In early June 1987 there was a big deal about it being the 20th anniversary of Sgt. Peppers release. Just shy of 16 at that time, I was all punk and snarly but still enamored with the record, more fascinated now with its psychedelic imagery and insinuations (i.e. “Lucy,” “Within You Without You,” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”). Someone in the media declared ‘87 as the new “Summer of Love” – it really wasn’t – but I ran with that, got a little hippie in my punkdom and committed my one and only act ever of graffiti on the bathroom stall of Tom’s, a local fast food chain in Appleton, WI, writing “Summer of Love” with a peace symbol and some Beatles’ lyrics. (My friends and I, not surprisingly, were repeatedly banned from the downtown Tom’s over the years. It’s now a bar called Basil’s and the bathrooms are relocated so no evidence remains.)

The importance of Sgt. Peppers is monumental –  it has been described as one of the first art rock LPs, jumpstarted the development of progressive rock and marks the beginning of the Album Era. It spent 27 weeks at #1 in the UK and 15 weeks in the US. It won four Grammys and in 2003 the Library of Congress included it in the National Recording Registry. It’s still one of the best-selling records of all-time.

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