Toronto rocker DANKO JONES recently launched a column at Canada's Huffington Post. Following is an excerpt from his latest article:

"Contrary to why many collect vinyl today, I started collecting purely for monetary reasons. As the introduction of compact discs in the late 80s became the standard in the mid-90s, many music fans blindly jumped ship and repurchased their record collections at double the price on CD.

The music industry had a field day when the money poured in from all sides. Almost overnight, vinyl record collections were seen as antiquated embarrassments and many chose to offload them at rock bottom prices to used record stores. That's where I came in. Frugal dudes like me were more than willing to pay for hand-me-down castoff vinyl for a third the price of a new compact disc. Why fork over 20 bucks for one compact disc when I could own three or four records for the same price? It allowed me to take risks on records, build up my collection and give me a well's worth of listening experience.

One must remember that before iTunes, YouTube and the blogosphere, appraising music was made via buying things outright with the aid of educated guesses and instinct. You see, for me, music has always been about quantity over quality, about how much music I can consume before I die.

I can admit it now, but the very first compact disc player I owned was a Sony Discman in 2001. I never had a reason to own one before and bought it right before we went on our first ever European tour. Going on tour back in 2001 also meant carrying around a 20 pound CD booklet that held 60-80 discs in total. In other words, it was a monumental hassle, like carting around a sack of potatoes everywhere you went. All that changed in 2003 when we bought the cigarette box-sized 20 GB Apple iPods, the largest iPod at the time, loaded them with a few hundred records and hit the road. God, I felt like a million bucks, or at least the $4,000 it would've cost to buy all those records."

Go to this location for the complete article.

Catch Danko Jones live at the following shows:

October

16 - The Circus - Helsinki, Finland
17 - Debaser Medis - Stockholm, Sweden
18 - Pustervik - Göteborg, Sweden
19 - John Dee - Oslo, Norway - SOLD OUT -
20 - KB - Malmö, Sweden
21 - Docks - Hamburg, Germany
23 - Schlachthof - Bremen, Germany
24 - Melkweg - Amsterdam, Netherlands
25 - Ancienne Belgique - Brussels, Belgium **
26 - Le Trabendo - Paris, France **
27 - Komplex - Zürich, Switzerland**
29 - Arena - Vienna, Austria
30 - Longhorn LKA - Stuttgart, Germany
31 - Theaterfabrik - Munich, Germany

November

1 - Postbahnhof - Berlin, Germany
2 - FZW - Dortmund, Germany - SOLD OUT -
3 - Batschkapp - Frankfurt, Germany - SOLD OUT -
13 - Mavericks - Ottawa, ON
14 - The Casbah - Hamilton, ON
15 - Call The Office - London, ON
16 - Virgin Mobile Mod Club - Toronto, ON
17 - The Oak - Winnipeg, MB
18 - New City Legion - Edmonton, AB
20 - The Gateway - Calgary, AB
21 - Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC