but that lot would be jam-packed. At that point, there were more farms around than, than there were housing additions, which today there's housing additions around Deer Creek.
[00:25:17] But people were camping and walking, and a community that had not embraced the Grateful Dead shows all of a sudden were, I think, counting on them for monetary, you know, to kind of boost the economy. And it was just like people just kept coming and coming and coming. You could tell when you could almost hear them doing the sound checks. I think people started, there was like this buzz. Like, people wanted to see and people wanted to get in. And I don't know what else was happening. I've heard rumors that there were death threats to Jerry or things that had happened prior to the show, and I don't know anything about that.
[00:25:49] I know is there was a very odd energy. And when we got in, everything seemed fine, and we were ... I think if you were staring at the taper section, I believe I was to the left, [00:26:00] kind of up center from the taper section. And they went into Desolation Row. And about two minutes into the song, you hear this roar.
[00:26:10] And I'm thinking, "That's not a roar of people excited to hear the song," 'cause we've already cheered for the song, right? People were pointing and, like, all this stuff was happening. And when I turned around, I could see people at the gate. Like, there's a wooden fence all along the back at the top of the lawn, and they're shaking it and shaking it and shaking it.
[00:26:26] And I think you could see boards kicking through. And then people started cheering. And I thought the band would've stopped and said, "Knock it off." I feel like there were people in the crowd who were saying, "Don't do this," like, "This isn't cool." But then there were also people that were like, "Yeah," like, "Go for it," like, "Everybody should listen to music for free, and it's all good."
[00:26:45] It was kind of disorienting. I'm sure I had a few beers and whatever. I think most pe- I'm not gonna ever say I was a saint. But that was a very odd situation. And the band kept playing. And I thought, "Why are you playing?" I really kinda thought [00:27:00] they would stop.
[00:27:00] Charles: Yeah.
[00:27:01] Jennifer: But maybe they were just trying to keep the peace, and then there were these rumblings here and there of people who could probably see through the crowd or see what was going on that, you know, s- what was happening on the other side of the fence. And then they went into playing, I think was Tennessee Jed was next, and I can't remember what they closed out that set with. And I thought, "Oh my God, that's it. They're gonna kick us out of here, and I don't wanna be in that parking lot. Like, I don't wanna be there." But they came back out and played an- another whole set, and maybe that's because they didn't want 20,000 people or whatever merging out...
[00:27:31] Charles: Yeah.
[00:27:31] Jennifer: In that kind of unrest. But it shocked me. But what didn't shock me was when they canceled the next show. I thought that made sense. But it was sad, because at that point you really knew they're never gonna do this again, at least not here. They'll never come here again. And sure enough, you know, we kinda went on. We know what happened the end of the summer. I was mad. That was just not, that wasn't at all anything that I ever thought those shows would be.
[00:27:56] Charles: Yeah, you're right. I mean, it did change the vibe definitely [00:28:00] changed.
[00:28:00] Jennifer: I'd never been scared at a concert before. And people wanna blame the police, and I don't, and again, I don't know that whole dynamic, but you only have so many people. And I'm pretty sure that the, the security guards that the venue supplies tapped out. They were like, "We want no part of this." Back up. We're not doing it."
[00:28:18] Charles: Oh, God, yeah. what are you gonna do?
[00:28:20] Jennifer: And everybody wants to try to lay blame in 25 different places, but there is no way to keep that many people safe.
[00:28:27] Charles: No.
[00:28:28] Jennifer: And the band the band safe, and that was nuts. But I am still surprised they, they kept playing, but I guess it makes sense. I don't know. Maybe somebody knows more.
[00:28:36] Charles: Yeah, it's like, who knows what would've happened. You're right, if they stopped, maybe been a bigger problem, you know?
[00:28:42] Jennifer: I just figured if Bobby or Jerry would've been like, you know, they could've kept playing, but been like, "Dude, this isn't cool."
[00:28:47] Charles: Yeah.
[00:28:48] Jennifer: You know, stop them from coming in. That's not right, or whatever, however they'd have said it. I think a lot of people would've been like, "Okay, like, whatever Bobby says, we'll do it," you know?
[00:28:57] Charles: Well, yeah, that would've been quite a [00:29:00] surprise, I guess, and disappointing.
[00:29:02] Jennifer: At the same year they had... Was that the same year as the second Woodstock? No, no, no, no. Was that later? When w- what year was that?
[00:29:09] Charles: Uh, God, you know, I just watched a special on that on Netflix, I think it was, and I had no idea what was going on there.
[00:29:19] Jennifer: How terrible. and I feel like that was sort of like this genesis of weirdness that happened in those types of like peace and love themed events, right? So to speak, and everything just went wrong.
[00:29:31] Charles: That was a complete and utter disaster from top to bottom.
[00:29:37] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:29:38] Charles: Unbelievable. I had no idea until I watched a documentary. I, I think I saw it, I don't know, last year or something, but it was, oh my God. That was very serious.
