Record Store Tales

Part 73: First-ever guest shot! “Crank It Up”

My good buddy pen-named: Statham, who I met through the record store, has kept in touch via email over the years.  We share many common interests, one of which is collecting music.  We’ve helped each other find many treasures over the last 15 years. 

I thought it might be a fun change of pace (instead of listening to me all the time) to get his perspective on the record store days!

For a view from the other side of the counter, here’s Statham!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 73:  Crank It Up! by Statham

Mike asked me to write up something about any memories I have of the old days, back in the record store where he worked. I’ll give it a go.

I do not recall my first-ever visit to Mike’s store. My first memory of that particular company is of taking a shoebox full of old CDs I never played to their other location. But when I moved across town, Mike’s store was my mainstay. I was in there all the time.

You should know, I live in record stores. Always have, since I was old enough to buy my own music. I love the thrill of the hunt, the rare find, the new-to-me disc that branches my brain out into whole new fields of things previously unknown to me. Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve haunted the record shops. And mostly the used-CD places… the new-CD corporate shops were good for new releases, not usually much else.

You should also know that I make it an unofficial habit to befriend at least one person in the shops that I like. Not in a needy way, not in a go-for-drinks sort of way, and definitely not in a creepy stalker way. Just a friendly thing, get to know them, and over time they learn my tastes too. It’s amazing how often they’d set aside stuff they thought I’d like (which I’d usually buy). And I’ve learned a ton from them, too. I’ve lived lots of places so far in my life, and have maintained this practice. Record store guys can be cool. Like Mike. Always super-helpful, to a fault sometimes. VERY knowledgeable. And his enthusiasm was absolutely infectious. Also, Mike’s a Sloan fan. And in my experience, this is generally the mark of a bright, caring and solid person. Hooray for Sloan!

Specific memories of the shop? Man, that was 16 years ago. But let’s see if I can cough up a few dusty recollections…

– Mike sold me my first Jon Spencer Blues Explosion CD (Now I Got Worry). He wasn’t convinced I’d like it, but he let me play it on the headphones, and I took it home. I am a lifelong fan of those guys now. If I don’t have everything they did, I have most of it. And it’s all awesome.

– I sold off all my Zeppelin albums one time. I just never played them, was probably listening to punk at the time and found them bloated, and I also probably needed the money. Mike was incredulous, tried quite hard to dissuade me. He eventually took them but still told me I was nuts. I probably was.

– One I definitely regret: I sold my Gits albums to Mike. I was in a different phase (probably jazz), and figured they were easy to replace. Ha! Have you any idea how many years I looked before getting most of those back again, when I realized my blunder? Remember, the internets were not then what they are now. And hey, I still need an old original CD copy of Frenching The Bully, too, so if anyone reading this has a good source, please leave a comment, thanks!

Statham selling his stuff

– I bought the Jewel record (the one with Hands on it) off Mike one time, when it was a new release. I think I just had that song in my head. Mike was sure I’d lost my mind. He told me he wouldn’t take it back in trade from me until at least one week had passed. Trust me, one week and one day, I took it back. He was right.

– I remember picking up the Black Crowes Sho’ Nuff box set for Mike, as I was going to Toronto anyway (and getting one for myself). No worries there, mate.

– I even applied to work at Mike’s store one time, too. They had this test you had to do, to try to see how much you knew about music. I guess they were weeding out the wannabes. Hell, I listen to music and pay attention to it constantly, and half of the stuff they had on there, I had no idea. So I got playful. I developed a “File Under” system. Like, Carole King was File Under: Stuff Your Mom Likes. And for ones I didn’t know, I made something up based on the band name or album title. I really was just taking the piss. Apparently, the manager wanted to interview me based on my results, but I’d just gotten another job anyway. To this day, I wonder how my life would have been different if I’d gotten that job.

I’m sure there are other memories that will come to me, now that I’m thinking about it. Maybe enough for a second instalment, if Mike would have me back as a guest. You know, to this day I still own many of the CDs I bought off Mike. I’ve lugged these things halfway across the country and back. It’s a sign of respect, man. Hold on to the good ones – both the albums and the good guys that sold ’em to you. I always do.

Part 72: Sloan

One thing I hate:  Drama queens.  Especially now that I am older.  Now that I am older I have zero time for drama queens.  People who bring drama with them just need to stay away.

