Matt:

Back in the mid-1970s I lived in San Diego. While I was there I discovered the Home Grown albums that were produced yearly by radio station KGB. I purchased one every year until I was forced to move away. Now I live on the East Coast and I lost my collection of LPs in a flood back in '94. Since then I have been trying to find copies of those old albums, alas, without success. Does anyone out there deal in those old "antiques"? Has anyone put them on CD?

-- Rich, back East

Matt:

Has anyone that you know of ever recorded the collection of Home Grown albums on cassette or ?? who might make them available to me?

-- Rene Eustis, Darby, MT

Hi Matt:

I'm looking for the Home Grown album collection (KGB). Do you have any idea how I can find them?

-- Garth, via e-mail

These questions are only a tiny sample. When you people get an idea in your heads, you just won't let it go, will you? Grandma had to throw away about 20 pairs of her favorite sensible shoes to make room in her closet for all the whining letters and e-mails we've received over the years about those danged Home Grown albums. If you're not a San Diego OG -- the series was a KGB promotion, with proceeds to charity, that featured original songs about local subjects by local musicians. Anyone could submit a tape, and the best made it to vinyl. A very young Cameron Crowe wrote the liner notes in 1974. Each year's release was hotly anticipated by rock and rollers, and the series is San Diego memorabilia at its best.

Now that those old rock and rollers have ponied on into the nostalgia zone -- remembering San Diego in the '70s as the last good years the town had -- Home Grown is back on our minds. I've avoided the subject because my answer would have been the usual...check old vinyl stores; try eBay/other online sources; no, I don't know anyone with taped copies, and even if I did I wouldn't want to be the contact point for the wanton distribution of copyrighted material (sorry, pirates, art ain't free for the taking). But something's in the wind. We're not exactly sure what's up, but the deep-cover squad of the Smarter Than You Are Intelligence Committee here at Alice Enterprises has heard whispers about rumors about unsourced stories that suggest our Home Grown jones might be satisfied. Sometime. Not soon. But sometime. Call KGB and all they'll say is, "Great googa mooga shugah bugah!" Catchy, but not helpful.

We're not in the business of spreading false hope. We just decided it was time to put the Home Grown question down for its afternoon nap until we can come up with more. We hope this noninformation will send you all into further confusion and longing for the old days. "To serve and reject," that's our motto.