[00:29:48] Jennifer: Yeah, that was awful, and I kind of feel like I had that same feeling thinking about later, even just kind of recanting this situation in my mind, and I thought, "What else was going on?" You know? I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that, [00:30:00] that was a terrible event, too." A lot of people that probably showed up...
[00:30:03] Charles: Yeah.
[00:30:04] Jennifer: For the same reasons that they came to a Dead show, and then all the nefarious reasons that they show up. And then it's just a nightmare.
[00:30:15] Hi, this is Charles Zona, and we're glad you are enjoying this episode of Seeing Them Live. If you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please fill out the form on our website at seeingthemlive.com. Also, if you like the show, please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:30:35] And now, back to the show.
[00:30:41] Charles: Well, Jen, we covered your concerts, more or less. I mean, you have, some Ephemera here. You've got this Power Station shirt, which when I was looking into Power Station ' cause you wrote that you saw them without Robert Palmer, and I'm like, " Oh, okay." But he never toured with them, right?
[00:30:57] Jennifer: No, and I, you know, from what I understand, and I'm no [00:31:00] expert, but I thought the deal was they were gonna make that album, they were inviting singers to come, and it was gonna be like Robert'll do a song, and you know, whoever el- You know, it was ... But when he showed up, they clicked, and everything. I mean, come on, it's Robert Palmer.
[00:31:15] Like, everything sounded perfect. It gelled, and then that became the Power Station. And so when he didn't tour, it didn't surprise me, 'cause I think he was finishing up his album, and I ended up seeing him on that addicted to Love tour. If you're familiar with, you remember the Holiday Star Theater around Merrillville, indiana?
[00:31:33] That's, so that's where I saw him at for that. And so I kinda felt like that made up for it a little bit. But they had Michael Des Barres then sing for them. And of course Tony Thompson, as a Chic fan, I was like, "Oh my, hello." Like, you know, I couldn't... And I'd seen him with, uh, Duran Duran when Duran Duran came back out for the Notorious tour, and they didn't have Roger and Andy anymore.
[00:31:55] So Tony stepped in, and I was just thrilled to see him again. So I was like, [00:32:00] okay, when a girlfriend called me, and she's like, "I have, I have this ticket, and can you come?" Actually, the funny thing was, as a teenager, I was home alone that day, and I, there was a knock on my front door, and I looked out the window, and it was a guy I didn't know.
[00:32:12] And I thought, "I'm not answering the door. I have no idea who that is." And he scribbled on a piece of paper my girlfriend's name and his phone number, and said, "She wants you to go to this show. Please call her." It was her brother, and he was going to Purdue. So I called back, and I was like, "Oh my God, yes.
[00:32:26] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." You know? I think I called my mom at work, like squealing into the phone like, "I have to go, I have to go." So we went to Cincinnati to see them. Did the whole, like, teenage, uh, stalker th- You know, like, "Where's their hotel room?" Like, "Where are they staying?"
[00:32:43] And we did end up seeing them. We did end up seeing them coming in out of the hotel. I got John's autograph. I got Andy's. Shoot, there was a senator, I can't remember his name now. He came out, and he's like, "What are all you girls out here for?" And we're like, "Power Station," you know? And he's like, "I'm a senator. Don't you want my autograph?" And we're like, "Okay. Sure, why [00:33:00] not?"
[00:33:00] So we get all the stuff. The concert's great, by the way. You know, just absolutely fantastic. And the next day we go to take our little Brownie cameras to get our pictures developed at a 24-hour photo place. I think it was called B Photo in Cincinnati. And when we go back in, the guy who was working there goes, So you guys like Power Station?"
[00:33:20] And we're like, "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah." And he goes, Would you like some pictures from John's camera?" Or something like that. And we're like, "What?" And he hands us a stack of photos he'd made extra copies of. So the band had their own personal photographs on the plane, in the hotel, and everything else, and he gave us pictures from John Taylor's camera, or And- somebody's camera.
[00:33:40] Charles: Oh my God. That's crazy.
[00:33:43] Jennifer: I know. It is crazy. It's super crazy. So yeah, I still have my T-shirt, which I still wear and I love, and my other T-shirt's just obliterated, but I have these pictures. And I was like, "Well, at least I'm a responsible fan," right? So, mean, they're crazy. I can't even tell you. [00:34:00] Like, I still look at them to this day and think, "What in the world?" Like, that is insane. It is insane.
[00:34:06] Charles: Some random guy at a photo shop handing out pictures. Oh, god
[00:34:11] Jennifer: Yeah. He was probably in his 20s. He probably saw all the stupid girls running around like, "Oh my God." And then trying to be cool. He's like, "Yeah, would you guys like some pictures?" And we're like, " Okay." I mean, like, really? Like, I didn't know what to think. And so, yeah, we ran out of that photo place, like, as fast, like we were waiting for someone to tell us we couldn't have them, I think, and we just, like, run back to the car, and we're sitting in the back seat when our parents are driving, and we're like, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."