Unfortunately in my experience, there’s always a drama queen or two at a record store.  Even worse when they’re in a position of power.  Such was my experience in seeing one of my favourite Canadian bands:  Sloan.

It was February 2000, and Sloan were touring behind their latest release, the underrated Between The Bridges album.  I bought it twice, I liked it so much:  On September 12, 1999, I received my pre-order from HMV, which contained two exclusive trading cards (still sealed today).  Then in October, while seeing Phantom of the Opera in Toronto (Paul Stanley, woo!) I picked up the Japanese import which had two bonus cuts:  “Summer’s My Season”, and “At the Edge of the Scene”.

I loved “Summer’s My Season”.  Besides being a great Chris song, it contains my favourite Sloan lyric of all time:

You must remember this

Kiss is still just Kiss

Their style is denial

I’ll meet you when we’re older

Consider it a race

But who would be the one to paint their face?

Ace!

When Sloan hit Lulu’s Roadhouse in February we all bought tickets.  We grabbed a table on the left side of the massive bar (world’s longest when it was open, actually) and enjoyed an opening set by The Flashing Lights.

Myself and Trev and a couple others sat on the stage side of the table, facing the stage (somewhat obviously).  Some of the girls sat on the opposite side of the table, also facing the stage.  Now, logically, this means we were not facing each other.  Normally when you go to a concert you want to look at the stage.

Sloan came on, and played all of Between the Bridges.  They played a lot of Navy Blues and One Chord, too.  They were friggin’ amazing.  Weirdly, they played absolutely nothing from the EP, nor Smeared, nor Twice Removed.  Not even “Underwhelmed”.  While this surprised me, I was hardly disappointed, especially when Chris came out and played “Summer’s My Season”.  I sang (shouted) along to every friggin’ word even though nobody else in the hall seemed to know the song.  I didn’t care.  It’s a fucking concert!  It’s like Dee Snider says…are you worried about somebody laughing at you at a fucking concert?

Besides, how likely are we ever to be treated to all of Between the Bridges again?  Probably not too likely, especially with “Summer’s My Season” intact.  Not an experience to be taken for granted.

Anyway, I rocked out, hard, played air guitar, air drums, sang, shouted, had an awesome time.  The girls, apparently, did not.

The following Monday at work, one of them spilled the beans.  “Sloan sucked.  That was one of the worst concerts I’ve ever seen.”

OK, whatever, that’s a matter of opinion I guess.  Sloan had just released the double live 4 Nights at the Palais Royale less than a year earlier so I was fully saturated with live versions of the old songs.  I wanted new songs and I got them.

But this was more than a matter of favourite albums.  Apparently, I was told, “You guys were being total snobs, too.”

“What?  Snobs?  What you are talking about?”

“Well, you guys ignored us all night.  You didn’t even talk to us.”

Oh.  My.  God.  It was a fucking concert, not a visit to the fucking mall!  It was 115 dB that night!  Are you fucking kidding me?  And don’t you remember me talking to you afterwards about what a great time I had?  I vehemently denied all accusations but it was absolutely no use.

This led to a week of cold shoulders, snitty comments, and silent treatments.  Always a good time, particularly when it involves people with more seniority than you, too!  Drama.  Never was a big fan of it.  But even though this behaviour soured the whole experiece for me (believe me, even when stuff smoothed out, the concert was never brought up again), I still love that era of Sloan, that album, and all the songs they played that night.  Just that I never even entertained the idea of going to see a concert with that group of people again!

 

Part 71/ REVIEW: Pink Floyd – Shine On (9 disc box set)

Shine On came out in ’92, I got my copy 11 years later.  First, the story of how I acquired this exceptional copy, and then the review!

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 71:  Shine On

I still have the receipt:  I paid $199.99 on February 12 2003.  New, it’s going for about $440 on Amazon.com these days.  I paid a lot, that is true; we did not get staff discounts on big ticket things such as this.  However, when I encountered Shine On that day, I’d never seen one in better shape.

The hardcover book, containing 110 large pages of text, photos, artwork and credits, was still sealed in plastic.  Nobody had even bothered to open it.  The eight artwork post cards were intact in the black envelope.  The little black fold-out display box was still folded, and remains so to this day.  It’s a very nice touch but I prefer to keep mine as I found it.

