I had been trying to get out of the storefront for a while. As a manager you can only take so much retail in a lifetime, even in the Record Store. My reservoir for dealing with the public in a buy/sell situation only had about five or six years in it before I was running on pure fumes. Fortunately e-commerce was becoming a dominant force and I was chosen to manage our new website. It was a good website. The boss knew what he wanted, and didn’t settle for less. He listened to feedback and relentlessly tested the site. It was a challenge since our inventory was changing minute by minute, and technology hadn’t caught up to our needs yet. When it was finally ready to go live, it was a slow start. It began as a one man operation.
I was sent out to do some research. The boss sent me to an e-commerce convention at the Waterloo Inn in mid-2000. I returned with plenty of notes and information about how laws would protect buyers and sellers in online sales.
When we first started e-commerce, the website was a part time job. I was still in the store most of the time, because we were only getting 10-15 orders per day. I would have time allotted to go in the back room and get the e-commerce stuff done: processing credit card orders, responding to customers, keeping the books. Customer complaints were infrequent but fun. Often it involved somebody whining that they couldn’t return something because they lost their receipt, or complaining that something was taking too long to come in. Then I’d investigate and get the other side of the story. There was one guy we all remember that was a constant complainer. He picked up his orders in-store. He carried a briefcase with him, and inside that briefcase was a printout of every order he ever placed.
The boss told me, “This is your baby, run it however works best for you.” So I did and it went well until it was just too busy for one person to run alone. Then they decided to run the e-commerce thing full time. I was given a small staff of about three people, all people who also worked in store. We had a tiny office to work out of. It had a computer, printer, its own VISA machine and all the supplies needed to ship CDs by FedEx. We learned as we went.
I had a really good staff back there and it was fun juggling that with the store. I worked a lot of double shifts, but I was enjoying it. Things were going well, and over time we got busier and busier. They decided they wanted a full-time manager for the position. I was frozen out, and landed back in the store full time. I heard that oft-repeated mantra: “Your time is more valuable to us in the store.”
A couple years’ of work on that website, and suddenly it was pulled away and I was back where I didn’t want to be. My goal was to get out of the store, and I worked hours and hours above and beyond the call of duty to do it. I voluntarily came in on the morning of my Christmas Eve off (year 2000) just to process online orders, so we wouldn’t be slammed by too many when we re-opened. I poured all my energy into it knowing the goal of being out of the store was not far away. Then the floor fell out from under.
They had me transitioning into a new position of being a trainer for new staff and franchisees. That would have been fine except that was a small portion of my time. The franchising stalled and that meant most of the time I was running a store. Promises of ever getting out had evaporated.
Like many things from the formative years, I had plenty of fond memories of toiling away on that website. Most satisfying was the feeling that I was climbing the ladder and working towards the goal of getting away from the front counter. Apparently the bosses felt that the front counter was the thing I was best at, and didn’t consider other factors such as morale and personal growth. It was like being kicked back to highschool after I’d already graduated and moved on to university. The ironic thing was one person who eventually ran the website after me was fired for theft. Change isn’t always good. Maybe they should have left things as-is.
I was speaking to a friend’s son the other day. He’s in his late teens. We chatted about parents and rules and chores and I realized, “The ‘bad’ stuff I used to do as a kid is nothing compared to what teenagers think is ‘bad’ today.” When I was teenager, I had never seen a drug. I didn’t know any kids who drank. None of my friends had tattoos. We liked heavy metal music, which had an aura of evil, but that was just the image. Our lives were pretty mundane…but we did have our fun.
My buddy Bob was the leader when we were growing up. He was creative and had all the best ideas. We invented our own games. A version of street volleyball with no net was one. A backyard obstacle course made of chairs and sprinklers was another. I have a book full of drawings we made for video game ideas we planned on selling to Atari. There is a huge binder (3″) filled with action figure ideas — we called it “Death Team” It was a years-long project that included written story lines and an audio sketch. We imagined the AC/DC instrumental “D.T.” was their theme song. We even made an elaborate board game using old cardboard, a lot of tape, and a bag of army men. Making things (or modifying them) was a big part of our creative process. In 9th grade, we made elaborate cardboard guitars for air guitar purposes. We used yardsticks as the guitar necks, and the bodies were cut from old boxes. We then painted them, using my mom’s workshop with dozens of colours to choose from. We really let it loose for Halloween. We started preparing for Halloween in late August. We began by making heads out of papier-mâché. Ours were crude, but when dressed up with sunglasses, hats or wigs, did the trick. Then we would begin working on an audio tape. This was a 60-minute long compilation of scary bits from Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden albums. We hid some speakers outside and would play the tape on a loop for background scary sounds. Kids loved it. Really small ones were scared, so we had to stop the tape and turn on the lights for them, but 95% thought it was awesome (including parents). We’d see kids across the street, and they’d make a beeline for our house as soon as they saw it. My favourite costume was the one I made in grade 10: Alice Cooper.