[00:34:37] Charles: Wow. That, that's a really crazy story.
[00:34:40] Jennifer: Isn't that weird? I, yeah, it is. I don't think people believe me till I show them the pictures. I still try to be a responsible fan, you know. But i'm like, "I'm telling you, I got pictures." Like, you would know. But it, nothing too bad, but it just, one of those things would never happen. Well, number one, I guess nobody takes pictures like that anymore.
[00:34:58] Charles: Drop 'em off to some [00:35:00] 20-year-old guy.
[00:35:02] Walgreens or whatever.
[00:35:03] Jennifer: I still wait for them to take my phone when I'm taking photos at a concert. I try not to now. I try to be a good fan and not, But I think initially I was so blown away because the, you know, photo capturing, like, oh, I woulda killed to have taken these photos in 19, you know, 89 or whatever. It just blows my mind. I can't believe it's a possibility to do that.
[00:35:27] Charles: Yeah, 'cause you'd get in big trouble. You might get thrown out of the show. I remember one time I snuck in... I was taking a black and white photography class, and I snuck in this old camera, it was ancient, that I was using for the class. And you use a super fast film speed, like 3200. And I snuck the body in, and my friend snuck in the lens...
[00:35:50] Jennifer: Oh, wow.
[00:35:51] Charles: To David Bowie's Tin Machine show at the Aragon Ballroom. And I took, pictures, and they're grainy, but they looked [00:36:00] cool.
[00:36:00] Jennifer: I bet they do.
[00:36:00] Charles: And of course I lost them over the years.
[00:36:02] Jennifer: Oh, no.
[00:36:04] Charles: Yeah, I can't, can't find them. But yeah, you ran a risk. If they found you doing that, or taping, you know?
[00:36:10] Jennifer: Sure. That's what was great about the Dead. It still blew my mind that they, they were like, Yeah. tape the shows. Do it." But yeah, That was my biggest fear. Like, well, I could try to sneak something in, but what if they ... You know, I don't want someone to break my camera or take my stuff and never give it back. I mean, there's no way they would've ever gave you that stuff back.
[00:36:28] Charles: Yeah. No.
[00:36:29] Jennifer: That's not the stories I ever heard from people. They were " Like, Yeah, no."
[00:36:33] Charles: It would've been gone for sure.
[00:36:35] Jennifer: Yep.
[00:36:35] Charles: Jen, so you had a couple more things here, like, you have a set of drumsticks from, from Zach Alford.
[00:36:41] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:36:42] Charles: Now how did you come to get those?
[00:36:44] Jennifer: So good. See? Things that happen in your 50s, like things that never happened. That was so fun. And I... So after the shows, I find myself behaving probably like a 14-year-old girl. So I'll, like, you know, I'm, I'm yelling for set lists. I'm yelling for drumsticks. I'm yelling for whatever. I love getting things [00:37:00] like that.
[00:37:00] We went, um, I think it's been... oh gosh, two years this October. So we had been at a concert to see Jesus and Mary Chain and the Psychedelic Furs, and that's where we were smashed up against the stage. And I have to say, in the future, in that venue, I would never be that close again. That was terribly hard on my neck.
[00:37:17] But after the, the show, I'm, like, yelling and yelling and yelling. And he's coming out and he tosses one out really far and he goes like he's just gonna, like, hurl it out there, you know, like 50 yards, you know, goalpost throw, and then he kneels down and hands it straight to me. And I was like, "Oh, sweet."
[00:37:32] You know? Like, that would never happen. That's awesome. So you know, again, smiling, probably s- you know, nobody can see me on the r- you know, on the air, but I am smiling from ear to ear, and that's exactly how I was for probably three or four days. And almost a year to the day, we go back to see them again.
[00:37:46] I'm at Newport, Kentucky. They're playing with gary Numan, another, like, anybody out there, catch Gary Numan. Amazing.
[00:37:53] Charles: Yeah.
[00:37:54] Jennifer: And after the show, he's chucking, you know, drumsticks out, and I'm, like, screaming, "Zach, Zach, Zach," [00:38:00] and he lobs one to me and I caught it, so I have two drumsticks.
[00:38:03] Charles: Oh my God.
[00:38:05] Jennifer: So in Nashville, Indiana, there's a small venue called the Brown County Amphitheatre, and it's a, it's a small venue, maybe holds a couple thousand people in it. I tell everybody, "If you can go there, go. It's a great place to see a concert. There's not a bad seat." Everybody who runs security there is probably my age bracket.
[00:38:24] Like, everybody's really nice. Like, it's just the most mellow situation. But when we saw them, they played with Squeeze, and after the show, I'm walking up the aisle and there's Zach sitting in the kinda booth where they do all the mixing and all that stuff. And I stopped and turned around, 'cause watching him play is, oh my God, it's like cardio for your eyes.
