Towards the end of the record store days, I was prone to growing an awesome beard. I also wear glasses and enjoy wearing baseball hats. Because of this, and an obsessive love of movies, I was told that I kinda-sorta-in-a-weird way resembled Steven Speilberg.
But not quite enough, so instead my nickname became Señor Spielbergo.
I grew back the Señor Spielbergo beard this year! It’s much more grey. I tricked my wife into letting me grow it back. I told her it was my “playoff beard”.
But, the Rangers were eliminated, so I have to shave it. She told me so. So this is your last look (in 2012) at the Señor Spielbergo/playoff beard! It was an awesome beard. Easily the best since the record store days!
Everybody thinks working at a record store is all fun and games, but we worked harder than most. As such, chatting was frowned upon. For example I got in shit one time because a guy that I worked with had just bought the Nirvana box set, and wanted to show me.
Another manager at another store figured out how you could do “instant messaging” back and forth using our computer system. The first time he sent me one, it was completely unexpected.
I’ll back up a bit to set the context. This other guy, Joe, always joked with me that he had a thing for my mom. He saw me with my mom one day and started making comments like, “Your mom’s hot. I’m totally going to steal her from your dad.”
When he really wanted to bug me, he’d say, “After I marry your mom, I’m going to make you call me dad!”
Anyway, it was all in good fun, it was a running joke. I probably made jokes just as crude back to him.
One morning I was opening the store, and my computer beeped the sound that told me, “An order just arrived, please read me!” So I did. Only the order looked something like this.
ARTIST: I’m totally going to
TITLE: bone your mom.
Of course it was Joe, and he was a genius for figuring this out. He clicked on a CD to order from my store, only he figured out that after doing so, he could delete the text and replace it with anything else. As soon as I saw the message I realized how he’d done it, and I messaged him back.
So, periodically through the weeks, my computer would beep, only it wouldn’t be an order. It was a message from Joe usually saying something crude about my mom, or telling me, “I just took a massive shit that stunk up the entire store.” Stuff like that. It made me laugh, and back to the job.
Just thinking about these messages are making me laugh, man, he used to send some messed up shit!
This only lasted a few weeks. One Monday morning, before I opened, we were caught. One of the operations people was at the counter when my computer beeped. Well wouldn’t you know it? It was some X-rated message regarding my mom. It didn’t take much for Operations to figure out who the two guilty parties were. We were interrogated as to who invented this trick (they didn’t believe me that I hadn’t) and warned that it wasn’t going to happen again.
Ahh well.
On a closing note: My mom reads my blog. Mom did know about Joe’s “crush” on her. Until now I don’t think she knew how graphic he gets. Sorry mom!
You could always tell the strippers when they walked in (especially in Cambridge). You could especially tell when they talked. They all had that Smoker’s Voice…you know the one? The one that makes them sound like the Bouvier sisters? And they all had skin the colour and texture of my jacket.
Anyway, they’d call you “hun”, or “love” or whatever. As in, would you like a bag? “No, thanks hun.”
Then they’d laugh…a big barrel “HAAA HA HA HA!” laugh, buy some dance music shit for their show, and be out the door. They’d be back every month or so to buy updated music for their acts, and they’d tell you that’s what they were buying it for.
When I was at the store, I grew a very thick skin. Unfortunately record store customers can be dicks, a considerable percentage in fact, especially when you throw in the “buy and sell” factor. Then you get people looking for money for every reason you can imagine. I’ve had people throw things at me. I’ve had people call me an asshole. I’ve had people call me gay (not that there is anything wrong with that!), question my eyesight, and question my hearing.
One guy was pissed off that his CD was too scratched for me to buy. So instead of keeping a CD that he claimed played perfectly fine, he chose to shatter it in his hands, sending little plastic shrapnel shards at my face.
Once I had a pencil thrown at my head. I can’t even remember the context anymore, but I do remember that Kam was having issues with a customer. I assume it was over the selling of used CDs to the store, it always was. Kam seemed to be struggling a bit, so I stepped over to help. Again I don’t remember the details of what happened, but he zeroed in on me, and didn’t cool down. I was probably backing Kam up in whatever he was saying. This guy was pissed. He didn’t give a shit about Kam, he asked for my name. I remember thinking, “My name? What the hell did I do to him?” He then threw the pencil at my head, and walked out.
I said to Kam, “I don’t make enough money to put up with people throwing shit at my head.”
But, like I said, you grow a thick skin. You go home and on to the next day. The only thing left is a good Record Store Tale.
When I first started out, the boss taught me a really smart lesson.
If someone comes in and asks for something we don’t have, never say, ‘I can order it for you’. Instead, you should say, “I can call you when the next one comes in”.
That was really smart. People feel guilty about ordering stuff, so not all people want to do that. But if you word it as if it was coming in anyway, they don’t feel bad about putting you out, and it seems like less of a big deal if they don’t pick it up.
