One of the most popular stories of 2012 was the tale of“Aerodouche Dandy”. So, in light of that, how about a sequel?
RECORD STORE TALES Part 159: Dandydouche 2 – Dandy Deuce!
We had several CD players in our store that allowed our customers to listen to anything they wanted, before buying. It was a pretty cool innovation by the chain owner. Other stores had “listening posts” where you could listen to one of a select few new releases, but at the time nobody else would let you listen to anything you wanted in the store. As cool and helpeful as that sounds, it was also an invitation for abuse.
Many times, I’d put up to 50 discs on for somebody who purchased nothing, but we couldn’t cut them off. We couldn’t say no. You could spend over an hour serving a customer, retrieving discs and filing them when they were done, all for naught.
Record store guys have a sixth sense though. We’d pick up the signals. For example, when Kid Rock had a huge hit with “Picture” (a duet with Sheryl Crow), a lot of older people used to come in and listen to it, to see if they would like the rest of the Kid Rock CD. Predictably they didn’t, and it wasn’t out on Sheryl’s album yet. I knew they weren’t going to buy the Kid Rock CD, and most didn’t. That’s one example.
One thing Douchebag Dandy would do is purposely put the wrong CD in the player. I know of one instance where he substituted a lady’s chosen disc with Iron Bitchface. Iron Bitchface was a local “outsider music” project that Dandy hung out with. He had been known to jump onstage with them, and was always seen in public as a lookalike pairing with their singer, K-Rot.
Iron Bitchface was, by their own admission, people who could not play music. They created a lot of noise and recorded it, and split it up into tracks. I grabbed a T-shirt because I liked their logo, but it was completely unlistenable. In fact our store-play copy had a massive skip in it that nobody even noticed. That’s how bad it was.
Anyway, this time Dandy was working, a lady was in listening to every Harry Connick Jr. album we had, and not buying anything. After a dozen or so listens, Dandy swapped out her last CD for Iron Bitchface. She immediately took off her headphones. “I think the CD player is broken,” I’m told she said.
Dandy sauntered over to check. “Nope. It’s working fine.”
“Really? Whatever I’m hearing isn’t music!”
Dandy opened up the player. “Nope. This is the disc you picked out.”
“Well you can take it off, that’s nothing but garbage! Who could listen to that?” she said.
Dandy found this tremendously funny, and laughed and boasted about it after. Even though she wasn’t buying anything, that’s still just a douchebag move! Apropos for a Douchebag Dandy!
After getting Dumped in Barrie, I came back home and began the process of “getting over it”. I was now sick with a cold, too. My immune system had gone to shit, working those crazy hours.
I ran into Dandy at one of the stores, while doing a stock transfer.
“Hey,” he said. “I think I saw that chick JJJulie at the mall with some fat guy.”
“Really?” I said. “Are you sure? She’s not from here. She lives in Etobicoke.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “She had pink in her hair right? But, like, faded?”
“Yeah,” I growled. She just dumped me the weekend before, and I knew who the fat guy was, too. “This fat guy. Did he have a shaved head?”
“Yeah dude,” nodded Dandy.
So we just broke up, and she was already seeing this other dude! I confronted her about it, and she eventually admitted to coming to town to “see” him. This is five days after dumping me. Five days! Well, she wasn’t just “seeing him”. I later found out that they “did the deed” that day, before his shift at the local McDonalds.
When he found out that I knew about this, he came into my store to make amends, because he genuinely wanted to make up and be friends. He delivered me a tray of two McDonalds triple thick McShakes as a peace offering.
The year: 2003. Aerosmith were in town, playing a private party for Research in Motion. I know a few people who went. But I also know someone who ran into Steven Tyler downtown that day. (As an historic footnote, the opening act for that party was Barenaked Ladies. Thanks to Melvin Lapandano for that information.)
The person who bumped into Tyler was “Dandy”, one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever worked with. And that doesn’t even bother him, he used to be proud that he was a dick. Once he dropped his façade and showed his true colours, I had no use for the guy. He was the kind of lazy disinterested employee who knew when he was safe to screw the pooch and when he had to work, and who to kiss ass for brownie points. He was an expert at keeping up appearances.
The only time Dandy did anything (arguably) funny was the time met Steven Tyler downtown. But he was still a dick.
Aerosmith’s last album, Just Push Play was pretty dismal, loaded with pop, ballads and samples. Even Joe Perry says it’s his least favourite album.
So, Aerosmith are in town to play the private party. Dandy’s walking downtown, acting like a douche (that part is speculation, but it’s probably true), when he bumps into Steven Tyler. The conversation went like this.