[00:38:43] Like, he's just going, going, going, right? 100 miles an hour. It's amazing, and he's so good. His drumming is so tight. It's just perfect. And I stopped and I said, "You know what? I love The Furs, but you were the best part of this concert. Like, I, you were amazing. I really enjoyed watching you play." And he said, "Thanks," and [00:39:00] all that, and went about our business.
[00:39:01] And so then that next year when I got that, that drumstick, my husband's like, "Well, maybe he remembered us. Maybe he remembered you from saying..." I'm, I don't know, but he really is a joy to watch, and we love The Furs. The first concert my husband and I ever went to together was a Psychedelic Furs show, and I really love watching him play. That really is a big joy of watching that concert, is watching him play. I love it.
[00:39:24] Charles: Yeah, it's funny you mention those shows. I was at all of those shows on that tour, just in Chicago. ' Cause yeah, my wife is a huge, huge Psychedelic Furs fan. We've seen them a bunch of times. Yeah, this guy I used to DJ with, he turned me on to them.
[00:39:43] So I had seen them a couple times with him, so when I met my wife, you know, we're out on, like, one of our first dates, I could talk about The Psychedelic Furs.
[00:39:52] Jennifer: Yeah. You were in.
[00:39:54] Charles: it was definitely a bonus for me.
[00:39:56] Jennifer: It works.
[00:39:57] Charles: Yeah, it worked.
[00:39:58] Jennifer: They're, they're good. [00:40:00] I mean, they real- I mean, talk about, again, a band, see even today, like, I don't know. I mean, I just can't imagine seeing some of these bands in stadiums where you can't see them, you know? Like, it's just, that just, I don't know. It's crazy to think about it.
[00:40:15] I like that up close and personal. It's, like, such a gift to see performers perform. Like, Howard Jones played at this venue in Brown County and, I mean, my God, just what a showman. Like, it w- you could just really see everything he was doing, and as a person that likes to watch people play, it's just, it's nuts to me to ... I don't know. It's, it's like magic to watch him play. He really was like a, a total magician. I'm trying to think here. Um, Nick Beggs of course played bass with him on that tour, and when they do Too Shy, and Nick gets to play that bass solo, oh, my God. Like, that highlighted the show. I mean, Howard was great, but wow. Just wow. Like, blew my mind
[00:40:57] Charles: Yeah. Now, my wife always says [00:41:00] how fortunate she is to still be able to go see a band she liked in high school.
[00:41:05] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:41:05] Charles: And they're still playing.
[00:41:07] Jennifer: It is, it's crazy good. And I, I know some people don't like to think of their idols or bands playing in smaller venues. I think it's just even more special. Like, I'd love to see The Rolling Stones just do a stripped down, like only 100 people can get in the door.
[00:41:22] Charles: Yeah.
[00:41:22] Jennifer: How amazing would that be to see them that way? That would be great.
[00:41:26] Charles: Yeah. And they'd probably love it too.
[00:41:28] Jennifer: Yeah, you'd think. I mean, you think they would.
[00:41:30] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jen, should we talk about your YouTube channel, Jen's Addiction?
[00:41:36] Yeah, let's, do it. So you know, I was just kinda getting some stats, if you will. You have around 178 videos.
[00:41:46] Jennifer: Is that right?
[00:41:47] Charles: Maybe more now. I don't know. and, like over 3,000 subscribers.
[00:41:53] Jennifer: I do, Yes. Thank you everybody. If anybody's listening, thank you.
[00:41:56] Charles: Yeah, and, you've been at this not [00:42:00] terribly long, right?
[00:42:00] Jennifer: Not at all. No, not at all.
[00:42:01] Charles: Little over a year and a half maybe or something like that?
[00:42:04] Jennifer: Yeah, and two years end of February, beginning of March will be my two years.
[00:42:07] Charles: Yeah, but like, I was saying earlier, again, you talk about music, comic books, art, classic horror stuff. But, I mean, a lot of it does revolve around, like, vinyl and, music or CDs and stuff. So, listening to your episodes, I just had, like, all these, these questions pop into my mind 'cause you, you start talking about this stuff and it's really interesting. One, your command of the bands and the music and who's playing on what and, just your knowledge is so deep. It's like, oh my God. You learn so much from that.
[00:42:42] But, you had this one episode where, you're talking about, vinyl and CDs and downloads and I'd mentioned, that's a dilemma I have. You know? It's like, God, I wanna buy that album, and I'd like to listen to it on an airplane and at the beach and in my car, but I love buying vinyl.
[00:42:58] Jennifer: Yes.
[00:42:58] Charles: So, I don't know. Do [00:43:00] you have, like, a demarcation of one, you buy one over the other or some kinda process you think about or not really?
