Jim Shepard Will Get You Signed

I, like many people on the Beach, have plenty of anecdotal nonsense about experiences in the presence of the late Jim Shepard. For a barely legal quartet from South Western Miami County, playing their first show, to have the man in your scant audience, stopping you in motion to whisper in your ear that he "would get you signed," was the pinnacle of our existence and giving plasma at the same time. Fast forward many years later and I'm sitting in Walt's Lounge, and Shepard's last record is stinking up the place in a box under his booth. Spray Paint. He delivered me a copy and a beer and a brief monologue about how I'm in the consensus that really does consider Photograph Burns as one of the five best "pieces of art" ever created. I still am in the consensus. But admittedly, I was too young to hear the Vertical Slit the Pre-Slit, the hours of tape the man recorded through his years. I'm constantly digging. Someone's gonna let it all out -- this bountiful enigma that needs unearthing. For now, you need to get over to Forever Lowman and catch up. Slowly but surely.