The birthday boy is also this year’s Record Store Day Ambassador. Fulfilling his diplomatic duties, Iggy visited Sweat Records in Miami.

“As Record Store Day Ambassador for 2012, I feel like a representative from some exotic jungle full of life and death and sex and anger, called upon to wear a leopard skin and translate joy to the world of the dead.

A person should have a personality. You won’t get one dicking around on a computer. It helps to go somewhere where there are other persons. Persons who are interested in something you are. That’s how a record store or any shop that’s got some life to it should work. It’s not about selling shit.

I got my name, my musical education and my personality all from working at a record store during my tender years. Small indie shops have always been a mix of theatre and laboratory. In the 50s and 60s, the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat. You could buy the disc you liked for 79 cents and if you were lucky meet a chick. Clerks in these places became managers, (like Brian Epstein), label heads, (Jac Holzman) and Faces on album covers (like me).”

I spent part of Record Store Day at Waterloo Records where I met and had a chat with Garbage. Shirley Manson looked absolutely stunning. I bought the Grinderman Remix album and a compilation of rare gospel music. With the exception of running into Garbage, it was a day like any other in that everyday for me is Record Store Day. I tremble at the thought of not having Waterloo to visit and hang out in. There’s nothing like the smell of vinyl in the morning. And you can’t shake Shirley Manson’s hand at Amazon.com.