[00:43:07] Jennifer: We definitely stream. I mean, when we're, we're traveling, it's in the car. In cars these days, you know, I don't have a CD player in my car. I can't... You know, newer cars don't even give you that option, so you're kind of forced to stream in a lot of cases. So we do use streaming. I do use CDs. I have a five-disc CD changer, and if I'm in the midst of a project or something I can't pull myself away from, it's nice to know that the music'll just keep going.
[00:43:32] You know, I don't have to start and stop. I don't wanna get dishwater on my record when I'm flipping it over 'cause I'm doing the dishes. But that might be about it, and I had worked in record stores when CDs were coming in and vinyl was phasing out. I remember having, like, a bin, a bin and a half of CDs, and you still were selling records.
[00:43:52] And then that bin got a little bigger, and that bin got a little bigger. And I remember doing an order or something one time, calling a distributor for a record, [00:44:00] and they were like, "Why do you want this record?" And I was like, "Well, we want it for the store. I'm trying to, like, customer wants it," or something.
[00:44:06] And they were just like, "Are, are they a DJ? Are you a DJ? Are you radio?" It's like they just, they kinda stopped mass sending these things out. I thought it was really weird. So you were forced, you were kinda forced. And if you were on a low budget, right, it was 6.99 for a CD with 24 songs, 'cause they give you extras, or you could buy the same album for 12.99.
[00:44:27] I mean, most people were, as today, you're economically driven. I think some people buy CDs. But to me, the beauty of vinyl, and what I keep trying to explain to people, because I get that pushback of, Well, CDs are clearer. I don't get the pops and the cracks. I don't get all these things on, on my CDs.
[00:44:46] It's, it's a purity of experience." My argument is CDs clean up a lot of things, but they also clean up the nuance. Like sometimes when you have headphones on or whatever, or the sound is up, you can really hear someone's fingers on the [00:45:00] strings, or you could hear somebody coughing in the background, or things that happen that make you feel like you're in the room.
[00:45:05] And I never feel... I mean, nothing against CDs. People have their preference, but there's something not as connectable, or if that's even a word, to me with CDs. I guess I'm emotionally attached to things. I'm very nostalgic, for sure, but part of music is emotion, but it's the whole package.
[00:45:24] I'm not just collecting a record. I'm collecting art. When you put that vinyl sleeve up on your wall, like you're now playing, wherever you pop it up, and you just look at it, or you're filtering through your collection, some of these are just beautiful. I mean, to see these photos of Julie London, they're gorgeous.
[00:45:41] The James Bond, McGinnis covers that are on these records blows my mind. Like, they're just pieces of art, and I cannot separate myself from that. CDs don't offer me that at all. And I understand people want some of those other clarities or the convenience, but records to me are that kinda warm [00:46:00] hug or the whatever that is.
[00:46:01] Like, I have a real emotional connection to vinyl, for sure. And you might have mentioned the CD haul I had where we bought a collection and it had 3,000 CDs in it, and I have plenty of CDs to start with, by all means. But it was interesting to go through them, and all of a sudden I realized if this had been 3,000 records, my response would've been a heck of a lot different. And so my excitement level, it was there, it was cool. I could appreciate some of the stuff, but by no means did I feel that rush that I would get if I'd have found the same things on vinyl.
[00:46:33] Charles: Yeah, 'cause you went through on that one, there was a couple episodes, like most expensive out of the 3,000.
[00:46:39] Jennifer: And the thing about the most expensive, what I, my point was all I ever hear from everybody is, "Vinyl's too expensive. Vinyl's too expensive. Vinyl's too expensive." Sure, if you buy something that is kind of a grail item, anything you want can be too expensive. There are $2 records out there. I do a, a dollar bin diary kinda thing on my channel [00:47:00] where I kinda show people things I find are secret gems for me.
[00:47:03] It doesn't mean everybody will find those, but you can. And you can find $2 CDs. But my, point to that episode was, and Discogs varies. And everyone wants to tell me in the comments, "Well, Jen, you know, like, the most expensive one was probably 'cause it was mint," or, "It'd never been opened," or, "Somebody signed it." And I'm like, that's fine, but when you're talking about a box set that retailed for 45 or $50 that now someone, somebody has paid $768 for, that's not cheap. That's more expensive than some of my vinyl records by a long shot. So that was my argument. I was just, I think I'm trying to make the point that anything is expensive or inexpensive. Somebody will pay it, it will happen. And if you don't watch it, the medium that you're currently loving can get swept up in that chaos and become expensive overnight. CD collectors are very lucky right now, and they need to hold that tight and quit complaining. Guard that. If you love that, guard it, [00:48:00] because it, it will go away, I'm afraid.
[00:48:02] Charles: Yeah, and just to back up a little bit, Jen, you and your husband, I mean, you're collecting these things, but you do buy things in bulk. You owned, still own a comic bookshop or something, or go to comic shows?
