music

#448: Phat Curtis

KILLERANG 2

GETTING MORE TALE #448: Phat Curtis

I started highschool in 1986, and the best days of the week were Thursdays.  They called it “Game Day”.  Thursdays were shortened, and we all got to go home at 2:45 instead of 4:45.  Not only did that mean I would be able to catch the start of the Pepsi Power Hour, but it also meant extra time to goof around!

My best friend Bob and I were walking home from school one Thursday afternoon.  A few days earlier he found something that we dubbed “the Killerang”.  It was actually just a piece of red plastic from a grocery store’s pop bottle plastic crate.  It was kind of shaped like an elongated “E”.  An inner slat from one of those cases had come out and found its way onto the road by which we were walking.  Bob threw it away assuming it was junk, but when he did, that sucker took off and flew, better than a boomerang!  We saw it land far away in a vacant lot.  We both stared at each other at the unexpected aerodynamics of this plastic fork.  We ran after it knowing we’d found a cool toy to play with!  The Killerang.

KILLERANG

Then one Thursday, Bob brought the Killerang to school so we could mess with it on the way home.  Killerang in hand, Bob and I stopped at a park by a local public school that was still in class.  We were going to use their schoolyard to see how far we could get this thing to fly.  Off in the distance was a class of kids watching a football game.  Way, way off in the distance.  It is on that field that two fates collided.

Bob wound up and threw the boomerang.  He didn’t throw it hard but again it caught air and took off.  We ran to collect it, and it was my turn.

“Don’t throw it too hard,” Bob advised.  “It really flies.”

“OK,” I said as I wound up.

I threw the boomerang a little too hard.  I watched as it flew…and flew…and flew…on its way to the distant football game.

“Oh no,” I muttered as the boomerang continued its flight.  By its trajectory, it was going to hit one of the kids in the crowd.

There was one kid on that field that could not be missed even from that distance.  He was huge.  He was a giant.  I watched as my boomerang felled that giant, striking him directly in the back of the neck.  His arms went wide and he collapsed to the ground.

“Holy shit,” said Bob as I cried “Oh no!”

“You have to go apologize,” said Bob, stating the obvious.  I’d never apologized to a giant before.

Sheepishly, and possibly with a huge and sudden dump in my pants, I went over to the football field to apologize to the giant.

Fortunately the giant, whom I learned one addresses as “Phat Curtis”, was the forgiving type.  He did not kill me (this much is obvious).  He did not stomp me, nor did he piledrive me into the ground.  You don’t get a name like “Phat Curtis” for being small, but thankfully he wasn’t a vengeful giant.  (His real name was Curtis Bernard.)

A year later, Phat Curtis started highschool, and it was there that I learned he was a drummer.   In fact he had a reputation as the most talented drummer in school.  Later on he added five and six string bass to his musical repertoire.   He went on to play with my sister in various ensembles, and became a customer at the Record Store too.  He was always looking for live albums with good bass.  Didn’t buy much stuff, but he sure kept me busy every time he came in.

Maybe that was his revenge?  To haunt the Record Store of the guy who boomeranged him in the back of the neck?  To make that Record Store guy run around the store looking for live albums with good bass, but not make a sale?  Could that be it?  If so, I cannot say that Phat Curtis put me in as much pain as I put him in.  However at least I can boast that single-handedly took down a giant!

#446: SLOW DOWN! (An announcement)

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GETTING MORE TALE #446: SLOW DOWN!

Since March 2012, LeBrain has been bringing you the rock on a daily basis.

I’ve been writing about music for a long time.  Over the years, I accumulated an immense catalogue of music reviews.  I saved them up, and gradually expanded and polished them up for publishing here at mikeladano.com.  On top of that, I also had an incredible stock of Record Store Tales to post.  Some of these had been gathering dust for well over a decade.  Including new content I’ve stirred into the mix, it took over three years to burn through all the old reviews and stories.  I am now dry.  I had a few movie reviews left in the hopper, but these are abandoned now, because this is (mostly) about the rock.

It’s much easier for me to revise and expand an old review, than it is to write a new one.  It’s actually an enjoyable process for me to revisit and fix up an old writing.  You’d be hard-pressed to tell an old polished up review from a brand-new one unless I pointed it out.  The huge amount of stuff that I had built up to publish enabled me to post content every day.  In fact, in my old “theme song” video I boasted that mikeladano.com was “updated daily!”