The discs, each housed in its own shiny black plastic case, are all mint.  Maybe some were never played before I got hold of it.  The cases are also nearly spotless.  Most of the time, the biggest defect with used copies of this set were broken cases.  Each case was unique:  The front of the case had a small image of the album, and the spine of the case had a piece of a rainbow embossed.  Put all 8 CD cases together in the correct order and you get an image of the Dark Side prism effect.  That’s why the set comes with that little cardboard display – in case you felt like showing them off this way.

Lastly, the bonus CD, The Early Singles, is intact.  A set in this condition was a rarity and I’d never seen better.  Over the years, every set I encountered had a defect of some kind, major or minor:

  • The bonus CD would be missing
  • One or more discs badly scratched
  • One or more cases badly broken
  • One or more postcards or pieces missing
  • The box itself would sometimes be missing and all you’d get is the discs with the little display case
  • Or, just the book would be missing
  • Once, the book was warped and damaged from excessive moisture

You can see why I jumped at the chance.  A box of this condition, used, well that could not be passed up. Likely I’d never see one again that wasn’t sealed brand new — but as a deleted catalogue item, new copies were upwards of $300 at the time.

So, no staff discount?  No problem.  VISA to the rescue.

A $200 sale was a good chunk of my daily quota.  Head office was in the habit of calling at 5 and checking the sales for the day so far.  I read mine off, which was high obviously, but didn’t say why it was high.

“Wow!  Good for you Mikey!  You’ve been busy, keep it up.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a good day y’know,” I responded.  May as well take the credit for it too, right, hell it was my money.

I was dating Radio Statio Girl at the time.  However I was already starting to get cynical about our prospects, having been dumped once already by this time.  Our second go-round was pleasant but a bit tense.  I was supposed to drive down to her place that night, but I decided to spend the evening with Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason instead.

I called.  “Yeah, hey.  I’m not feeling well at all.  I think I’m going to puke.”

Considering the much bigger lies she tossed my way before and after, I thought my little white lie was pretty innocuous.  Especially when I was immersed in Meddle for the first time ever!

PINK FLOYD – Shine On (9 disc box set) (1992)

At the time of release, this was probably the coolest way to get some of the best Floyd discs.  Now with Immersion Editions, Why Pink Floyd…?, fresh remasters, and 5.1 mixes all available, this seems pretty basic.  Indeed, all albums are simple 1992-ish remasterings, no bonus material aside from the afforementioned The Early Singles disc.  And just FYI, you can often find that disc on its own.  Somehow it got separated from a lot of Shine On box sets.

As I described in my story above, the box’s contents are elaborate and fragile, and difficult to find complete.  This is a heavy, heavy box too — not exactly portable.  I find the remastering to be fine, it was 1992 and it’s probably not as loud as more current editions.  Picky audiophiles, I have no idea which you will prefer.

The albums included are as follows:

Disc 1: A Saucerful of Secrets

Disc 2: Meddle

Disc 3: The Dark Side of the Moon

Disc 4: Wish You Were Here

Disc 5: Animals

Disc 6: The Wall part one

Disc 7: The Wall part two

Disc 8: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Disc 9: The Early Singles

So you’ll notice right away that there are some important albums missing.  Sure, you can understand why albums like Atom Heart Mother or Obscurred by Clouds were not included in a (merely) 9 disc Floyd box set, if the purpose was to boil it down to essentials.  I think it’s a shame that The Final Cut, one of my favourites, is not inside.  I would have preferred that or Piper at the Gates of Dawn to A Momentary Lapse I think.

The real bonuses to this set are twofold:  The book and The Early Singles.

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I don’t know what the current status of these single A and B sides are, in regards to current CD releases.  I know the Piper three disc set has some of these tracks.  But here’s the contents of The Early Singles:

  1. Arnold Layne
  2. Candy and a Currant Bun
  3. See Emily Play
  4. The Scarecrow
  5. Apples and Oranges
  6. Paintbox
  7. It Would Be So Nice
  8. Julia Dream
  9. Point Me At the Sky
  10. Careful With That Axe, Eugene

There are no liner notes with this disc.  I believe all tracks are stereo mixes.