We also did a bunch of things that we didn’t tell our parents about. My mother is about to read about some of these things for the first time.
We loved to make prank calls. In the days before call display, Bob and I were the kings. My parents went out every single Wednesday night to take my sister to dance classes. Bob came over, we watched music videos, ate chips, and made prank calls. We didn’t dial random numbers like most kids. We looked up names that we thought were funny in the phone book, and called them. There was one name in the phone book that Bob found especially amusing: Hans. So Bob called up Hans and sang him a little song. “Hans, hans, hans and feet, I have hans and feet.” Somebody named Price was met with the phone call, “Come on down, the price is right!” We really thought we were the most hilarious pair in the world. Then we started pretending we were calling from the Coca Cola company and asking people if they preferred “New” Coke to old Coke. Only Bob had a deep enough voice to fool anyone.
Then, there was the time I nailed “Phat Curtis” in the back of the neck with a projectile I named “The Killerang”. When I was really young, I know I hit Mrs. Reddekopp’s car right in the middle of the hood with one of Bob’s lawn darts. Bob reluctantly retrieved my errant dart, because I was too scared to get it. “You can never ever tell anyone about this,” he cautioned me. We knew that if we kept quiet, everybody would assume another neighbor kid, George, did it. That’s exactly what happened.
Like many other kids of the 80s, we recorded comedy sketches on tape. I have seven volumes of “Mike and Bob” on cassette here. Having played them recently, I can assure you that you are missing out on nothing. We sure did have fun making those tapes, but I can see why Bob found them embarrassing a few years later. The recordings usually took place at my house, in the basement or garage. His parents were pretty strict.
On recording nights, we had to stock up on snacks. The only place within walking distance was the Little Short Stop at Stanley Park Mall, long gone now. We spent many, many days and nights at the Short Stop over the years, pouring over comic books, Star Wars (or Indiana Jones) cards, and candy bars. Later on it was rock magazines. Our snack fix during this period was ketchup flavoured potato chips. The thicker that ketchup dust, the better. When we didn’t get ketchup, we got dill pickle. It was only a 10 minute walk to the mall, but on those recording nights, we probably took half an hour each way. We were busy ringing doorbells.
“Nicky Nicky Nine Door” was what they called it, but we were just being little shits. We would choose houses on the way to the store, ring the doorbell and then hide in the bushes. Once or twice, Bob was almost caught. Sometimes we’d find a house we really liked and hit him up on the way to the store and on the way back. And sometimes, a third for good measure.
We bored of “Nicky Nicky Nine Door” and soon found a new night time occupation: walking around the nearby public school. Stanley Park Sr. Public School was not locked at night. At least, it wasn’t until we were caught. Bob and I would wander the hallways, and buy a pop from the Pepsi machine inside. We didn’t vandalize, and we didn’t steal. All we did was go in and buy a can of soda for each of us. The custodian never seemed to be around, but one night, they were. They told us to get out, we were trespassing! Bob asked, “But can I buy my can of pop still?” The custodian said sure, so Bob walked over to the pop machine, bought his soda, thanked the guy, and left! Is it still trespassing if you buy merchandise? We didn’t think so!
That school was the site of many of our escapades. Most of them were benign: baseball in the park, basketball on the courts, and later on, tennis. We had many late night tennis matches. We ran sprints, we did the long jump, we rode our bikes. When we didn’t have a ghetto blaster playing, we were probably singing. George would often provide the boom box, loaded up with Kiss, Black Sabbath, or Iron Maiden. When boredom set in, our activities became more mischievous. Bob and George were skilled at climbing up to the school’s roof to retrieve lost tennis balls and basketballs. One cold Sunday afternoon, Bob decided he wanted to throw his old bike off the roof. We got a rope, Bob climbed up onto the roof, and then hauled the bike up by the rope. He backed up, made a running start, and tossed the bike off. There was barely any damage! He went for round two, and the front wheel was heavily dented. As he hauled it up one more time for round three, a man in a car drove up to us and told us to leave. Bob asked, “So I can’t throw my bike off this roof?” Wordlessly the man shook his head. Who knew you couldn’t just throw a bike off a roof? It was his bike, right? No harm no foul?
It’s funny to look back at these moments and realize, these were the best times of our childhoods. I don’t think Bob would want his kids to read this. For that reason, I’m leaving out other sordid details and I’ll deny everything else. For example, we may or may not have spelled the word “FUCK” on the lawn of the school in strips of fresh sod. I can’t confirm or deny that we scratched KISS and IRON MAIDEN in the school doors with paper clips. Both of us had pellet guns, and I may or may not have fired a round through George’s mom’s laundry. My dad found pellets in the fence. He knew what we were up to. We denied. We water-ballooned George’s bedroom window. We would hide behind the fence, laughing, listening to him singing “Love Gun” loudly and out of key in his room.
