When in 1976 I discovered the record collector magazines (in particular Goldmine) and dozens of fanzines that had been started to cover the explosion of Power Pop and Punk, as well as the great underground music magazines (most notably Bomp!, the product of Rock ’n’ Roll historian and Garage Band fanatic Greg Shaw) in which cult bands and artists were being covered (The Flamin’ Groovies, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Moon Martin, Dwight Twilley, Marshall Crenshaw, The Nerves, The Plimsouls,The Blasters, etc.), I became aware of the phenomenon of the non-LP 45 RPM B-side. I looked for 45’s containing non-LP songs of music I liked, buying ’em all.
Portland at that time had a bunch of small record shops which sold all the import and Indi 45’s that were being pumped out in the late-70’s, and my 45 collection swelled to about 1,000 titles. Over the years I’ve culled the collection (I had two copies of the Nerves EP, sold one of them for $200 a few years ago. Peter Case, Paul Collins, and Jack Lee were it’s members), keeping about 600 titles.