[00:48:14] Jennifer: Yeah, my, my husband had opened and owned his own comic shop right out of high school, so he's been buying and collecting for, oh my gosh, I don't, uh, well, we're all out of high school way longer than 30 years. But he'd sold his business, and that's how he and I met. We've been friends a long time.
[00:48:30] I always say he was my comic book dealer and friend, and I, I worked for another comic book dealer, and we met at a convention. and so he just, in his spare time, would always buy and sell comics. He just, he loves comic books and has that passion. He's a wealth of knowledge. It's crazy the things he knows.
[00:48:46] And so we don't have a storefront. We don't have a brick-and-mortar storefront, but we still enjoy going to shows and so we'll buy collections. We'll, you know, find things here and there, odd things here and there, and sell them. Records have kind of come [00:49:00] in a little bit, because he's not afraid to ask. Like, if he's buying a comic collection, w- "What else do you got? You have any records? Do you have any other collectibles?" And people don't wanna lug that around or they wanna get rid of them.
[00:49:10] Charles: Yeah.
[00:49:11] Jennifer: Been lucky. We don't buy a ton of record collections, but definitely a lot more comic book collections, for sure. But we'll get those and, and sometimes it's great. They're things that we keep, and then what we don't want, we just kinda move along.
[00:49:21] Charles: Yeah, so I mean that when you say, "Oh, I bought 3,000 CDs," people'd be like, "What? W- why would you do that?"
[00:49:27] Jennifer: Yeah. And I, and I tell them, I'm like, "And to be fair, that was, you know, there was a lot else in that collection at the same time." So, it wasn't something everybody can do. But I will tell people, sometimes what you think you can't do, you can do. And if you want to buy 3,000 CDs, it's possible. It's possible, and sometimes it's cheaper, you know? If you have the ability to do that, it might be a great way to get things that you want and move stuff along.
[00:49:53] Charles: Okay. Yeah. And so, listening to your, channel, uh, you know, it raised a lot of questions for [00:50:00] me. One in particular, if we can do, Ask Jen segment.
[00:50:04] Jennifer: I'll do my best.
[00:50:05] Charles: Okay, so my wife and I, and my daughter, are Fontaines DC fans, the band from Ireland. And so we're on their mailing list. And so they, came out with this new album called Dopamine Chamber. It's coming out, and you can get the first pressing and you can reserve it.
[00:50:26] So I was like, " Oh, well I want the album anyway, first pressing, whatever." I just, I wanted it, the vinyl. But then I started thinking, like, 'cause you were talking about first pressings of certain albums and such, and I don't wanna use the word like "misleading", but like a first pressing like 20 years ago, there was like, what, 5,000 of them? But if you do a first pressing to to a fan club on the internet, there could be like, 30,000 of them or 50,000 first pressing. So wouldn't the value, if you were collecting it for the value, of course it'd be better than the second [00:51:00] pressing.
[00:51:00] Jennifer: Sometimes. Not always. Not always.
[00:51:02] Charles: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So I thought that was interesting.
[00:51:05] Jennifer: It is interesting, and I think the dilemma that I think about, these are, and I've actually, I, I don't even know how to do an episode, honestly, on this, but I have thought about it, is we do say first pressing, and sometimes that is, like, maybe they were first pressed in England, and it was first done in '82, and then they came up with, you know, they had to kind of reset, like, the mold, right?
[00:51:26] Like, something was off, or they redo it, or however that progresses. You can kinda track that. But when you buy a f- a first press now, it is a risk. You don't know. Like, how do you know it's a first press? Like, that's my thing. Like, you do, but you don't. And even, like, numbered records.
[00:51:42] Like, oh, it's, it's a limited run of 600. Okay, so do you stamp it and put a one on it, and that's the first one, and the second one gets a two, and the... No, probably not. They pre-number those sleeves. They're dropping all that stuff in. Like, it's kind of like smoke and mirrors. Like, it does make me question.[00:52:00]
[00:52:00] But with albums that maybe were out in the '80s, if you can kinda trace it back to the year and the country or the place where it started, can kinda feel... And I do, there's a few, like, I have a Danzig record. I think they call that a metal pressing. No, no pun intended, but it, it had something to do with how that went through. And so those are kinda tangible differences.
[00:52:21] Charles: Yeah. Okay.
[00:52:22] Jennifer: But I, feel like when you're buying new material, it's, like the Wild West. Like, I don't, we, who's to say? You know, 20 years from now will probably dictate what's most important. But I can say I bought the Madonna, I overbought, Madonna Confessions too.
[00:52:37] Charles: I was gonna bring that up. You led me right into that. Go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:52:42] Jennifer: By accident, I bought the deluxe and, but now if you look at what those are selling for on Discogs, it could rank in the top 20 of my most expensive records.
[00:52:52] Charles: Okay.
[00:52:53] Jennifer: And it hasn't been out since, what, July? So it is, it's a real I just tell people buy, I like [00:53:00] buying directly from the band, so on their website, on Bandcamp, something that you know they're getting that, like, if you can.