We knew that not all these activities were particularly “good” behaviour (that’s why we didn’t tell our parents), but we considered it all pretty innocent. We did well in school. Both of us got into the schools we wanted to go to. He has a large family and I’m happily married to a beautiful wife. That leads us into the last story.
At my wedding, Bob decided he wanted to make a short speech, and tell a story about us. It was so true, and so funny, that I had tears in my eyes. I mentioned earlier that Bob’s parents were stricter than mine. As such, Bob was not allowed to eat any sweet cereals for breakfast. He complained and complained of shredded wheat. He also was not really allowed to indulge himself in snacks at home, and he really loved our microwave oven. This is how Bob invented some of his classic foods and beverages:
The Froot Loops dog – A hot dog topped with Froot Loops and any other toppings of your choice.
Froot Loops orange juice – A glass of orange juice with a handful of Froot Loops as a garnish.
Froot Loops swamp water – combine milk, orange juice and grape juice in one glass. Top with Froot Loops and serve. In case of Froot Loop shortage, substitute with Apple Jacks.
I’ve been visiting the “worst McDonalds ever” regularly in the past few weeks. All McDonalds stores have been renovated since the 2006 disaster area we encountered in the last installment. They’ve made a number of changes to their menu and how you order.
Where a typical McDonalds used to have a huge counter full of cash registers to order, now they have just one. This is because they have switched over to an automated ordering/paying system using touch-screen kiosks. You might think that removing the human element is a bad thing. When it was first rolled out, it seemed things got slower. Today is another story.
Using the former “worst McDonalds ever” as an example, service is now much faster and accurate. You don’t have to get in line. Just walk in and stroll up to a kiosk. Follow the instructions on screen and touch what you want to order. You can do it as a combo, and you can change sizes quite easily. Making modifications is easy peasy. The kiosk then reviews your order and asks you to confirm it. Once this is done, you can either pay by debit or credit card right at the kiosk, or go to the cash register to pay.
The kiosk spits out your receipt with a number. That number then appears on a big screen that says “now serving”. Your number climbs to the top when your order is ready. Usually this happens quickly.
It used to be the case that we didn’t like to get McDonalds “to go” because by the time you get back, the fries are cold. Everybody knows McDonalds fries are best when they are piping hot. Cold McDonalds fries just don’t cut it. I am pleased to report that I can go to the former “worst McDonalds ever” and get back to the office in time with hot fries. My turnaround time is usually 15-20 minutes from door to door. Additionally, my order has been right every time. It seems the new kiosk system has cut down on human error.
This is all just personal experience; I have been to a few of the new McDonalds and only had a bad experience once, in Ottawa, when the new system was first introduced. That McDonalds was drowning in confusion and upset customers, including one who claimed this was the “worst McDonalds ever”. That first time aside, food has been fast and accurate since.
What does this mean in terms of general retail? Automated checkout is becoming more and more common. As long as the speed and quality remain in good standing, this trend will continue. It will probably not impact the music business very much. Most people who go shopping in a music store go there partly because there are humans to interact with. As long as music stores exist, so will manual checkouts. Of course, many folks (myself included) buy a huge chunk of their music from online retailers. However when we do visit a music store, we want a flesh and blood human being there.
Good for McDonalds for improving their service. I think the music business will continue on its own path.
I don’t consider myself a snobbish foodie. Yes, I like to go out and have a lovely duck confit, or rosemary lamb chops. However I’m not picky, I’ll eat almost anything, as my gut will attest to. I saw Super Size Me, and I’ve ordered almost everything on the McMenu once. McDonalds are usually pretty clean…but not always. Some in fact were downright gross. The worst one? Even the pissy McD’s we visited near Flint Michigan could not compete with Cambridge Ontario on the gross scale.
I was out with Jen and her friends. It was a late night of card playing, and I wanted to just head home, but I was outvoted by the other three. The only place that was open that late was McDonalds. I could always go for a Big Mac, so why not?
Upon entering, we debated leaving immediately, but there was nowhere to go. If only I had a cell phone camera back then…the scene we witnessed was an apocalypse for the record books. In the main eating area of the restaurant, food was all over the floor and tables. Bits of burgers smooshed onto the floor. Fries everywhere. Ketchup, salt, containers…the entire area was a complete disaster. It looked as if a bunch of highschool kids had just had a food fight and left (which is probably close to the truth).
One of the staff emerged from the back room with cleaning supplies. He took one look at the main eating area and paused.
“Woah,” he said, and returned to the back room with his cleaning supplies, not to be seen again.
I guess the place wasn’t going to get cleaned up that night! It sure didn’t look like a manager was working.
