Andee Connors and Allan Horrocks were the proud proprietors of San Francisco's aQuarius Records from 2003 to 2016 (and had both worked there since the mid-nineties before becoming owners). Now somewhat suddenly "retired", we miss it a lot (already) & are sad it's gone, but we had to move on due to other things in life - like Allan becoming a father. The special, super labor-intensive, personalized way we did things at aQuarius was beloved by many, and successful in lots of ways - but not financially so, not in the long run. But, just because we couldn't keep doing the aQuarius thing forever, doesn't mean that we don't want to still be involved in sharing our passion for weird, wonderful, fucked up music with the people - we just want to not have to SELL the music anymore. Hence, this website. A way for us to continue, in some small way, the stuff we loved about our work at aQ, writing about bands and releases we dig (or maybe don't dig, that'll be a fun change of pace) and connecting with likeminded people. Also, we have a BIG project planned, the long-awaited big book of selected aQuarius reviews, so this will be the venue for updates on that as work progresses.
Ok, you may be wondering also why the site is called what it's called. Well, "Why... do you like it?" was sort of a game we played at aQuarius, when if somebody, Allan for instance, was playing some music at his desk, and then Andee for instance got curious and asked what Allan was listening to, well, Allan would invariably (annoyingly?) reply, "Why... do you like it?" rather than simply answer the question with the name of the band or album. It was a test, really. 'Cause then Andee (or whomever) would be put on the spot to decide if they liked the music or not, without knowing what it was, just purely based on hearing it, and sometimes this resulted in Andee (again, for instance) admitting he liked something that he'd previously expressed disdain for, or alternatively, saying he didn't care for something that it would be revealed he'd earlier written a rave review all about... That was always fun. So, the phrase kind of represents a value we hold, of trying to take music for what it is, without any preconceptions of "coolness" or "hipness" or whatever. It's all equal to the ears, let them be the judge.
