After more than a year of procrastinating, this week I finally fixed my record player (which I bought in Fall 2008 simply needing a new needle) and I am so so so so happy! Before that, it’d been four years before I lived with anyone who had a record player and my vinyl collection just sat on a shelf, sad, lonely. It’s been a LONG time since I got to spend any quality time with my records (save that one time Axl and I used my copy of Shout at the Devil for, um, illicit purposes) and part of the fun has been rediscovering just which records I even have.

Apparently one of those records is Extreme’s Pornograffiti with which I had an extensive bonding dancing session last night. Extreme always manage to get my hips shakin’ and my feet movin’; Nuno and Gary may have been the poster boys for Extreme, but more credit is really due to their rock solid rhythm section of Pat Badger (bass) and Paul Geary (drums). And not for nothin’, I’ve always felt Nuno’s excellent rhythm guitar work was way, way, way overshadowed by his flashy leads. That rhythm section is what made this band pulsate, rock and groove… unstoppable, no doubt one of the best ever. When Extreme reunited in 2008 and toured without Geary the difference was noticeable.

Extreme hasn’t done anything in the past year, but fear not: Nuno is currently utilizing those scintillating rhythm (and hey, lead too) skills with… Rihanna. Get the funk out.

-VN