My buddy Craig, from 107.5 Dave Rocks, raises the “worst McDonalds ever” stakes with a tale of his own. Unlike me, he has photographic proof. It was in Milton, on highway 25. He entered the restroom to find that a patron before him left an “inside the park home run”. If you’re not familiar with the terminology, an “inside the park home run” in this case refers to someone taking a shit in a urinal. There was no conceivable reason for anyone to leave a shit in the urinal. Baffled, disgusted and nauseous, Craig snapped a photo and handed it over to the manager. The manager responded by offering him his drink cup.
Pictures or it didn’t happen? Do not, under any circumstances, click the link to the evidence.
This is your final warning. Do. not. click. the link.
I know a big guy; let’s call him Herbert. Nice guy, big and strong, and usually with the temperament of a kitten.
One morning Herbert had a big gash on his face, but all bandaged up. He had clearly seen some kind of action and got medical attention.
“Holy crap Herbert! What happened to you?” I asked incredulously.
“I had a disagreement with a person,” he deflected.
A “disagreement” with a person? Could you get any more vague?
Eventually, the story got out of what really happened to Herbert’s face.
He was at a Giant Tiger store (a discount department store) and happened to see a young lady shopping that he felt was attractive. He may have made a comment or given a look that the young lady’s boyfriend (much smaller than Herbert) didn’t like. The little guy decided it was a good idea to get in Herbert’s face about it, and tried to lay him out with a punch.
The punch did nothing, and Herbert responded with a return blow that knocked the little guy down in one shot.
Next thing he knew, Herbert was lying on the ground with a bleeding head. The girlfriend nailed him right in the face with a can of corn! Knocked him right out. By the time he came to, the little dude and his girl had taken off. Herbert went and got himself stitched up, with only his ego damaged.
There was also a kid at the Record Store, Matt, who got caught rubbernecking. Three girls were walking out of the store, and he leaned over the counter to get a good look. The last of the three girls turned her head and caught him right in the act.
Lesson here: We do not condone rubbernecking! It’s rude and you’ll get hit in the head with a can of corn. Boys and girls, I know you won’t listen to me, you’re going to look no matter what I say. If you’re gonna steal a glance, at least do it stealthy. Take it from the expert agents down at the CIA on American Dad….
“RUBBERNECKING” (lyrics) From season 10, episode 17 – “Rubberneckers”
Dick: Rubbernecking is the art of checking out women on the sly.
Jackson: And if you do it right, you’ll never get caught!
McGee:Well, my name’s McGee and soon you’ll see,
If you want to rubberneck just listen to me,
‘Cause a peek don’t hurt,
If you want to scout skirt, you have to be covert,
Listen up, you squirt.
Jackson:Well, my name is Jackson, my techniques the purest,
When I want to scout girls I pretend I’m a tourist.
You look around like you’re super lost,
Hold up a map, now you’re peeking like a boss.
Stan: Yeah! I guess when I’m lost I do look everywhere!
Sanders:My name is Sanders and I don’t lie,
The best way to peek,
Say there’s something in your eye.
Stan: Wow, smooth!
Dick:Well, my name is “tiny” Dick and I have a little trick,
To look at a lady so she don’t think I’m shady.
I pretend that I’m dead and I lie on a gurney,
When the nurses come up, I do the “Weekend At Bernie’s”.
Jackson:Never forget women like to judge,
Go on, give that cattiness a nudge.
Dick:So tell your woman that you hate a girl,
And you can stare while all the hate unfurls.
Stan: Ugh, hey Francine, look at that terrible outfit.
Francine: Yeah, she looks like a hooker…hooker…hooker…hooker…
Sanders:When you want to take a look, hold up a book.
Jackson:A newspaper will do, to look at some boobs.
McGee:I think you’re ready to join the crew.
Everyone:Because you’re rubbernecking with the best,
One night, we had a staff meeting for managers. The lesson that evening was that “loose lips sink ships”. This phrase dates back to World War II. The idea was to avoid speaking openly about anything to do with the war. You never know how any of that information might get back to the enemy. The same held true for the cutthroat world of CD retail.
The reason he had to reinforce that “loose lips sink ships” rule is that one franchisee had made a huge mistake, boasting openly about a great location he had just found for a future store. Wouldn’t you know it, our biggest rival swooped in and took the spot. He heard about it because Gabby McGabberson was telling everybody. The ship had sunk!
This served as a reminder to watch what we say. You never know who might be listening. I got caught a few times myself. One afternoon I was talking about an ex-employee who got himself fired. Sometimes I felt like he was making me prematurely grey, and I was venting some steam in store. Little did I know that the guy’s brother was in the store, and reported my words back to him! Whoopsie. At least I didn’t say anything that was not true. He got a new job working at HMV and I think that’s where he was happier to be. Then there’s good ol’ Spoogecakes. I can only guess but the loose lips theory is all I can come up with to explain why ex-coworker Spoogey (remember that explosion of drama?) had such a hate-on for me. It started in mid-2006, about six months after I quit the store. A third party informed me that she had this weird crush/obsession. I was oblivious to that and it was a little off-putting to find out. I think once word got back about how I reacted, the hate set in. I’ll never know for sure, but the point is: anything said can be repeated.