Dandy – “Hey! You’re in Aerosmith, right?”
Tyler – “That’s right, how are you doing man?”
Dandy – “I’m OK. You guys kind of suck now don’t you?”
Tyler – (frowns and walks away)
Dandy – “Cheers.”
Then, to conclude the story, Dandy told me, “Later on I saw the bass player too. But I didn’t say anything to him. He’s just the bass player, so it already sucks enough to be him.”
Back in 2003, I was working with this…fucking idiot. We’ll call him Dandy. Easily the most superficial person I’ve ever had the displeasure of associating with. We’ll be talking more about him later on, believe me.
When Dandy told me there was this new band that would be right up my alley called The Darkness, I wanted nothing to do with it. Not only did I hate pretty much everything he raved about, but he meant it sort of as a joke. Like, “Watch me get Mike into a shitty band like The Darkness.”
Anyway, the way he decribed them to me sounded spoofy, and I hate 96.5% of spoofy music. I take my hair rock seriously.
A few months later, we opened another franchise in St. Catharines (a shitty hour and a half long drive in the mornings), and I was assigned training duty for their new manager. We worked side by side daily for a couple weeks and I found him to be a good guy. When he put The Darkness on, I was skeptical, but by no means opposed, because he obviously wasn’t a shitface like Dandy. He wasn’t trying to yank my chain.
Yet, I’d never heard this band before…who the hell were they? Some new band from England that looked like a cross between Queen and Aerosmith. And sounded something like a cross between Queen, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses. Yet was nothing at all like anything that was coming out at the time. And they could play.
I like bands with unique singers, and Justin Hawkins is definitely unique. I was into it! Dandy was wrong — this wasn’t a spoof. These guys were serious.
We played that album any time we could get away with it — which wasn’t often since Permission To Land is loaded with “fucks”. I grew to love every song. Great songs like “Growing On Me” and “Friday Night” kept me going on the really bad days, like a shot of Liquid Schwartz in the ol’ engine. They quickly became my Favourite New Band, and pretty much have remained that for the last ten years!
When the second album came out, I remember one of the head office people made a point of telling me how much she hated it.
“The new Darkness…sucks.”
“Oh yeah?” I responded, not really surprised I’d hear that from this person. They loved to rain on my musical parades. They thought they were doing me a favour, trying to get me out of “cheesey” music, and onto “good” music.
“There’s this one song where all he does is sing, ‘I love what you’ve done with your hair,’ over and over again,” they complained. (Note: The song is called “Knockers”, of course.)
Predictably, I loved the second album, although it took a few listens to absorb. Today I find myself leaning more towards the second Darkness album. I think their ambition got the better of them in a lot of ways though. I think One Way Ticket was more appropriate as a fourth album, but as a second, a little shocking for the masses to absorb. And so, in my store at least, they ignored it in droves!
I followed them through the breakup, Hot Leg and Stone Gods, and now cannot wait to hear the long awaited third record, Hot Cakes, on August 21. Welcome back, The Darkness!
Everybody always wanted to know how awesome it was to work in a record store. They all had this Empire Records idea of it when the truth is much closer to High Fidelity. I kind of considered myself a combination of the John Cusack and Jack Black characters. I ran the place like Cusack, but I was a Jack Black-like smartass. Black played a character named Barry. You know that scene where the guy in the suit is looking for the song, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”?
Customer: Hi, do you have the song “I Just Called To Say I Love You?” It’s for my daughter’s birthday.
Barry: Yeah, we have it.
Customer: Great great… Well, can I have it?
Barry: No, you can’t.
Customer: Why not?!
Barry: Because it’s sentimental tacky crap that’s why! Do we look like a store that sells “I Just Called to Say I Love You”? Go to the mall!
Customer: What’s your problem?!
Barry: Do you even know your daughter? There’s no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?
Customer: Oh, okay buddy. I didn’t know it was Pick on the Middle-Aged Square Guy Day. My apologies. I’ll be on my way.
Barry: Buh-bye!
Customer: Fuck you!
I never quite went that far, but I was always fond of the subtle insults. I was also known for being stubbornly obtuse. Like for example, the guy who couldn’t pronounce “Triumph”. I knew very well what band he was looking for, but he kept saying, “Tramp”. He didn’t know how to spell it either. Just the very idea that he couldn’t spell nor pronounce the word “triumph”…how could I not have fun with that guy? I eventually sold him The Sport of Kings, when I felt like he’d earned it.