The book is absolutely stunning and will take days to read.  There are extensive interviews from magazine sources, lyrics, liner notes, a nice discography, and loads of old reviews both gushing and nasty.  There’s plenty of artwork and photos to look at, too.

I won’t go too deeply into the music.  Reviewing these albums each on their own would be a monumental task.  Suffice to say that there is much brilliance within.  I think both Dark Side and The Wall are complete triumphs while Meddle and Animals come very very close to that level.  There is much to love here, and much that will take many listens to penetrate.

As a set, this is not perfect and I think the biggest flaw is the selection of albums.  Having said that, for a collector who wants a beautiful deluxe collector’s item, this is easily a:

4/5 stars.

For people who would rather have something with more music on it, you’re better off going with some of the more recent reissues.

Alex, Tom, Meat, Geddy

Part 70: Canada Day Weekend Rush!

Canada Day Weekend, 1997.  Rush were closing up their final bunch of dates on Leg 2 of the Test For Echo tour (June 30 and July 2).  Tom, myself, Trev, and several other record store guys had the whole weekend off and went to see Rush on the Monday show, which was the first of the two shows.  Outdoor show, at Molson.  We did not know that a few months later, Neil Peart would experience unbelievable personal tragedy.  For years, it appeared that we had seen some of the final Rush shows, ever….

One of the guys,Troy, brought his younger brother Tyler. Tyler worshipped Zeppelin.  Still does.  He named his (black) dog “Zep”.  Back then, he was 17 and had never heard Rush.  He thought Bonham was absolutely the greatest drummer who ever lived.  We told him, “Tyler, Bonham was god-like.  But you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Neil Peart.”  He scoffed.

We brought some beer in the trunk of the car, and snuck into the bushes and had some drinks.  We stumbled into several groups of people in the bushes, drinking, smoking (cigarettes I’m sure) and partying.  It was great.  We were all there, every one of us, to bask in the glory that is Rush.  It was a giant communal party.  Some people were already out of it, and slurring, “Duuuude…they’re gonna play 2112 dude!  We are the priests of the temples of the sphinx! (sic)”

Indeed, I had heard from one of my customers at the store, that Rush were playing all of side 1 of 2112 on this tour.  What would that sound like?  Could Geddy even sing it anymore?

There was no opening act.  There was instead a brief intro before Rush hit the stage to “Dreamline”.

At the halfway point, Rush did indeed play side 1 of 2112 (as chronicled on their Different Stages LP).  They took a brief break before coming back to finish the show.  These being the last Toronto shows of the tour, the roadies were out there clowning around, playing with puppets, all to the delight of the patriotic crowd.

Of course, the Professor did his unbelievable drum solo.  This was around the time that Freddie Gruber had been teaching Neil, and Peart was beginning to feel jazzier in his style.

Tyler was blown away.  “You were right…that guy was almost as good as Bonham!”

Tom and the rest of the guys were so blown away, they actually bought some more tickets from scalpers and came back to see the second show on July 2.

By far, the best and most patriotic Canada Day Weekend I ever had was seeing Rush.  What could be more patriotic than rocking to Canada’s official ambassadors of music?

Part 68: The Fucked-Up Tooth

You think you’d remember something like losing a tooth at work.

So it was weird one day, when while cleaning the store, I found an old rotten tooth behind the counter!  Like, way behind the counter, like where the dust bunnies multiply at the edge of carpeting and corner.

I didn’t know it was a tooth when I picked it up.  I thought it was a stone.  I picked it up and turned it over and half of it was black and/or missing and it was obviously a molar.   But where the fuck did it come from?  I was perplexed!  This is the store that I opened, have always helmed, I knew everybody that worked here, ever.  Where the fuck did this tooth come from?

I mean, we were a CD store!  It’s pretty straightforward.  Lots of discs, lots of cases, lots of paper sleeves.  Not a lot of teeth.

Today, I can only really see one plausible scenario.  Since we bought and sold discs, when we bought ’em, they often came in big boxes or bags that have obviously been sitting around.

So, imagine this:  Scuzzy crackhead man or woman walks in with a big brown cardboard box full of shitty scratched up Steve Miller discs.  In the bottom of the box, God knows how, but in the bottom there’s an old rotten tooth.  When the staff get the boxes in, they often temporarily stash them behind the counter, right up against the wall where the dust bunnies roam.  Tooth gets dislodged, only to be found on the next thorough cleaning…

That’s just my theory.  You’re welcome to come up with your own.  Bottom line though, how the fuck does an old rotten tooth end up in the carpeting of a CD store?  That’s the biggest mystery I ever encountered.