We were trained to answer customer inquiries about how the store was doing in vague terms only. The boss caught me once when we first opened the branch I managed. “How are you guys doing today?” asked a customer. “Pretty busy!” I answered, seemingly innocently. Afterwards the boss instructed me, “Never tell people we’re busy. Never tell them if we’re slow either. Only answer ‘business is good’. How do you know that guy won’t try to break in and rob us now that he knows we’re busy?”
Sensible advice. Never show your cards. I took that advice and only answered vaguely from that point on. That’s what I instructed my staff to say too. Loose lips sink ships: “Business is good.” If the customer pressed for more details (and you might not believe it, but some did!) I would just play stupid and say that I didn’t know the numbers. I even caught a guy trying to sneak a glimpse at my sales log book, all casual-like. Can you believe that?
Business folks would be well advised to take my old boss’ advice. Loose lips sink ships!
A biographical tale about world-renowned bass clarinetistKathryn Ladano, a champion of improvised music…and my sister.
GETTING MORE TALE #542: Guy Zemmiton
My sister had a favourite Star Wars figure when we were small. There were so many to choose from. I had plenty of my own favourites. Droids such as IG-88 and 2-1B were cool and different. Yoda was special because he came with a record four accessories: his belt, cloak, walking stick and snake. But my sister’s favourite was Luke, in his X-Wing pilot outfit. It was released in 1978 and went beautifully with the X-Wing toy I got for Christmas that year. My sister Kathryn called him “Luke, the guy with the helmet on”. When she said “guy with the helmet on,” it came out as “Guy Zemmiton”. She was three.
We spent hours setting up massive wars on our living room floor. Guy Zemmiton would heroically defend the Rebellion from Darth Vader and the Empire. [See Record Store Tales Part 0: A Few Words for Days Gone By] Star Wars and its action figures were our universe back then.
We knew there was a second Star Wars movie coming. The Empire Strikes Back was finally released right around the time Kathryn got incredibly sick.
One night she was complaining about a “sore tongue”. I remember my parents frantically running around the house in the middle of the night. “I want some juice,” I heard her croak from another room. My dad said they had to take her to the hospital. They got a babysitter. I was incredibly upset and Kathryn remembered me looking down from the top of the stairs as they carried her away. It was a rare condition called epiglottitis that can affect children and causes their airways to close. Bill Bixby, star of The Incredible Hulk as David Banner, had a son who died of epiglottitis. She was in that hospital in an air tent with a tube down her throat before she started getting better and visitors were allowed.
This whole time I was very worried and my dad decided to take me to see The Empire Strikes Back just the two of us, while my mom stayed with Kathryn in the hospital as she did every day. In the movie theater lobby, they were selling oversized Marvel Empire Strikes Back comics and my dad bought one for me! The movie was amazing. I didn’t like seeing “Guy Zemmiton” being hurt, but the snow walker scene was an instant hit. We left the theater to go and see my sister at the hospital. I wasn’t to tell her that we had seen “Guy Zemmiton”, as we didn’t want to upset her. That made it hard to explain where the comic came from, but I was so excited to see her.
A couple weeks later she came home, and dad took the whole family out to see Empire. Kathryn was elated to get to see “Guy Zemmiton”, especially since there were so many scenes of Luke in that very outfit! But my dad was a tease. The whole time before the movie started he was claiming we were in the wrong theater. “No Guy Zemmiton here,” he said. “This theater is showing Captain Peachfuzz and the Penguins!” He may have actually convinced her that we were about to see Captain Peachfuzz and the Penguins, and I was beginning to wonder myself! It was with great relief that we saw “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” on the screen in big blue letters. “I thought this was Captain Peachfuzz and the Penguins,” whispered my dad.
“Guy Zemmiton” was thrilling and my sister was in her glory finally having seen his latest adventure. It was great for everything to finally be back to normal.
I read that comic book over and over again the whole summer, and later on we even got to go see Empire again. It was at a drive-in and Empire was the second feature. I think we both fell asleep long before the movie was over.
A lot of people say Empire is their favourite Star Wars, but for Kathryn, she really means it. Empire was central to a scary time (that she still remembers clearly) when she almost died. Not every three year old kid can claim that.
GETTING MORE TALE #541: When the Packaging Gets Wrecked
It’s so easy for a store to wreck the very product that you want to buy. It happens every day. A CD jewel case helps protect your precious music…if it comes in a CD jewel case. How did stores wreck the packaging? Here are some of the most common!
