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Three to the Beach

Have chip bags always had "Best Before..Fresh Until..blah blah blah" dates? Maybe I just didn't pay attention when I was younger but I want to say that these dates were an invention of the mid to late 90's. I could try to research their origin but what's the use? When I see an interesting bag of chips that I've never consumed I'll snatch 'em right up knowing very well that I may not get around to going to crunch town on them for months. And I don't just mean a month or two, I mean MONTHS...shit, it may even get to a year. It's partially due to the fact that if it's a rare bag I don't want to not have them any more..and partially because I somehow end up with a lot of bags in the salty cellar and I don't necessarily want to consume a new flavour whenever I have chips, you can't neglect the good ol' flavours (or good new flavours that demand a repeat). What I'm getting at is that these 'Best Before' dates, as far as I can tell, are absolutely meaningless. I'll open a bag that's many moons past it's best before date and they taste as fresh as the day they were made [well, maybe not the day they were made, I've never had chips fresh from the factory to test this against so lets just say, 'as fresh as the day they arrived at the store]. This also extends into opening a bag and keeping it for future consumption, as long as you properly clip/fold/etc your bag the chips stay fresh. I've opened a bag, not been super into them and went back like 6 and 12 months later, the bag was tightly clipped and the chips did not lose their freshness. Best before my balls, never trust the man.

Just like chips, if an album is prepared properly it'll never lose it's freshness. Doesn't matter how many months..years..etc have passed since you've first listened to it...it doesn't matter if you were up on it the minute it was released or didn't even find it until years after it was given life on vinyl/cd/digital. An album that I've wanted to talk about on this salty site since it's inception but never found the right starting point is Dear Landlord's Dream Homes. This absolute classic pop [in the midwestern vein] punk album was released by No Idea Records on June 30th, 2009. I, for some inexplicable reason, didn't check it out until the fall of 2009 leaving me with no choice but to buy it by Jan 2, 2010. Dear Landlord is a supergroup (go to their bandcamp for a list of their related bands [and while you're there just buy the album]) that shares lead vocals, with all the singers having their own (mostly) gruff, yet distinctive, voice. Harmonies/gang vocals are used in all the right places. Majority of the songs are pretty rapid fire with just enough change in tempo to keep the songs from blending into one another. The lyrics range from storytelling to more introspective posi-negative..pessimoptomistic..clever and catchy as hell. From the first time my ears were treated to this masterpiece to this day, when I play Dream Homes it fills me with joy..optimism? (after all the opening track is titled 'I Live in Hell')..energy. Dream Homes is one of the most enjoyable albums that I have ever listened to, [as I said] it's a classic through and through, 28 minutes of pure magic.

Go listen to Dear Landlord and..

Stay hydrated,
Marc


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