The answer now is probably lost to the sands of time.  Like the tooth.  Which I threw in the trash seconds later!

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Part 67: Klassic Kwotes VIII!

1.  “Can I return this CD?” said the man who handed me an empty CD case.

2.  One Boxing Day, I helped a lovely family of four (dad, mom, two boys) pick out roughly $100 worth of music.  They got gift certificates for Christmas.  It took about an hour to help them, as (of course) they wanted to listen to everything first.  I collected all the discs from the players, rang in the order, and they handed me a gift certificate for a different fucking CD chain.  When I explained to them, “Sorry, no, we’re not that store.  We’re [insert name].”  A perfectly reasonable response would have been, “Oh man, sorry…sorry to have taken your time.”  But no.  No, the response this time was, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know that?”  Well, maybe by looking at the fucking sign out front before you walk in!

3. Once, we caught a little thief trying to sell us discs that he had just stolen from HMV an hour before.  Tom was on the phone with a cop at the HMV when Tom asked, “Hey, uhh, while I’m talking to you, do you have any Willie Nelson over there?” 

4.It was always kind of funny when people pronounced names wrong, in certain cases.  So when a guy asked me if I had any Bruce Cockburn, I can tell you that it rhymed with clock-burn.  Figuring that I should probably tell him how to pronounce it so he doesn’t go around all over asking for the CD that way, I politely corrected him.  His response was, “Yeah, great, thanks that’ll come in handy next time I talk to him.”

5. “How do I get in there??”  This desperate question was asked by a woman, banging on our windows, not 10 feet away from our actual entrance.

6. “Can I get each of these in a separate bag?”  A guy bought 10 empty CD cases.  He wanted each one bagged on its own so it didn’t get scratched.

7. “Can I ask you a question?  Are you a believer?”  We were also frequently handed pamphlets from Jehova’s Witnesses.

8. “Got bad news for you buddy.  Somebody ripped you off.”  The customer then opened a CD case and showed me there was no disc inside.  Apparently he didn’t notice the signs that said, “All cases are empty”, nor all the discs in storage behind me.

9. That “All cases are empty” sign was more trouble than it was worth.  Multiple times, people would say to me, “So, I have to pay $12 and I just get the case?  Where am I supposed to get the CD?”

10. “Can I use your phone for a sec?”  A common question, in the pre-cell-phone days.  But this guy used the phone for 10 minutes!  And then when the call waiting went off, instead of handing it to me, he answered it!

Part 66: The First Time I Heard Marillion

 

RECORD STORE TALES PART 66:   The First Time I Heard Marillion

Winter – spring, 1999.  The last couple of years had been a messy string of bad dates, break-ups, and bad music.  Heavy metal, at least in this town, spent most of the 90’s in a coma.  I had been stretching out and selectively buying different kinds of music, just due to the sheer lack of quality and selection in new metal music.  I don’t think that really changed until Iron Maiden roared back with Brave New World.  I noticed a seismic shift, a growing pulse, in metal at that time.

Working in the store, I got to try anything I wanted.  I had explored Brit-pop, Australian indi bands, a little electronica, and a lot of mainstream stuff, as long as it had some guitars or aggression to it.

One day, the same guy who sold me that rare Oasis live album  walked in.  He had a whole bunch of remastered albums for sale, among them three Marillion discs:  Script For A Jester’s Tear, Fugazi, and Misplaced Childhood.  These were the remastered versions with the bonus discs.  Absolutely impossible to find in town.  Even hard to get on the leading websites, such as HMV.com and CDnow.

Now, I had definitely heard of Marillion, but never heard Marillion.  I had read about them in M.E.A.T Magazine, and my buddy Tom had a dozen Marillion posters on the wall.  I thought they would be my kind of band, just I had never stumbled upon them before.

I called Tom.

“Tom!  I just got three Marillion remasters in.  Misplaced, Fugazi, and Script.  Do you want?”

“Oooh…he didn’t have Clutching at Straws, did he?” Tom asked.  I replied in the negative.

