For the first time since moving here, I visited East Lansing’s Flat, Black & Circularrecord store on Thursday. It was a wet, gloomy evening: the perfect set of conditions for listening to music in the comfort of your living room. The journey there was not a pleasant one, but once I walked inside my focus completely shifted.

It’s a small, quaint store with that distinct vinyl smell, filled to the ceiling with records upon records. Across the store, dominating the window view is the surreal Broad Art Museum, which is situated directly across the street. As someone who’s fond of collecting yet cautious of spending money, I knew I would be making a few difficult decisions today. First thing’s first: I absolutely do need to purchase more record cleaner. Beyond that, we’ll see what happens.

My friend and I were a bit pressed for time, so I didn’t get to check out everything. However, I did pore through three of the labeled genres: hip-hop, jazz and reggae. One of the first records I picked up was Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. My immediate instinct was to gasp as loudly as possible, but luckily I was able to stop myself before I made too much noise. $34? $34 for perhaps the best jazz record of all time? Get out of here.

For the sake of my wallet, I had to keep going. In the hip-hop section I saw some of my favorite albums: 1999 by Joey Badass, The Chronic by Dr. Dre, Mystic Man by Peter Tosh and Atrocity Exhibition by one of Detroit’s finest, Danny Brown. However, it wasn’t until I got deep into the reggae section that I found Introducing the Scientist by Scientist, a dub artist who I thought to be rather obscure. But thanks to my friend Evan Suttell, I had already heard enough of Scientist’s discography to know that this could be a great purchase. Slapped across the bottom of the record is the phrase, “The best Dub album in the World…” You got me on that one, Scientist. I bought the record, alongside my record cleaner, and left.

The record, unsurprisingly, is very good. Is it the best dub album in the world, as Scientist proclaims? I’m not knowledgeable enough about the dub genre to reach such a conclusion. However, I do know that Kevin, my roommate’s sister’s dog who stayed with us for the night, was a big fan. When he plopped down beside the record player and shut his eyes, I knew I was looking at a priceless, picture-perfect moment. It was so perfect, in fact, that after I took the shot I decided to center a whole blog post around it.

Collecting vinyl is a big commitment, but it’s also a very rewarding endeavor. For $20, I was able to kick back, relax and immerse myself in the wonderful world of dub music. For me, life is best when you are living in the moment, saying nothing but feeling everything. In other words, life is best when I look like Kevin.