I can no longer keep going at that pace.  It’s just not possible; not if I want to maintain a level of quality.  Listening to music takes time, articulating thoughts into words takes more time, and adding the photos, videos and anecdotes takes even more time.  I love writing about music and sharing my music collection with you.  I can’t deny that this hobby is hard work, albeit a labour of love.

So, without any shame, I am now announcing that the pace of new content here is slowing down.  I don’t plan on using a schedule, but you can count on new reviews and stories here about one every other day.  I hope you continue to read and enjoy.  This will hopefully enable me to spend more time posting and responding to comments.

Music is an important part of my life, and yours too, I’ll wager, or you wouldn’t be reading this.  Coming home from work every day and sitting down to review music because I “have to”, to keep up the pace, isn’t what I wanted to do.  I don’t want to work on reviews because I “have to” maintain an inhuman pace.  You might not have noticed but I feel the more recent reviews I’ve written have been rushed.  I think the quality may have suffered in favour of quantity.

No longer.  You can count on the same brand of music reviews, the same kind of stories, and the odd “WTF” here and there…just not on a daily basis.  I’m taking tomorrow off!

Shit.  I guess this means I need a new theme song video.

See??  The work never ends!

#444: “Can I Listen to This?”

GETTING MORE TALE #444: “Can I Listen to This?”

In the early 1990’s, the CD store in which I worked was just an ordinary music store that sold new product in a mall.  Later on, we did the switch to used discs which was the smartest move the owner could have done.  He was able to control his own cost of goods sold.

Switching to 99% used stock attracted customers to the better prices.  Before too long, the used selection was better too, because we would see many deleted and rare titles that you couldn’t buy new anymore.  Ebay didn’t exist yet.  It was hard to find those titles on CD.  Another benefit to the switch was the ability for customers to sample music before they bought it.  It was harder before.

In the earliest days, if a customer wanted to hear something, we had to crack open the disc and play it on the store player.  We didn’t even have a re-sealing device.  The way around this was to carefully (carefully!) cut the cellophane off the CD case, along the spine of the disc.  Carefully (carefully!) slide the disc out of the cellophane.  When done, you can carefully (carefully!) slide the disc back into the cellophane, and “seal” it up with a piece of strategically placed Scotch tape.  This did the trick well enough for us.  We made due.

The annoying thing wasn’t the fact that we had to crack open a disc for people to listen to.  The real irritant was that we didn’t have anything for them to listen to it on, except the store CD player.  If a customer came up and said, “Can I listen to this?” it meant stopping whatever you were playing, and putting in their disc.

This happened one Saturday afternoon, sometime in the spring of ’95.  Radiohead had just released The Bends, and we only carried three copies to start.  A guy came in curious what it was like.  The Bends may be critically acclaimed by fans worldwide, but that spring afternoon in 1995, it did absolutely nothing for me*.  Skipping from one track to the next, then back, at the customer’s command, I hated what I heard.  To my ears it sounded too mellow and I was ready for a nap.  It was definitely not what I wanted to hear while I was trying to work.  To date I still don’t own The Bends.  This guy stood there listening for half an hour before declining to buy it.  It was annoying for both myself, and the other customers, to have to listen to this disc skipping from track to track at the guy’s hand signals or nods.

But we didn’t have anything else, and we were customer service oriented, so what are you to do?  You listen to (rather, skip back and forth through) The Bends.

A year later I was managing a bigger store, with the 99% used format.  We had a store player, plus several other units hooked up to headphones.  With an entire store of used stuff to listen to, and a pair of headphones to do it with, it was a vast improvement over the old way.  Once again the owner had a great idea.  Even though there is no question they were a huge popular feature for our stores, the “listening stations” as we called them were still ripe for abuse.  Customers would make you run around retrieving 20 (or 30 or 40) discs to listen to, only to buy none.  They’d complain about the sound quality.  The headphones were constantly busting due to overuse and abuse.

“These headphones suck.  I can’t hear the nuances in the music.”  That was a real complaint.  Since there wasn’t much I could do about it, I explained that the listening stations were there just so you could hear a song and decide if you liked it or not.  Not much thought was given to hearing the nuances.  But this guy insisted he couldn’t tell if he liked a song without the “nuances”, so no sale was made.