Box cutters
When you open up a fresh shipment of music, it’s very easy to damage the product inside with a box cutter and it happens all the time. If it’s LPs inside the box, or digipack CDs, it’s very easy to cut open the top-most item inside the box. Not only do you see this happen with music but toys and games too. I’ve seen a few toys on shelves with the bubbles accidentally scored by overzealous box cutters. I’ve accidentally done it to a few CDs because I wasn’t being careful enough.
Price (and other) tags
I have some great examples here. The first revolves around a rare Led Zeppelin Complete Studio Recordings box set. This deluxe box set was released in 1993, but by 1996 it was deleted and hard to find. The boss man apparently knew somebody from Warner who supposedly had a cache of them stashed away. If so that would have been a potential goldmine.
If there was a cache of them or not, I don’t know, but we did get one to sell. We sold it as new, but because of the format of stores (all CD cases on display were empty), the boss opened it up. I believed this to be a mistake and I still do. I think we could have sold it just as easily had we kept the sealed box on display behind the counter somehow. But we didn’t, and we had to put stickers all over the now opened box set to proclaim that it was BRAND NEW and OUT OF PRINT.
One customer came up to the counter to complain.
“Why is this thing so expensive?” he asked, for good reason.
“It’s brand new,” I answered. “The owner brought this one in sealed, and he opened it himself, so I can vouch for the fact that it’s brand new.”
“Yeah but he put stickers all over it!” complained the customer. “Can you give me a deal?”
We were only selling the box for a few dollars over cost, so no deals were to be had.
We eventually sold that box set after it had sat there for a few weeks. The stickers came off no problem, but had they stayed on there a while longer, they might have been an issue. Sticker residue on paper can leave nasty stains, sticky spots, or even tears.
Our price tags were usually pretty good. At one point we ordered a cheaper batch, and they were just awful. You couldn’t peel them off in one piece, and you’d always leave paper on whatever you were peeling them off from. Whenever we re-priced something, we were supposed to completely remove the old tag, leaving nothing behind. These tags made that a chore. It was a relief when that batch was used up.
The worst price tags I have seen in any store in my life came from Dr. Disc. They are still around, though only in Hamilton now, and I don’t know if they still use the Yellow Tags of Death. These tags had a magnetic security chip embedded in them, and left a horrible red residue on everything. It was like taking a red crayon and melting it on your CD cover. You could never get the red residue off, unless you used a product like Goo Gone, but it left its own oily residue behind that was equally impossible to remove. I had to replace the case on every used CD I ever bought from Dr. Disc. Every single case!
Regular wear and tear
This is all but unavoidable. Stuff gets damaged in shipping. Customers drop stuff. In our store, just about every front cover of Metallica’s Load CD was dog-eared. Its thickness made it hard to put back in the CD case. When the CD came out new, our display copies took severe beatings. The front covers were so damaged that we had to sell them as used.
If you see something in a store that’s a little dinged up, but not too badly, ask if you can get a discount. If you ask nicely, they will usually agree. Whether it is worth it or not, is up to you! Remember, most things tend to show up again. You can usually wait until you find a better condition copy.
Are you picky? Some of my customers were so picky that I actually told them “I don’t think buying anything used is really for you.” Do you want everything as mint as possible? Let us know in the comments.
GETTING MORE TALE #539: Been a long time since I been to Frankenmuth
Frankenmuth Michigan is a small Bavarian hamlet/tourist trap not too far from the Canada border. Some people love going; I seem to be one of the only dissenting voices. My best friend Peter introduced us to the Frankenmuth tradition. His family would typically go once a year, staying at the Bavarian Inn. The big draws to the town are two. One is the big “family style” chicken dinner at Zehnder’s, where the food just keeps coming. The other attraction is Bronner’s, an all-year-round Christmas store. Some in my family seemed absolutely thrilled to be buying our Christmas ornaments in April.
Frankenmuth seemed a long way to go for some chicken and Christmas ornaments. However, it’s not too far for a shopping excursion focused on music, so that’s what I turned it into for me. In the three years I went to Frankenmuth, I found plenty of goodies, and accumulated some entertaining memories.
My first year was 1992. I had just finished writing all my final exams for my first year classes at Laurier. The Freddie Mercury Tribute concert had just aired. I taped the whole thing, and then recorded it to cassette (three 100 minute tapes). I tossed that into the Walkman, and joined the family for our first US road trip together.
The Mercury concert was special. Queen shared the stage with some luminaries as David Bowie (RIP), George Michael (RIP), Mick Ronson (RIP), and many more. Vivian Campbell played live with Def Leppard for the first time. Tony Iommi and James Hetfield shared the stage with Queen on “Stone Cold Crazy”. Guns N’ Roses were there, and Axl got to sing with new friend Elton John. The excitement in the air was genuine. There was talk afterwards of someone charismatic, like George Michael or Gary Cherone joining Queen permanently so they could continue.