Usually the next question was, “When is the next one coming in?” You’d give the standard answer of “one to two weeks”. And that usually was the case.
Except this one time, a guy walked in looking for the Stones. Specifically, he wanted Love You Live.
“Have you heard of a Rolling Stones album called Love You Live?” he began. Of course, I had. Live at the El Mocambo in Toronto. I knew we didn’t stock it, but the Stones were on Sony and easy to get.
“Yep, I know it. We don’t have one in right now, but I can give you a call when the next one comes in,” went the standard answer.
“Really?” he asked. “You carry that?”
“Oh sure,” I said. “We have usually have it in, I just sold our copy last week, so a re-stock is on order anyway,” I lied.
He seemed absolutely shocked, then overjoyed, then offered me $50 personally to get it in for him. That is, the price of the CD plus a $50 tip. That seemed a little out of place to me, but hey, guy was a fan, right?
What I neglected to do was check the catalog from our distrubuter. Instead, I just wrote the guy’s name and number down and told him we’d give him a call. Well, when the boss went to order that CD, it was not in the catalogue. It also wasn’t in the importer’s catalog. However, that didn’t mean we couldn’t get it, so he dutifully ordered it anyway and I assumed all would be well.
For whatever reason, Love You Live (much like some other important albums like Kill ‘Em All and Garage Days) went out of print in the 90’s. This was usually due to record label disputes and whatnot. Love You Live was commanding $50 and $60 price tags, used, at record shows at that time. I was not aware of this. No wonder the guy seemed so excited.
Well, it took a few weeks for me to realize that the CD was not coming in. In those few weeks, the guy showed up every Wednesday asking if his disc was in. He looked so crushed every time I told him no. But it should be here next week.
The album was remastered and reissued in 1998 at a reasonable price, and remastered yet again in 2010 to milk it one more time.
Still, I want to personally apologize to Mr. Stones Fan for probably ruining your year. Sorry man. My bad.
Got this update from my buddy Aaron:
Dude
Yeah, I had to get my copy of Love You Live, at the time, in the box set I got as a gift. Covered 1971-1989. It’s a sweet live record. Especially the last four tracks of the set, holy.
My memory tells me there were others of theirs that were hard to get for a long time, too (before remasters). Couldn’t tell you which ones, though. I had them all. ;)
This was an idea that came from Kevin. For a while there, he was making a new mix CD every month, made up of the best stuff he was listening to in the last 30 days or so. The idea was, you’d have a neat chronicle of your most impactful listening experiences. And a good mix CD in general.
Knowing that I was into making mix discs, Kevin passed this concept down to me. I held it faithfully for three months. Then it became every other month…every six months…when I felt like it…etc.
But, the end result is, I do have a chronicle of whatever period I’m capturing on those discs.
And I called them Integrity Mix.
For example, I have one here that was made in October of 2004. It has goofy stuff (William Shatner). It has stuff that reminded me of friends (“Mr. Bad Guy” by Freddie Mercury) and enemies (“Asshole” by Gene Simmons).
But there’s also a subtle common thread in some of the songs. This was during a long stint in Oakville. I was sinking pretty low at that time. I was spending 2 1/2 hours commuting every day, minimum. I was working long hours and I wasn’t eating right. I was stressed beyond my limit. But mostly I was lonely and homesick a lot of that time.
So you see songs with titles like “Wish I Could Be There”, “Comin’ Home”, “We Stand Alone”, “To Be Alive Again”, “By the Grace of God” and “The Battle Rages On”. The sounds are equally melancholy: “Loosen My Strings” by Deep Purple is an example, but it doesn’t get any sadder sounding than “This is the Day” by Captain Beefheart. The mix disc from the following month, November, got even darker.
On the other hand, I have the mix CD from the month Jen and I got married. It has tunes on it by Kiss (“And Then She Kissed Me”), The Darkness (“I Believe in a Thing Called Love”), the Beatles (“Here Comes the Sun”), and Zappa (“Peaches en Regalia”) which to me reflect a much more positive state of mind!
It’s cool that I have those discs, and they are always a great listen no matter what state of mind you’re in. Think about it: It’s the best of the best of the best shit you were listening to for any given month of your life. I don’t get embarassed by what I was listening to 10 years ago, and we always have a blast playing these in the car.
When customers order discs, as a rule of thumb, it was always a good idea to, at minimum, get the name of the person you are ordering for. So, imagine the scenario about to unfold….
Perfectly normal looking middle aged guy, dressed in a suit and tie, walks in and wants some Stevie Ray Vaughan. I say, OK, I can get you such-and-such an album for ‘x’ amount of dollars and I can get it here before the weekend. Are you interested? Can I get your name?
“Yeah, can you hold it for S.F.G?”
S.F.G.? That’s who you want us to ask for on the phone?
“Yeah. Short Fat Guy. S.F.G. See ya.”