Other folks would want to listen to an entire CD – the whole thing! – to make sure it didn’t skip before they bought it.  Even though we offered a guarantee.

Even though we had gone through the effort and expense of providing these listening stations, there are some people you can never please.  More than one fellow (yes, it was only guys) asked to listen to something, only to complain, “No, I don’t want to hear it on those headphones.  I want to hear it on the big speakers!”  Yeah, but nobody else in the store wants to.

Music fans:  Although you can now listen to almost anything you want in the comfort of your own home, please, if you want to use the listening stations at a CD store, don’t be a douche!

 

*I do have Kid A in my collection.  I love Kid A.  

#441: Help Wanted!

GETTING MORE TALE #441: Help Wanted!

Back in the Record Store Days, hiring seemed to go in waves, with the students.  Periodically we’d lose some of our best people as they moved on to further their educations.  We’d go on hiring binges, looking for 3-4 good solid new people.  This was done by putting out ads.

Paraphrasing our old print ads, we would advertise that we were looking for the following:

  • Hours: 15 hours a week, evenings & weekends.  Looking for long-term commitment, not a seasonal position.  Duties include buying and selling of used CDs.  Retail experience is helpful but not required.  Superior musical knowledge a plus.  Apply in person only.

Then we would have set hours for them to apply (usually between 2 and 7), during which I (and other managers) would be working.  People didn’t always like that “apply in person only” part, but it was there for a reason.  It was so the store manager (me) could gauge whether you were flaky or not.  Even though store managers were not involved in hiring, we could at least offer our impressions of the applicants when they came in to apply.  Were they polite?  Were they dicks?  Were they high?

Like anywhere, we occasionally ended up with a few bad apples.  If I were to make an “honest” hiring ad based on the number of times we’d been burned before, here is what it would probably look like.

HIRING

Don’t get me wrong – we hired lots and lots and lots of great people with the standard ads.  But I think mine is better!

More:

RECORD STORE TALES Part 94:  Staffing
RECORD STORE TALES Part 185:  Staffing 2.0

#438: Drunken Record Store Shenanigans

SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY

GETTING MORE TALE #438: Drunken Record Store Shenanigans

2001.  Annual Record Store Christmas party.  I was designated driver.

It was a great bash.  We almost always had great parties.  Great — but always safely.  I was driving an anonymous buddy home.  Getting my buddy out of the bar took some effort.  He ran into somebody at the bar, and I don’t even think they knew each other, but this guy claimed to know Steve Earle.  He told Buddy that he could get him back stage to meet Steve Earle next time he came into town.  Well, Buddy was excited beyond belief!  “I’m gonna meet Steve Earle!” he announced to me, and everyone else in the establishment!  “I’m gonna get to meet Steve Earle!”  It took about 15 minutes for me to drag his excited ass out of that place.

Into the parking lot on that snowy cold night.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna meet Steve Earle!”

In the car.

“I’m gonna meet Steve Earle man!”

I just had to laugh and wished I had a tape recorder.  His rant was about as hilarious as it gets, if you’re into drunken rants for the purpose of humour.

“Oh man…Steve EARLE!”

Then he decided to tell me that he approved of my new girlfriend, who also attended the party.

“That is a really nice girl and you hafta hang onto her,” he slurred.  “But when the light turns green you gotta GO.  And when it’s yellow you gotta go, or stop.  She’s a nice girl.”

I laughed and tried to egg him into saying more hilarious stuff, which was just repeating “I’m gonna meet Steve Earle,” and “when the light is yellow you gotta go.”

I dropped my buddy safely off at his home, where he tells me he passed out on the toilet talking to his girlfriend on the phone.  I’m sure she was also thrilled he was going to meet Steve Earle!

Not that I’m innocent in all this.  I usually chose to be designated driver, but not always.  One night my buddy drove me from a Record Store get-together.  The bartender had cut me off, because (apparently) I was loudly discussing different techniques to masturbate.  Allegedly!  So I am hardly one to throw stones at anyone.  I’m sure there are one or two people who have good Drunk LeBrain stories.  I know on my birthday, the Record Store people took me out for drinks and I proceeded to grab a bunch of dudes’ asses.

However, the truth is, I was usually the driver, and as such, usually have the best stories.  My memories are more reliable than those who were drinking.

