The past few years have been a golden age for retro music fans— whereas from the 1990s on, fans mainly expressed themselves on Internet sites like the Steve Hoffman Music Forums and the first one I participated in — stereo music expert Mike Callahan’s Both Sides Now, the interaction between hosts/experts and fans has now become even more interactive.

For Beach Boys fans, there are podcasts on YouTube such as Giggens and the Beach Boys Basement with Steve Lewis, as well as musician Adam Marsland and his extremely detailed Pet Squares videos detailing session information; for Beatles fans, there are countless podcasts including MeanMrMayo and his charming New Yawk accent and Parlogram with Andrew Milton.

And for general Retro music fans, there’s Pop Goes The 60s with Matt Williamson. His podcast is especially notable for providing entertaining, detailed and sometimes multi-part histories of 1960s bands — I especially enjoyed his history of the family group the Cowsills, who are mainly known for a) being the inspiration for the Partridge Family TV show b) the hit The Rain, the Park and Other Things and c) the hit Hair from the Broadway show of the same name.

Just recently, Williamson produced an interesting and intriguing video regarding what Beatle fans want and what the band’s company Apple actually puts out, including, this year, a useless (in my opinion) vinyl box set of the Beatles’ American albums from (mainly) 1964, in mono with extra reverb and compression courtesy of Capitol’s infamous Dave Dexter Jr., who thought the original EMI mixes were lifeless. (I already have these mixes on CD on the first Capitol Albums box set.)