“Listen,” Tom said.  “You have three great albums there, but if you want to try some Marillion, go for Misplaced, before you try the other two.  You’ll like Misplaced.  The other two can be kind of dense at first.”

I took Tom’s advice, and bought Misplaced.  I brought it to the cottage with me that weekend, and listened to the whole thing on my boombox.

What an experience, immersed in the music at the lake, nobody around, hearing Fish’s smooth voice and sometimes jagged enunciation.  This Fish guy, I didn’t know what he was on about yet, but I was intrigued by three things:

  1. He looked cool.
  2. His lyrics were very poetic, unlike any I’d heard before.
  3. He was Scottish, just when I was starting to get interested in my own Scottish half-background.

“Kayleigh” jumped right out at me on the first listen, but soon “Heart of Lothian” followed.  Then “Lavender”, “White Feather”…the album really spoke to me!  I get it!  It’s about girls, right?

In the same Oasis article mentioned above, I talked about being an obsessive compulsive collector.  Well, after buying Fugazi and Seasons End in short order, I was off to the races.  I went to their website and bought everything.  Every friggin’ thing.

Everybody at work hated Marillion.  Everybody!  I remember being at a record store party once.  This guy named “German Mike” was there, he was somebody’s friend that had flown in.  From Germany.  Anyway, they were on the topic of whatever new bands were happening at the time.  I broke in, saying, “I’ve actually been going back to discover old bands.  I’m really into Marillion right now.”

“Fuck Marillion,” said German Mike.  He later puked potato chips all over his shirt.

Nah, sorry German Mike.  I’ll stick to Marillion, but maybe you should cut the chicken chips!

Pre-Marillion:  douche. 

Marillion is good for you!  

Girlfriend!  Thanks, Marillion! 

Part 65: Vinyl

RECORD STORE TALES Part 65: Vinyl

We’d always dabbled in vinyl.  We didn’t do a lot of vinyl, it was the 90’s after all, and vinyl was dead.  We didn’t buy it used, but sometimes something big came out on vinyl that we had to carry.  For example:

In 1994, Pearl Jam released Vitalogy on LP a week earlier than the CD.  We stocked five and they sold out on day one.

In 1996, Soundgarden came out with Down On The Upside LP a week earlier than the CD, so we stocked that.  I can’t remember how many we stocked, but I do remember it took years to sell them!

My copy, still sealed...that's my handwriting too.

My copy, still sealed…that’s my handwriting too.

A bit later on, my buddy Tom opened his own branch and decided to stock used vinyl.  He was the only one to try it, he had a vinyl room in the back.  They phased the vinyl out rapidly after Tom moved on, as he was the chief expert buyer.  However during the period that Tom carried vinyl, I filled so many gaps in my collection.

Here’s some examples.  You have to remember that at the time, these might not have been out on any digital format at all, and downloading hadn’t hit us yet.

  • Ozzy’s Live EP, still unreleased on any digital format today.
  • Helix’s first two, Breaking Loose and White Lace & Black Leather albums, autographed by the late Paul Hackman.  I think these were in Tom’s 25 cent bin.
  • Hear N’ Aid, Ronnie James Dio’s 1986 charity LP featuring exclusive tracks from Kiss and others.
  • Guns N’ Roses 12″ single for “Patience” with an exclusive interview with Axl on the B-side
  • Kim Mitchell, the legendary Max Webster frontman’s first solo foray from 1982.  Easily my favourite record of his entire storied career, and impossible to find on CD under $100.
  • Max Webster’s Live Magnetic Air from 1979, a hard find on CD for sure.

That’s just a sampling, there were many more.  And that’s just that stuff that I bought.  I’m sure Tom saw many a rare disc float his way.

There was one record I’ll never forget.  This sucker was worth $100 right there.  It was by a band from Oshawa Ontario, called Christmas.  It had a tank on the cover.  I guess they had this cult following and only a small quantity of records were made, let alone survived.  And musically, it wasn’t bad.

I’m glad that vinyl is back in a fairly significant way again.  I enjoy buying it, and I enjoy playing it.

I want a USB turntable for my birthday.  I accept gifts.

Part 64: Niagara Falls

RECORD STORE TALES Part 64:  Niagara Falls

I never was the traveling kind, so when I had to spend a weekend working Niagara Falls, I wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect.  I warmed up to the idea after I met Mike and Greg, the new owners of our latest franchise.