Our first road stop was a McDonalds in a small town just outside of Flint. The washroom stunk of piss so badly that my dad couldn’t even use it. Great first impression, Michigan!
When we got to the Bavarian Inn, I had the chance to watch MTV for the first time at length. After all I’d heard about it, I was disappointed to see it was not nearly as good as Canada’s MuchMusic. The American coverage of the Mercury concert (which was re-running all weekend) was truncated compared to what we saw in Canada. MuchMusic had Erica Ehm and others on site at Wembley interviewing the stars and covering behind-the-scenes, while the US coverage cut away to other things. The food at the Bavarian Inn was incredible, including what I remember to be the best omelette I’ve ever tasted.
I can’t say that I cared for the family style chicken dinner. “Family style” isn’t my thing (where everybody has the same dinner, all served together on big platters). If I’m eating out, I will rarely order chicken. Seemed like a big waste of a night out, to go and eat somewhere that serves chicken dinner just like you get at home. But I didn’t make these decisions, I just complained about them!
On the way home, we stopped at a Target store in Port Huron. My first Target store; I had never even heard of them before. This is where I made my first US music purchases. In stock was the cassette single for “Let’s Get Rocked” by Def Leppard. This featured the bonus track “Only After Dark”, a Mick Ronson track, who had just played at the Mercury concert! The other item I picked up was Slaughter’s new The Wild Life CD, which had a different cover than the ones I’d seen in Canada. It still appears to be the rarest version today.
The 1993 trip was even better, because this time Peter came with us. In 1993, Peter was the man with the plan. He was looking for something. Something very specific, that as of yet was not released in Canada. He had read about this new comedy tape called The Jerky Boys, and he was determined to find a copy. And find a copy he did.
We found The Jerky Boys at a record store just on the outskirts of Frankenmuth. At the same store, I picked five tapes that I couldn’t get back home: Savatage’s first albums Sirens (1983), The Dungeons are Calling (1985), Power of the Night (1986) and the brand new Edge of Thorns (1993). There was also Richie Kotzen’s third album, Electric Joy. These fine records meant that the summer of 1993 was filled with sounds both heavy and complex. The Kotzen album was a whole level beyond was I was used to listening to. As for Savatage, they heavied up my tastes at a time when I was craving faster/heavier/louder.
I spent a lot of time absorbing each of these albums, but it was The Jerky Boys that dominated the car tape deck on that Frankenmuth trip. Peter and I listened to the entire thing through. Tarbash the Egyptian Magician, Sol Rosenberg and his glasses (he can’t see goddammit), and the whole gang had us laughing so hard, my sides actually hurt. When the tape was done, we put it on repeat and played it again. I’m not sure if my mom and dad enjoyed the Jerky Boys as much as I did. I started calling people “sizzlechest” and responding to questions with “listen jerky, I don’t need to talk to you.”
What a summer.
This Frankenmuth trip was also my Karaoke debut. I chose “The Immigrant Song”. And I fucking killed it, in my opinion! Like Axl Rose gyrating on meth, I owned that stage. The heels of my cowboy boots stomped the boards, keeping their own beat. I asked my entire family to leave the room, but I lost my place in the song when I caught them spying around a corner.
On we sweep, with threshing oar, our only goal will be the western shore.
That was a fantastic trip. Mission accomplished, with both the music shopping and the Jerky Boys acquisition. On my third and final year going to Frankenmuth, Peter really upped his game. Once again, the goal was to acquire something that we could not get in Canada.
Instead of travelling in one car, we did a convoy with two. Peter and I needed transportation of our own to run the missions we were planning.
As much as MTV did not impress me on my first US trip, our goal this time was dependant on MTV.
“Let’s rent a VCR and tape some episodes of Beavis and Butthead!” We didn’t get the show in Canada.
That is exactly what we did. We drove over to the local video store, and rented a VCR. You might think renting a VCR in a foreign country might be difficult, but it wasn’t. We hooked it up to the hotel TV (much easier than doing something like this today — more on that in a future instalment of Getting More Tale also involving Peter). Tuning up MTV, we watched some music before Beavis and Butthead was scheduled.
This time, MTV really pissed me off. They gleefully ran the embarrassing 1994 Motley Crue interview that the band infamously walked out of. But the band didn’t do themselves any favours in that interview. MTV baited them a bit with the questions, but they didn’t have to attack Vince Neil in their answers. “No one cares anyway,” said Nikki Sixx when asked about his former frontman. Pushed further, they were asked to comment on Vince’s recent jet-ski accident that put him in hospital with broken ribs. Laughing, Mick Mars asked “What happened to the coral reef?” Sixx answered, “Hey, when 300 pounds of blubber lands on a coral reef, there’s gonna be some dust flying around.”