I swear to God because you can’t make this shit up, he always gave that as his name. I had to call him once. “Hi, is this S.F.G.?”
I’ll tell you something, it was a game we all played with each other, when we had to call customers for their orders. But nobody ever wanted to call the ones with the weird names. S.F.G. Koolio. Yeah, one guy was in the system as “Koolio”.
So we’d always leave the weird named ones for whoever was working next. If I was working in the day, I would put a note on it saying, “Call during evening.” If I was working the night, I would write a note saying, “Number busy, try during day.”
Check out the cool video below for some SFG…err…I mean SRV!
Shortly after we kicked off our website, we ran into a brand new breed of customer. This breed was probably accidentally created in a lab when scientists cross the “annoying customer” with the “computer” and tossed in some DNA from “the internet”.
These guys bought the same titles, over and over and over again. Then they would re-sell them on eBay and double their money. The problem is these guys would get up early in the morning, check the website updates, and snag them before sane people wake up.
Some of the titles they were always hunting for:
Alanis Morissette – Alanis
Alanis Morissette – Now is the Time
These were Alanis’ first two dance-pop discs that have never been reissued. For obvious reasons.
Another:
Last of the Mohicans – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
This classic score was out of print for a long time. That, and it’s dramatic quality, made it a classic for eBaying.
The Traveling Wilburys – Vol 1
The Traveling Wilburys – Vol 3
Before these two albums were reissued recently with bonus material, they were completely unavailable. People were willing to pay up to and over $50 for the first one on eBay.
There were pretty strict company rules about staff buying product for resale on eBay for their own personal profit. You can see why this would be so, the store is not there to supply an employee’s personal eBay business.
However before that rule kicked in, and eBay was new to the world, a few of us tried selling some stuff as an experiment. I remember getting good good money for the following, which I sold multiple times:
Freddie Mercury – Mr. Bad Guy
The Tea Party – Release (EP)
Now it’s almost impossible to imagine a time when you couldn’t get (almost) anything on eBay, if you can afford it. Yet there are still some things I’m hunting for, and I have not found yet on eBay. If you have either of these, drop me a line!
The Cult – Capsule 2
The Sultans of Ping F.C. – Casual Sex in the Cineplex
In 2008, the year we got married, Jen was diagnosed with epilepsy. Some people with epilepsy never have a seizure, once diagnosed and medicated. Unfortunately for us, Jen is not one of those people.
It’s been a long hard struggle, but we have made it through so far with humour and a positive attitude. One part of having a positive attitude came from my research on the illness. While researching epilepsy online, I discovered that numerous rock stars have it, but still function! Knowing this was a huge boost to our attitudes, because being on stage involves lots of lights, and lights can be a trigger for many people with epilepsy.
I constructed a 4 O’Clock 4-Play for Craig at 107.5 Dave FM, involving this theme. My goal was simply to raise awareness. I told Craig, “If just one person hears this and learns something about epilepsy then my work is done, because so many people have no idea what it is.” Judging by the feedback I got, it did succeed in getting people thinking!
1. Prince. The royal single-monikered one was born epileptic and suffered a lot of taunting at school. He’s obviously come a long way since! I submitted “Let’s Go Crazy” in my 4-play but Craig subbed in a collaboration with Stevie Nicks which was fine by me!
2. LindsayBuckingham. He was born with a mild form of the disease, but still manages to tour with Fleetwood Mac. Good on him! I chose “Go Your Own Way”.
3. AdamHorovitz. This Beastie Boy is sensitive to flashing lights, which I am sure they use in their stage show. It certainly didn’t seem to hold him back from massive success. For this 4-play I chose “Sabotage”.
4. NeilYoung. He was medicated for epilepsy as a child, but didn’t like the side effects of the meds, which can go all over the spectrum depending on you and your meds. Neil chose to make lifestyle changes instead, and has lived without medication since! And, obviously, rocked the world. Good on you Neil. I used “Rockin’ in the Free World”.
Epilepsy scares a lot of people when they see a seizure happen. Don’t be scared, but if you want to learn more, check out some of these links.
The two most common requests here at LeBrain’s blog are the following:
1. We love the classic quotes!
2. You ramble on too much!
So, for your long weekend pleasure, a single Klassic Quote for you.
Remember way back in Klassic Kwotes II I mentioned a girl who shit her pants in the store? Funnier still was the reaction from one of my regular customers that day. Peter the Rocker. Ahh, Peter, what ever happened to you? Peter the Rocker was from Austria. When the girl shit her pants in the store, the first thing heard in the store, very loudly, was from Peter the Rocker. Picture this in thick Austrian accent.
“Hey man! I think somebody shit their fucking pants in your fucking store, man!”
Also funny was when Peter the Rocker once declared to us, in Austrian accent:
I am no longer Peter the Rocker! Now I am Peter Hard Core!
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