[00:53:07] And I do like sometimes buying the things that are odd, like with The Cramps' Gravest Gravy, I wish I'd gotten the glow-in-the-dark one. I don't know if it's gonna be the best pressing, but it's fun.
[00:53:17] Charles: Turn out the lights and play it.
[00:53:18] Jennifer: Yeah. I do question this numbered records and especially numbered records. Man, that bugs me. Like, I do, like, sometimes I lay in bed and think about that. I'm like, "How do I know?" Like, what number? Like, it could be 200 out of 1,000, but that doesn't mean it was the 200th pressing.
[00:53:33] Charles: Yeah, and I, I wanna say the email said that they were gonna randomize the numbering or something. So you could get number one, but it doesn't mean that it's any better than 358 or something.
[00:53:46] Jennifer: I like getting a low number, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if it means anything.
[00:53:50] Charles: But, but now you talk about Madonna, and I listened to your episode about, it's her new album.
[00:53:56] Jennifer: Yeah.
[00:53:56] Charles: And you weren't too thrilled with the fact that you had [00:54:00] to go to a website...
[00:54:01] Jennifer: Yes.
[00:54:02] Charles: To get, was it more tracks or something or more information?
[00:54:06] Jennifer: All the information. So imagine when you open an album, it tells you who the producer is, it tells you who the guitar player is, it tells you all, like, who the backup singers are. They give you a piece of paper that looks like a foldout, you know, like a flyer that lists maybe half the songs.
[00:54:22] But all it tells you is that Stuart Price and she are involved, and that's it. There's nothing else on that. And if you want all those detailed things about the people who participated in the making of that record, you have to go to a designated website to look it up. And I think that is the crappiest thing I've ever seen.
[00:54:42] Charles: Terrible. I mean, you know it's some marketing person to get traffic to a website, and like I told you in our email exchange, like, is that website gonna be around 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 50 years from now? Definitely not. No way
[00:54:55] Jennifer: Yeah, I mean, that, that is like a slippery slope, right? So if, if anybody [00:55:00] archivally looks back and they can't find that information, it just seems like Madonna and Price did all the work by themselves. Like there was nothing, else involved.
[00:55:08] Charles: Yeah, and it just all kind of evaporates.
[00:55:11] Jennifer: Yeah. I mean, I don't even think her daughter's information is on that flyer now that I think about it, and they, they do a duet together.
[00:55:17] Charles: No, it's, that's a bad idea.
[00:55:19] Jennifer: There were a few things I didn't like. as a Maddona fan. I, I felt bad that I disliked it. Overall, did I like it? Yes. But, yeah, that was not a good selling point for me at all.
[00:55:28] Charles: Yeah. Now, and you review albums too on your, channel, and, you know, and I'm just paraphrasing here what you'd said, you say, "I lack a critic's vocabulary, but I have the enthusiasm of a music fan," or some- something to that effect, right?
[00:55:43] Jennifer: Right, Yeah.
[00:55:43] Charles: Yeah. And I thought, oh my God, that, that's so great. 'Cause yeah, sometimes you read these reviews by these music critics, I'm like, I've been reading for, like, 10 minutes. I, I don't know if this person likes this album or what.
[00:55:55] Jennifer: And I've said to people before, I'm not a professional reviewer. And [00:56:00] music is personal, and I can tell you if I like it. I can tell you what I like about it and maybe my enthusiasm. I can give you a comparison, but I, I can't tell you the arpeggio or the string or the production quality, who mastered it and remastered it.
[00:56:14] I'm not not interested in those things, but I can't just spit that stuff out, and it doesn't mean anything to me. I either like it or I don't. And, I get criticism for that. Actually, the last, video I did, I had somebody tell me that the review wasn't about the record, the review was about me, that obviously I was a fan and I'm not giving a review, and reviews are a waste of time anyway because they can just choose for themselves whether they like it or not.
[00:56:40] And my reply back was, " You should choose for yourself, you know? And, and maybe I'm not giving a review, it's a celebration of a record that I love." And I do make a choice on my channel. Like Madonna, I didn't like parts of it, I will tell you so. If I find a record that is incredibly offensive or bad or something I just can't tolerate, I don't [00:57:00] review it. There's no point. I'm not gonna talk about things that I hate. I'm not looking to trash somebody. I just don't like it, so I just move on. But I said to him, you know, "You gave me a review about my review, so see, we're exchanging ideas. It's a nice circle of life here.
[00:57:16] Charles: Yeah. I mean, you say at the outset that you're a Cramps fan, okay, I know that going in.
[00:57:21] Jennifer: That should make me more critical because I want it to be good. I go into it optimistic. You know, I wanted it to be good, but I don't always expect it to be good, right? I was cautiously optimistic. and when they first released TV Set kind of as a tease, that wasn't, like, my all-time favorite Cramps song, right?
