The other day I was killing time at a record store and I found something totally unexpected: a CD discography of the great, short-lived mid/late 1990s Staten Island hardcore band C.R. Anyone who knew me in my junior year of high school knew I was a fanatic about this band, though I got into them way way too late. By the time I corralled Mio Alter and Michael Finkler to go see them play at the Joint with Black Army Jacket after school -- a Bronx-to-Shaolin epic that involved two trains, the ferry, a bus and walking -- C.R. actually broke up on stage before playing a single note. Still, I had the records, or I did until I foolishly gave them to my college-era girlfriend as a token of my affection.

Now I have them again. All 46 songs -- the discography is called, appropriately, 46 Songs -- on my iPod. Hooray! Walking to work this morning, the miracle of iPod's shuffle function gave me two long-forgotten pleasures back-to-back: C.R.'s LP anthem "The Answer," and their cover of Infest's "Where's the Unity." I surprised myself -- and passers-by down Florida Avenue -- by remembering the whole first verse to "Where's the Unity," accented with finger-points in the appropriate places. Call it muscle memory, or the persistence of hardcore.

This post dedicated to Lawrence F. "88 Youth Crew" Kaplan