I packed the Deep Purple box set in the car, a box of pepperettes, and hit the highway.  I arrived at the store on a bitter cold Saturday morning, and we worked the day away.  It was a tiring day, as we bought and shelved a lot of merchandise that day.  We were constantly pricing discs.

The best thing about Niagara was the co-owner Mike.  He was a funny guy.  Great stories.  Massive Kiss fan.  Great stories about meeting Gene and being promised all sorts of things on the forthcoming Kiss box set.  Mike also played bass.  He was a long, long time Record Store Guy.

Mike was in this insane punk band called The Legendary Klopeks.  He wore a blonde pigtail wig and went by the name of Lemon Kurri Klopek.  The lead singer, Josh, was Sweet Pepper Klopek.  He is quite legendary today as an extreme…well I dunno what you call it but he bleeds a lot and he wrestles and he is a Guiness’ Book record holder for something that nobody should really do.

Their lyrics were hilarious.  Take, for example, “Ric Flair”:

I wanna (something something?)

I wanna do a “woo” (“WOOO!”)

I wanna be like Ric

’cause he’s so fucking cool

I want a son

who doesn’t suck

That’s the only thing that’s wrong with Ric

So who gives a fuck?

He’s the king, the king of the ring,

He’ll fuck you up just like it ain’t no thing.

Every song on the sophomore album Straight To Hell ends with the words, “Fuck you!”  Even the short ones, like “Where’s My Soup?”  The lyrics to “Where’s My Soup?” are as follows:

Where’s my soup?

Fuck you!

The other owner, Greg, did merch for Blue Rodeo and in fact when he said this, I realized I’d seen him at the last Blue Rodeo gig that I attended.  I bought a shirt from him!

Because of the Legendary Klopeks, Niagara had a bit of, I don’t know how to put this…an entourage, maybe?  All interesting characters.  The most interesting was Gary James Dean. Otherwise known as The Deaner.

The less said about the Deaner, the better.  But I will say this.   He liked to tell people that he masturbated with his Justin Timberlake doll.  And he phoned about 25 times a day.  Not even exaggerating about that.

Anyway, Niagara was a fun store to work in.  They always played good music, and they had great stories.  Today Mike tours with Steve Earle, doing his merch, and I am insanely happy for him and jealous at the same time.  He’ll post a picture on Facebook like, “Me and Steve eating sushi.”  Stuff like that.

The best score that I got from that store was actually a gift from Mike.  It was the Bruce Dickinson CD single for “All The Young Dudes”, the Mott the Hoople cover.  (B-sides:  the acoustic “Darkness Be My Friend”, and the AC/DC cover “Sin City”.)

I’ll always remember good times in the Falls:  Rock n’ Roll, the Klopeks, sushi, and the Deaner!

Part 69: Porn Don’t Go Platinum

RECORD STORE TALES PART 69:  Porn Don’t Go Platinum

Yeah, it happened.  Every once in a while, someone would try to sell porn to us.  Us, a mainstream, family-oriented used CD store.

On one occasion which, sadly, I was not there to witness, I was told that the video in question was anime “robot porn”.  I don’t know what that really means, in terms of, what you will see on the video screen.  However that description alone was enough to politely turn down the video in question.

Another time, some porn came into Trevor’s store.  Trevor declined it, but the customer left it behind anyway.  At the time, Trev and I were roomates.  We were renting this shitty basement apartment.  Good times for sure, but the hallways of the building always smelled like fish.

I went to the cottage one weekend, and Trev surprised me upon my return.  Upon my bed was that porn tape.  He wasn’t home, so I decided, “What the hell?”  I removed the tape from its cardboard shell, placed in the VCR, and washed my hands.  I thought, “I wonder what kind of porn our clientele are into?”  The store was in Cambridge so I expected the quality to be less than stellar.

Well, what I saw horrified me.  This chick with missing teeth, going at it with four dudes, with the cheesiest piano music in the background, like John Tesh cheesey.  I couldn’t handle the missing teeth though, they were so friggin’ gross…

So:  Apparently, according to a survey of one, people in Cambridge watch toothless cheesey porn with John Tesh sounding music in the background.  Way to go Cambridge!