The question that killed the interview was about “women, hairspray and fire.” MTV ran the segment complete with Nikki mocking the question, while showing images of women, hairspray and fire from their music videos. Stick in a fork in that lineup; it was done. No matter how good that 1994 Motley Crue album was (and is), that interview polished off the attempted comeback in one stroke.
We recorded a couple episodes of Beavis and Butthead and called it a night. The next day we did some music and comic book shopping. US exclusive once more: Quiet Riot’s reunion album Terrified found and liberated. I didn’t even know they had come out with anything new. A cassette single for “Heaven Help” by Lenny Kravitz also found its way home with me. I scored an oversized Black Sabbath comic (Rock-It Comics) and Transformers: Generation 2 #1 with the silver foil fold out cover.
With another successful trip in the books, we packed our bags and checked out. The last mission to run was returning the VCR to the video store. There was only one snag. We were primed and ready to head home early…and the video store opened at noon. We had to kill some hours driving around, but when that store opened we got the hell out of dodge. Not the greatest return trip ever, but at least we had Lenny Kravitz.
I stopped going to Frankenmuth after that trip, although Peter and his family returned yearly for some chicken and Christmas ornaments. My family too. My mom tells me of a memorable trip that ended in the hospital! Four years ago my mother, father and sister made a trip where they did the usual; Frankenmuth chicken and the Christmas store. They also ate a lot of junk food; pizza, hot dogs, French fries and candy. On the way home they stopped along the 401 for more French fries. That night my mother ended up in the hospital with a gall bladder attack. It was serious enough that she had it removed two weeks later. Thank goodness they were home when it happened as they never bothered with extra insurance for a short trip to the US.
As years went on, I ran into people all the time who had gone to Frankenmuth for a vacation. Inevitably, they will always talk about three things: the Bavarian Inn, the chicken dinners, and the Christmas store. None of them seem to have any stories about cool comic books, or finding rare tapes and CDs in Frankenmuth. Very few of them have done Karaoke, and none have performed “The Immigrant Song” at the Bavarian Inn. Nobody rented a VCR to record Beavis and Butthead, and then have to wait hours for the store to open to return said VCR. Nobody even discovered the Jerky Boys on their Michigan trips.
I guess that means that Peter and I are the only ones who did Frankenmuth right.
While deleting old emails, I discovered two unreleasedRecord Store Taleswritten almost five years ago. I don’t know why they were never finished, so here’s one of ’em! The original draft was written June 28 2012.
GETTING MORE TALE #538: Just Eat It
To paraphrase Ricky, sometimes working in a record store is not all “peaches and cake”.
We did have cake sometimes. Grand openings, special occasions. The only peaches I ever saw were on Presidents of the USA albums.
Trying to eat lunch at work was an issue. We had a rule: No eating at the counter. Nobody wants to come into a store seeing somebody scarfing down a burger, drooling mayo all over their chin. But, sometimes you had very little choice. Like when you were working alone. This is how I got into the habit of not eating lunch anymore. I used to make sandwiches and then not have a chance to enjoy my lunch, because I was working alone and constantly getting interrupted. Oakville was the worst store for this.
Oakville was nice in one way, which was there was a Lick’s in the plaza (and a liquor store, which helped make things bearable after arriving home). So you’d go across and get a burger and fries. I liked my Lick’s burgers with sautéed onions (or “funky onions” as Jen calls them). I’d often be working with a trainee but still able able to sneak to the back room for a minute to inhale some fries. However, Oakville was a busy store for buying used stock – and I was the only buyer there. The trainees weren’t up to speed yet. So there would be this constant stream of bags and boxes coming in, and no time to eat. It often took me an hour or more to finish one soggy burger and some cold, dry fries.
Not to mention you’d be an idiot not to wash your hands repeatedly after handling the customers’ discs! The cases were often coated in a dry, smokey layer of crime. Sometimes you could smell the cigarettes. Sometimes the actual paper cover inside the case was stained yellowy-brown. In other cases, the discs were sticky with God knows what. (Dried soda? Food? Bodily fluids?) But you still had to handle them!
I’m told that one time a CD came in with what looked like semen on it, but I wasn’t witness to that.
One time early in my career, a guy brought in a box of discs where every single case was coated in a soapy, dry white coating. I felt gross just touching them. I passed on the box for that reason. Then he took them to another store to get a second opinion (they always did) and my boss took them. He gave me shit – “Why didn’t you take these discs?” Well, because I haven’t had my shots yet this year.
This is how I kind of got into the bad habit of eating candy bars and pepperoni for lunch. Stuff that came in nice wrappers so I didn’t have to handle the food with my hands. Stuff with zero nutritional value. I’m not a germophobe, but when you can’t eat a sandwich because you’re constantly handling disgusting discs and washing your hands, eventually you kind of get sick of even trying.
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