I am a sick man … I am a wicked man. I lurk in the aisles of Vintage Vinyl, I slink through stacks of old records in the city’s forgotten musical depositories. The MusicHound Rock Guide is my Bible, the endless cross-references of Allmusic.com are my Internet lair. The first place I take my paycheck is the record store, like a junkie yearning for a fix. Every spare five dollars could potentially buy me a new album, and inevitably does. I bore my friends with random factoids about the original lineup of David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars band, I bore myself thumbing through Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Illustrated History of Rock ‘n’ Roll” for the fiftieth time. In public I seek to impress with my recently acquired original Stax Records album; in private I secretly enjoy the sweet pop sounds of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” Like I said, I am a sick man.

It’s hard when you realize you’ve finally crossed over into the realm of “addict.” Perhaps it comes one weekend afternoon when you find yourself burning to buy a Deep Purple album, even though you think “Smoke on the Water” is the dumbest song ever recorded. Or perhaps it comes on a Tuesday (that’s when the new releases come out!), when you’re flipping through the “new arrivals” rack and think, “Hey, I heard about these guys, it’s worth a shot,” only to sell it back three week later just to get your grubby hands on Spin’s latest favorite.

Then you’re stuck. You start collecting albums by genre, starting with “alt-country” and moving through “glam” and “post-hardcore” to “shoegazer.” (And let’s not forget “beard-folk!”) Soon you’re buying artists you never thought possible, like Thin Lizzy, Frank Sinatra and Rod Stewart. Country music is all of a sudden extremely appealing. Elvis Costello lyrics might as well be the wisdom of Confucius. There are small shrines in your apartment dedicated to Morrissey.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when buying an album was a special moment, a well-considered decision based on personal taste, your budget, and a vigorous mp3 listening process. Now you move CDs like stocks and bonds, acquiring huge amounts of music at a time in an effort to bolster your expanding knowledge. Food and personal hygiene become irrelevant. A $0.99 burrito from Taco Bell will tide you over while you spend the extra cash on that T. Rex album you’ve had your eye on. When you’re cooped up in your bedroom spinning your newest purchase, even Howard Hughes at his most reclusive had nothing on you.

There are gambling addicts, wine connoisseurs and Red Sox fans, but the music fanatic is a completely different species. It’s an intensely private hobby, requiring only a record player, a pair of headphones (optional) and a small but steady cash flow. I imagine there are some who live on the street with only their Discman as company, washing enough car windows every week to afford that rare Otis Redding live recording. And if you’ve got an iPod, well, it’s like the world’s never-ending crack rock, keeping you lifted for weeks on end.

“Then one day she turned on a New York radio station, couldn’t believe what she heard at all / She started dancin’ to that fine, fine music, you know her life was changed by rock ‘n’ roll.” Truer words were never spoken. Lou Reed had his own chemical dependencies to deal with, but he knew that even a few notes of guitar, a steady drum beat or a snarled vocal could get a person hooked for life. That’s what rock ‘n’ roll will do to you. It can be exhilarating and addictive and possibly bad for your health. But enough; I don’t want to write any more “from Underground”…

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