On the outside, 1 Reed St. doesn't really scream rock 'n' roll. Pretty much blends in with the rest of the brick-façaded buildings in Coxsackie's historic waterfront district. But on the inside? Ah, things are different. Very different.

Step in a few yards. Stand between two of the many towering rows of floor-to-ceiling shelving columns that define the interior of this gaping storehouse. Roll your eyes up, down, over, and across their vistas as you try to take in the never-ending stacks and lines of brightly hued wares that make up the stock. Scattered over the exposed-brick walls are framed album covers, posters announcing concerts long since passed, glossy 8x10s bearing autographs. Wedge your way through more rows of shelves, these holding tee-shirts, stacks of magazines—watch out, the doorframe's a little low here—poke your head upstairs: more photos, album covers, a desk; on the wall above and behind it, Brian Wilson's cherubic face smiles down upon you. But what's that smell? Hit you as soon as you came in off the street. If you're under 30, you may not recognize it. But if you're holding near 40, it's something vaguely familiar, something petroleum-based. Hmm...

Wait. Hear that? There. Again. Move a little closer. I think the shelves are singing. I swear. No, really. Just...listen...POW! It's 1965 again. Mod moptops rule the radio and teenagers in garages everywhere do their best to keep up with the sounds, sometimes inventing a few of their own. Cool, but let's see what's on this shelf over here and... Farrr owwt... We're back in '68, man. Psychedelia is flying high in full, fantastic flower; guitar-searing acid-rockers are popping lids and blowing minds. (Tip: Lay off the brown stuff.) How about the next aisle over? Cowabunga! We're talkin' 1963 now; Kennedys, Camelot, and California kids chirping out sun-drenched harmonies, reverb-soaked guitar instrumentals riding the wild airwaves. Surf's up on the Hudson, baby: You're in Sundazed country.

Started by its president and owner, Bob Irwin, Sundazed Music is one of the world's leading reissue labels. Specializing in '60s rock, the imprint is beloved by music fanatics not only for its stunning repackagings of work by certified legends—Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Johnny Cash—but also for its attention to the numerous exceptional but little-known artists the big labels won't bother with—Gandalf, Davie Allen and the Arrows, The Driving Stupid. And it's one of the few labels that, in addition to its superb CD releases, also reissues this music in the format that many feel still sounds the best: vinyl, not only the 12- and 7-inch varieties, but even the occasional 10-inch EP.

"The ability for people to experience this music in the way it was originally released was something I was afraid was being lost," says Irwin, a lifelong Coxsackie resident. "I wanted to make sure that stuff could still be heard by anyone who wanted it, just the way it would've sounded when it first came out."

Slim in black jeans at 49, Irwin's living proof that music is the true elixir of youth, his gray-dusted hair very much at odds with the way he bounces excitedly in his studio chair as he talks about his job. In the 1980s, after managing a chain of record stores in the Albany area, he started doing freelance tape research for (pioneering reissue label) Rhino Records. "They were making tons of money reissuing stuff like The Monkees and the Four Seasons. But there was all of the great stuff by one-hit bands I love, like the Knickerbockers, just sitting there in the vaults and they weren't interested in doing anything with it," he recalls. "Then, one day, [Rhino label co-founder] Richard Foos just asked me, 'Bob, don't you think it's about time you started your own label?' It was the next obvious step."

So in 1989, Irwin and his wife, Mary Irwin, Sundazed's chief financial officer ("chief everything officer," Bob says), took the leap. "We remortgaged our house and started the label with $10,000. I was pretty nervous at the time."

Thanks to the CD boom of the last two decades, the vault doors of many labels, both major and painfully obscure, have been thrown open, smothering music lovers with seemingly endless riches of rare, out-of-print, and previously unreleased material. Unfortunately, so many CD reissues have been severely disappointing, abysmal-sounding, aesthetically underwhelming, poorly annotated junk; more McNuggets than Nuggets. Even most of the majors just can't get it right. But thanks to the stringent standards of Irwin, who does all of the remastering himself using the vintage analog tube equipment in Sundazed's on-site studio—working with the original master tapes whenever possible—the sonics of the more than 700 titles in his label's catalogue perfectly mirror that of their original issues.