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If you have reached this page, you are either a really devoted fan of The Cars or are in more desperate need of a life than me.  When people realize how big a fan I am of The Cars, I get asked questions like:

"How did you get into The Cars?"
"Your Cars fanaticism mellowed after high school, right?"
"How did you get all of the Cars stuff you have?"
"Did you cry like a little girl when The Cars broke up?"
"Do you want to see a Cars reunion?"
"Do you play any musical instruments?"
"Did you ever see The Cars in concert?"
"Why did you create this site?"
"Does your wife really put up with this?"
"Have you ever met any of the members of The Cars?"
"Can you get me in touch with any members of The Cars?"
"What is your favorite Cars album?"
"Are you a freak or what?"

You can click the links above to read my answers to these questions or just read on for the full story.

How did I get into The Cars?
I had heard stuff by The Cars for years on the radio (how could you miss it?), but it never really triggered anything for me.  In fact, until 1984, I was only minimally interested in music.  I had played a few instruments in elementary school bands and played piano a little, but never had a stereo or collected tapes or records (yes kids, this was the dark days before CD's).

Everything changed in '84 when I heard "You Might Think" on the radio and a click so loud occurred that people in neighboring counties thought it was a sonic boom.  I drove my friends nuts playing side two of Heartbeat City (starting with You Might Think) before I decided to see what was on the other side.  I was so blown away by what I found there that I rushed out and picked up the debut and Candy-O from my local Tower Records.

Now I was completely hooked! Panorama was scooped up a couple weeks later and I really dug the style shift from the other Cars albums I had. Shake It Up came last, and while not my favorite release, I still loved the lyrics, style and the fact that I could gorge my musically deprived soul on such consistently incredible music.

I started trying to make up for wandering a sonic desert most of my life and began rapidly consuming a wide variety of music.  When I went to college a couple years later, I was exposed to just about every style of music around and quickly discovered that I enjoyed most of it.  Some of my favorites became Pink Floyd, Don Henley, Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, The Eagles and Concrete Blonde.  I went from not even having a cassette player to a present collection of over 3,000 CD's, 200 45 RPM singles and 200 12" Records.   I guess I am still trying to make up for such a slow start.

My Cars fanaticism mellowed after high school, right?
Short answer - No.  I pushed several close friends and girlfriends to suicide - or at least working night shifts at WalMart - due to my incessant discussion of and playing music by The Cars.  It was and still is a rare day that I did not play at least a couple songs from The Cars or one of the solo releases.

During my second year in college, The Cars Greatest Hits came out and there was a combined sigh of relief all around me - at least I had a new song to play.  What ensued was a sonic battle still spoken of in hushed tones at CSU Long Beach.  Being students we had minimal money, but what little we had was spent on stereo equipment.  When the "Tonight She Comes" single was released I made a 60 minute tape repeating the track and played it non-stop for a week.  To prevent themselves from devolving into gibbering masses of protoplasm, my dorm mates retaliated with marathon sessions of "You Dropped The Bomb On Me," "Oak Tree" and other dance songs.  After a week of nightly stereo wars, and threat of disciplinary action, an uneasy peace began.

I made the move to CD's in the late 80's and the first disc I got was Ric Ocasek's "The Side Of Paradise." It took me another six years to get all of the solo and Cars releases on CD. The main problem with being a self supporting student is having almost no money for anything you need let alone anything you want.  A lot of day old bread and baloney sandwiches were eaten so I could afford those CD's.

When Door To Door came out, I was still putting myself through college and working door to door sales (ironic, huh?). I was training four people the day it was released and I dragged the entire team to a local Wherehouse records so I could buy the record (CD releases were delayed one to three months after the record/tape release at that time). They thought I was nuts, but I had little time to shop between three jobs and school, so they were stuck with it.

How did I get all the Cars stuff I have?
When I was living in Southern California, several friends and I loved to go music shopping.  So Cal has a lot of shops to visit, so I was able to find posters, interviews, pictures and much more to continue feeding my Cars frenzy. My college dorm room had an entire wall dedicated to The Cars (stupidly only took one picture of it though). 

As the years progressed, I started searching magazines like Goldmine for Cars items.  As I became more active in The Cars on-line community, I began trading other Cars fans for interesting items I don't have.  While life has gotten in the way of hardcore searching recently, I do search eBay occasionally and see stuff there that I don't have quite often.

I started putting my Cars related belongings on the SOTW site to offer a kind of web museum for Cars fans.  I add new items as time allows, but so far have not been able to get more than about 1/2 to 3/4 of my collection on the site.  My hope is to let fans know what is available, though it is cool when someone to say "Wow, you have a great collection!" 

Did I cry like a little girl when The Cars broke up?
Hey, I'm a guy and guys don't cry.  Well, maybe I would cry if I accidentally cut an appendage off with a power tool.  Even then any other guys that witnessed the impromptu surgery would never speak of the tears that may (or may not) have been shed.  Regardless, the breakup of The Cars, while painful, did not generate tears since there was no dismemberment or other radical bodily injury involved. 

Now that we have that straight, lets get back to the subtopic at hand - The Cars breakup.  On the day I heard the announcement I was on the way to do some music shopping.  As I was getting out of the car, the radio DJ offhandedly mentioned that The Cars had officially broken up.  I did not break into tears or curse the band members or experience any other melodramatic outburst. I was, and still am, bummed that their collaborative music was over.

Do I want to see The Cars reunite?
I continue to be glad that I had the chance to experience The Cars music.  While I would love to see a reunion of the surviving members, I don't pine for it the way many fans do.  I am content with the occasional new solo releases (hoping to see Greg's "Niagara Falls" or Elliot's Tiki Gods stuff on CD soon) and would definitely pay attention to any project which featured some or all of the members.

