I’ve since acquired a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks, but true to my long-held hang-up I had a friend buy me a used copy!

This post initially appeared 4/25/08.

Don’t tell a soul.

True confession: I don’t own Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. The reason is pathetic: by the time I realized I needed to buy my own copy, the album was a good 10 years old, and I feared any record store clerk worth his or her salt would have scoffed at me for coming so late to the party, maybe even scribbling my name in a notebook for his or her next report to The Cool Patrol.

It’s a drummer thing.

The reason I never got around to buying Bollocks, however, is because I lived off my oldest friend and bandmate’s copy while hanging out with him in high school and, later, when we shared a house with two other bandmates. That house was great, with access to the record collections of 3 other music lovers. Circa 1985, along with his 10th grade purchase of Bollocks, Andyr, also known in the Halls of Rock as the Velvet Foghorn and our leading expert on Greatest Hits collections, had already amassed a remarkable amount of greatest hits albums, primarily those of British Invasion bands not worth spending what few dollars we had on full albums. I’d walk upstairs to Chickenfrank‘s room if I wanted to hear Big Dipper‘s Boo-Boo ep. Sethro owned the debut ep by ESG, which he bought right from 99 Records on a trip our naive proto-band took to NYC in hopes of that elusive label deal. On occasion, they visited my messy room to borrow an album they didn’t own.

As you get older and no longer live in group housing, you find yourself having to buy records you used to have “borrowing rights” to spinning. It’s one of the reasons we develop a strong work ethic and try to earn more money. Roomie’s no longer down the hall.

So I ask you, Rock Town Hall, What’s an album you dearly cherish that you long counted on being in a roommate’s record collection?