Spelling was an issue in this part of town. We had a lookup terminal where you could search for inventory on your own. The best question I ever got at that terminal was, “Mike, how do you spell ‘metal’? I don’t spell so good.”
In short, stuff grinds your gears just like it does at anybody’s job. There are times when you saw a number on call display and just did not want to answer. Just like any job. Annoying callers, annoying customers, lazy customers who made you do absolutely everything for them, including pick what they want to buy!
You had sales quotas just like any day job. You had responsibilities to get done. If they weren’t done, you can’t just say “we were really busy” if your sales numbers weren’t big. And you had to do things accurately. In any environment where you buy and sell used goods, you had to be sure of what you were buying and what you were paying for it. This is made just as difficult in a music store as anywhere else, due to the multiple versions, reissues, special editions, and imports of a CD that determine just what it’s worth. You could go from offering $2 to $20 for a single album, the exact same title, just a different version thereof.
Same album different versions, and none of these are even the standard version. How would you price them?
And customers really hated being told their discs were “too scratched to re-sell.” They really hated that one.
You got to listen to tunes all day, that was true. That is something that I thankfully still do today, thanks to the radio. I actually prefer the radio to choosing store play discs. You were so tightly constrained by various rules, which narrowed the scope. I actually loathed picking store play discs. If I was working to someone else, I often just said, “You pick, I’ll pick something later.”
Lo and behold, I still have a copy of the store play rules! I’m a packrat. I keep everything.
Forbidden bands list: Kiss, Rush, Frank Zappa, Spinal Tap, Dio, Judas Priest
Nothing heavier than Metallica’s “black” album
No musicals, no classical, no instrumental
Must play one new release in every shift
Must play 5 discs in shuffle mode, must never play album all the way through except in specific promotional cases
Each of the 5 discs must be a different genre
No songs with swearing
No rap
No comedy
Could only play discs that were in stock for sale instore
Jazz, soul, indy, and oldies were encouraged. Hard rock was especially discouraged.
Of course we broke the rules. If I knew there was no chance of getting caught, I’d bring in my own discs from home all the time. The best shift I ever had, I played all 5 discs of the Kiss box set, in a row! I played lots of shit with swearing, all the time. It wasn’t intentional of course, it’s just that sometimes a great album has swearing on it, and I like to listen to great albums. Sinatra at the Sands, for example.
We sold Sinatra at the Sands in minutes, by the way…by playing it instore.
I played Dio all the time when I could get away with it, even though he was strictly off limits.
I remember Tom walking in, during Holy Diver.
“Wow. That’s ballsy man,” he said.
I played Spinal Tap once, but one of my buddies got written up for doing the same thing. Seriously. That time I was playing Spinal Tap, there was this guy seriously rocking out to it. He didn’t look like a fan though. He walked up to me and said, “Sounds like you got some Sons of Freedom going on here!” Oops!
And I played heavy stuff too. I know I played Maiden in the store, any night I could. (Astute readers will recall that Maiden is where we started. Go back to Part 1 if you haven’t.) I remember two little kids laughing at Bruce Dickinson’s shrieking during a live take of “Fear of the Dark”. But, I also remember lots of cool kids in Kiss shirts, buying their first rock albums, and it was cool corrupting those kids.
So what did I have to complain about? Well, I only played those albums when I could get away with it. Which wasn’t often. There was usually someone in there store who could give you shit for it.
So you’d have to put up with the following: Much Dance xx, Big Shiny Tunes, TLC, Christmas music all day while seasonal, Dave Matthews band, Linkin Park, plenty of new country, and whatever was the flavour of the month at the time. There’s a reason I know entire albums inside and out by shitty band like The Dandy fucking Warhols. I could tell you every fucking song on the first two Coldplay CDs. I had the unfortunate fate of having to listen to the self titled album by Blur every fucking day for a month. There are bands that I legitimately like, such as Oasis and Kula Shaker, that I rarely play at home anymore because I have heard them so many Goddamn times. It sucks when you can’t stand music you actually like.
The record store will do that if you spend too many years there, and I spent too many years there. Gratefully, I love music again.
The worst thing about the record store though were the cliques, and from what I’ve heard, many record store were like this. You either fit in or you didn’t, and I definitely did not fit in. They were all into the latest indy rock bands, and all wore sunglasses. I’ve never been a sunglasses kind of guy. Indoors, I think they’re just pretentious. I tried, oh but I did try. I went to their shitty bars and drank and pretended to have a good time, but I just couldn’t pretend that I liked the Dandy fucking Warhols.
But, if I didn’t experience all that, I guess I wouldn’t be LeBrain!
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