[00:57:39] So I was kind of like, "It's good. Okay, it's good," but, you know, it's not my favorite song. Like, there was other tracks on there I wanted to see. But man, when I got ahold of that, that was music to my ears. it really was unexpected. It was delightful, and I loved it.
[00:57:53] Charles: Yeah. Yeah, and you're so knowledgeable about that band. I mean, oh my God, So yeah, if I wanna go check out The [00:58:00] Cramps, maybe I'll pick up that album.
[00:58:02] Jennifer: You should I think it's great because really it is the entry point to the band. I mean, it, it is the first things that they recorded and things that they did. And, I do think it, it shows what the promise of that band and the passion that they had behind their music, it's energy.
[00:58:18] It's high energy. It's like a live show. It is like a concert, but it's not the concert. I don't know. I think it's a, it's a great record. And again, I've mentioned on that before, I keep telling people they had that record ready to go. It just got shelved. It wasn't like, well, today put it together and said, "We're gonna put this out."
[00:58:35] I mean, it, it was a total package, a title, a photo. Everything was done, and it just never got released. So I feel it's sort of a love letter for fans and Ivy and Lux had a thought and a process behind that, and now we get to hear it, which is great.
[00:58:49] Charles: Yeah, and all of your videos, I mean, you're just having fun. You know? It comes through, " this is what I like. Here's what I bought. This is, you know, why I like it." [00:59:00] You're having fun. It's a good time.
[00:59:02] Jennifer: It is. I like to have fun, and I, miss going to a record shop or when I worked at the record store and we would just listen to music and talk about music, or when I go to the comic shop and there's that smell of the comics, and you flip through the bins and you're talking to the guys while you're doing it, and they may have cartoons playing on the I miss that. I miss that feeling, and this kind of gives me that rush. And I can just talk about goofy stuff. My husband, God bless him, we are like one brain, so thank God he and I can talk about these things together. But it is fun to include more people, and I've made a ton of friends internationally and nationally and that has been, it's like pen pals, like modern-age pen pals.
[00:59:40] Charles: Yeah, that's great. Like I said, I learned a ton from your videos.
[00:59:45] Jennifer: I'm glad.
[00:59:46] Charles: And they're entertaining and a lot of the stuff I have no idea, about collecting this kind of stuff. And then the music and your reviews and all these technical bits and pieces, thrown in here and there make it a [01:00:00] really good source.
[01:00:01] Jennifer: I try to make something that I would wanna watch. One of my goals when I was younger, if you could call this a goal, I always wanted to be like, a horror host show, like Svengoolie or Sammy Terry at Indy. Like Elvira, like, that would've been so great. So this is kinda like my little cable show, but I don't... you know, and I really was afraid to start it. I, I kind of am afraid to be in front of the camera, to be honest. So it's an exercise in, overcoming fear, for sure.
[01:00:27] Charles: Yeah. Well, you seem like a natural.
[01:00:29] Jennifer: I appreciate that.
[01:00:31] Charles: Seems effortless. But Jen, we've had you on here for while. appreciate your time.
[01:00:36] Jennifer: Oh, thanks.
[01:00:37] Charles: Is there anything you'd like to plug or talk about, that we haven't covered.
[01:00:43] Jennifer: Not really. I would say if people do follow me, I also do some livestreams with some friends on YouTube. We call ourselves The Vinyl Bunch. And I mention that because we really like people to tune in and in real time comment and keep that conversation alive.
[01:00:58] And if they're watching [01:01:00] anybody's channel, comment. Be part of the conversation and the fun. It means a lot to creators, and a lot of us, that is really why we do it, it is that exchange, that just kind of fun exchange, and I just encourage everybody to find something they're passionate about and just have fun with it and just kind of go for it. But don't be afraid to share.
[01:01:18] Charles: Yeah. And where can people find you, Jen?
[01:01:21] Jennifer: They can find me on YouTube, and it would be @JensAddiction. J-E-N-S, no apostrophe, addiction, so capital J, capital A. There's a few other Jens Addictions out there, but I think they do craft shows or things, so it's a little different.
[01:01:35] Charles: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. Makes sense.
[01:01:38] Jennifer: But if you see, monsters and horror things and records come up, that would be. And there's a, a wonderful amount of things out there through, if you Google what's called The Vinyl Community, or VC. There's so many other shows and some great things, and like, I took part in a great quiz show last year. Just some fun stuff, and I have some links on my channel to those episodes [01:02:00] and things. But it's just fun. It really is a ton of fun.
[01:02:02] Charles: Yeah. You're definitely having fun. And, go check out Jen's Addiction and you'll definitely learn a lot for sure.
[01:02:11] Jennifer: I hope so.
[01:02:12] Charles: All right, Jen. Well, thanks for, spending time with me on Seeing Them Live, really appreciate it.
[01:02:17] Jennifer: Well, I appreciate you asking me, and I appreciate what you're doing. This is important too. I love this. Archiving these kinds of things is amazing, so thank you.