The first thing I ever bought on EBay was a Hollies album called Buddy Holly. I bought the vinyl LP, one of the last 4 I ever bought. And I have since gotten the CD, also on EBay.

The album was released in 1980, and it was the last LP ever released by the Hollies as they had evolved up to that point. Is it good? Imagine what The Hollies would sound like doing Buddy Holly. Now imagine the opposite. No, it's not particularly good.

Does it matter? No. Not really.

See, I'm a Hollies fan. I don't have every album they ever released. The ones I don't have are available as imports and cost around $30 on Amazon, more than I can spend on a CD right now.

In 2000 Alan Zweig made a documentary movie called Vinyl, in which he featured the lives and eccentricities of various record collectors in various mostly Canadian cities. The movie is grungy, neurotic, claustrophobic, and fascinating. The characters, including Zweig himself, come off as various shades of bizarre. They live in rooms with records and records and records. None are married; one is in a relationship and he is seen as being the oddball.

And the thing is that no matter how much they insist that they are driven by the love of music, the fact is that they are not driven by the love of music. They are simply driven. There is no way, no way ever, that they could ever listen to everything they own.

I can relate to those guys. My wife and I watched this movie a few years ago, and she looked at me and said you know, there but for me goes you. Probably.

I don't do it so much anymore, but I have spent more hours than I care to admit in second hand music shops (and second hand shops generally) digging and searching, getting dusty and losing myself in the thrill of the hunt. Finding that record you've been looking for and looking for, there are no words to describe it.

As I say, I don't do it so much anymore. Why not? Because it's getting to where I don't have enough years left to listen to what I have. And vinyl - I've finally admitted defeat. My equipment is dying, and I just don't have the wherewithal to resurrect it. Hunting for CDs is just not the same.

But for me it's about the music. It's about good music and bad music.

See I like the Hollies. And so I'm willing to forgive them the occasional lapse. I see the bad albums and the good albums as part of a whole, the Hollies whole. It's like we're friends. So what if they have a bad day? Some times having a bad time with a friend than is better than having a good time with a stranger.

And about those albums I don't have yet - my birthday is in March…