Don't misunderstand me, if a reunion happened, I would be first in line and loving every minute of it.  In fact, I am hoping that the guys will get together for a couple tracks when they are inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (hopefully this year).  If a reunion (live or studio) never happens, I still have my collection of some of the greatest music ever made to enjoy though.

Do I play any musical instruments?
I have heard from numerous other fans that The Cars inspired them to become musicians.  I think this is an incredible legacy for such an excellent band.  I also realized that I am a minority in the world of Cars fans since I have virtually no musical abilities. In fact, I am not sure if I could hit a note walking in front of my car on the freeway.  As I stated above, I did play a couple instruments in elementary school and played keyboards in a band for a short while during High School, but never with any flare - just technically competent.  This is the musical equivalent of saying a blind date has a good personality. My dabbling with keyboards is probably why I find Greg to be the most interesting member of The Cars though (It could be that I am a techno-geek as well).

Did I ever see The Cars in concert?
I saw The Cars at the L.A. Forum on 8/29/84 and was in sonic heaven. My girlfriend at the time enjoyed the show, but did not find musical nirvana as I did.  After being minimally interested in music for most of my life, this concert was like being a sailor on shore leave after years at sea! I could not absorb enough of what was happening.  My only regret was not getting tickets for any of the other shows in Southern California.

To make up for missing out during the Heartbeat City tour, I bought tickets to three LA and one San Diego date for the Door to Door tour. This required even more day old bread and baloney eating than usual since I was still the epitome of a starving college student, but I was not going to miss out. I even had 2nd row seats for two of the shows! Unfortunately, the shows were cancelled with no notification of whether they would be rescheduled and The Cars broke up shortly after.  A major regret remains that I returned all the tickets.  My girlfriend at the time even asked me if I really wanted to do it. Being a starving student, I had little choice - it was over $100 during a time when I was digging in the couch for change to fill the gas tank.

Why did I create this site?
During the late 90's I would do occasional web searches for sites related to The Cars and never found much. Finally I lucked across the Heartbeat City site and signed up for the Frozen Fire e-mail list shortly after. The SOTW discussion had been on the list about a month or two at that point.  It took about four months before I came out of lurk mode and actually posted anything to the list. Within my first year on the list, I started contributing somewhat regularly - it was incredible to see a group of people who enjoyed The Cars as I did.  The SOTW site came to life for the 81st SOTW nomination about two years after I joined the Frozen Fire e-mail list.

Originally the site was a single page including real audio versions of the SOTW and little else. My hope was to increase interest in the SOTW tracks by offering live versions from my collection as well as the studio version of the Song of the Week.  I expanded the site from just focusing on the SOTW to covering just about anything related to The Cars and it has grown from a single page 1MB to 2MB site to the current behemoth with about 20 pages and over 100MB in size.  As interest in the SOTW faded, I decided to stop offering live versions of tracks on my site in late 2001.  If interest ever picks up, I may again offer live tracks for download.

Does my wife really put up with all of this?
I am blessed to have married an incredible woman who understands (or at least politely endures) and encourages my fanaticism.  While not more than a casual Cars fan herself, she endures my regular playing of The Cars music and decorating the house with gold records and other 'higher end' memorabilia I have.  She even occasionally tries to stump me playing the "7 degrees of The Cars," but has not been able to do it yet.

Have I ever met any of the members of The Cars?
What seems to surprise many people is that I have never met any members of The Cars.  During the Heartbeat City tour, I did see a couple members at a Southern California restaurant, but did not bother them.  As much as I enjoy their music and love to see them perform live, I think I would come across as nothing more than another bordering on obsessive gibbering fan if I were to speak with any of them.  If an opportunity presented itself I would probably jump at it though, gibbering or otherwise.  Living in Hawaii, the odds are not exceptionally high that I will bump into them at the grocery store, so this is a decision I will likely not have to make anytime soon. 

Can I help you get in touch with the members of The Cars?
As much as I am a fan of The Cars, I have never been in direct contact with any of them. I would recommend contacting the record label or agent of each member directly as that would give you a much better chance to connect up with your favorite Car than trying to use me.

What is my favorite Cars album?
Some Star Trek fans dispute which series is the best and there are some extremely heated debates as each fan defends their stand.  Me, I enjoy each series and am just glad to have the different ones to experience.  That is how I feel about The Cars albums.  I am damn glad on a regular basis that these five guys got together and created such incredible and consistently enjoyable catalog of music.  Even the couple tracks I am not completely enamored with are incredible when put beside most other artists.

Many fans feel Door to Door is a terrible release, but I think that is just a gut reaction because it reminds of us of the breakup.  It was no more different from their previous sound than Panorama was when released.  To me it is a mournful reminder of the many untraveled musical roads The Cars could have gone down.

And for the record, I think Ric would have made a great Spock - just add the pointy ears and you have a mindmeld waiting to happen.

Am I a freak or what?
Hey, you are the one spending your time reading this instead of doing something productive, so watch who you call a freak.  In reality, I must be at least a little bit of a freak since I have been a hard core fan non-stop for about 20 years now.  I know someone out there is chanting that they were a fan before me and saw The Cars when they were performing at some nightclub before they were signed or something similar.  That is great and more power to you - you are as much or more of a freak than I am.  Spread the wealth and help others discover The Cars by pushing to get them played on local radio stations or popping a Cars tape or CD in the car to help convert others.

Thanks
Thanks for taking the time to read any or all of this missive.  Hope you enjoy my site and that I have been able to add to your enjoyment of The Cars!