I remember Buddy telling the Boss Man that he thought his mom was “hot”.  Buddy later denied this, saying, “I wouldn’t say that because I don’t think his mom is hot.”  But I know what I heard, and I was sober!

I remember Tom eating chicken bones at the Heuther Hotel, and then taking the rest home with him to make “soup”.  I remember one guy stealing ashtrays from the Heuther at a drunken party, and the Boss making him return the ashtrays to them the next week!

One of my fondest memories from that time happened one summer, after we had gathered for a concert at a place called the Banke in downtown Kitchener.  Exiting the venue, one of the guys decided to run into the middle of the street and do a Mick Jagger dance in front of the late-night traffic!  It was truly a sight to behold.  And it was also a pretty damn accurate dance.

Thankfully, nobody was ever hurt at one of our Record Store piss-ups.  We always made sure everybody had a ride.  They were a good time, a part of my youth I will always remember fondly and sometimes hazy!

LeBRAIN ON AIR BASS!


Circa 1997. That’s Iron Tom Sharpe peeking behind me.

#437: So You Want to Make a Mix Tape?

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GETTING MORE TALE #437: So You Want to Make a Mix Tape?

So you’ve decided to hop into your time machine and make a mix tape?  Good for you!  In the 80’s, making a mix tape was a rite of passage.  Today it is a fading art.  Congratulations for wanting to keep that art alive!  Here are some tips.

First of all, who are you making the tape for?  What do you want on it?  Prep all your recording materials in advance.  Get out the CDs and records you want to tape.  Are you doing a straight hits tape?  A mixture of artists?  Roughly plot out your track list, but only roughly, because you will probably have to make changes on the fly.

Get your tape ready.  What length are you using?  I recommend 90 – 100 minute tapes.  Anything longer than 100 minutes and you risk stretching the tape.  This length range gives you more room to play with than a standard 60 minute tape.

Clean your equipment.  Get your tape head demagnetized, and clean those pinch rollers with isopropyl alcohol or something similar.  Use lint-free cloth.  Since you’re making a mix tape, I assume you want it to sound as good as you can make it.  Use a decent quality blank tape.

Now, using a pencil or just your finger, carefully wind the tape so that the clear tape lead is no longer visible.  When you see brown magnetic tape, you are ready to hit “record”.

I used to add the little test frequencies that they put on the start of cassettes to open my mix tapes.  Don’t have one of those?  That’s OK.  Just download one from Youtube!

My recording technique involved having as short a gap between songs as possible.  I viewed a long gap as an amateur move, unless it was intentional, for effect.   To get a short gap, hit “pause” on your recorder immediately after the song stops, but don’t pause for too long.  Leaving that pause button depressed isn’t good for the tape, because on most machines, the tape head is still making contact with the recording tape.  Still, it’s better than hitting “stop” which tends to leave an annoying clunky sound between songs.

Now, the one irritating thing that amateur tapers do is let a song be cut off at the end of a side.  Don’t do that!  It’s very difficult to get exactly a side of music, so leave some space after the last song.  In fact, I suggest having a bunch of “standby” short tracks handy, to fill up any undesired blank space.  It’s also fun to end a side with a brief movie quote or skit.  It’s up to you, how you decide to end a side, but don’t cut a song off.  That’s annoying!  You may have to improvise, select some shorter songs, and re-do some things, but cutting off a song is just a rookie mistake.  You will have to be flexible with your track list when it comes to where the sides end.  Tape speed is anything but consistent, so even if you’ve clocked your side at exactly 45 minutes, if your tape is running fast then you’ll be out of space.

The beauty of cassette is the opportunity to use the two sides to your advantage.  Each side can be its own journey, with opening and closing tracks.  Yet it’s still part of a whole.  Perhaps you’d like to make a Led Zeppelin hits tape.  Why not make side one all electric, and side two acoustic?  You can have a killer electric opening for side one (“Good Times Bad Times” perhaps), and close it with a corker too (like “Kashmir”).  Then you can kick off side two with an acoustic opener, such as “Gallows Pole” and end it with “Stairway”.  The possibilities are endless, but the ability to create distinct sides is so much fun.

Finally, write those songs down on the J-card, or make some custom cover art.  If you’re artistically inclined, the cover art can be the most fun.

Making a mix tape is a time consuming process since you need to do it in real time.  It can also be a taxing job, if you’re a perfectionist trying to make your mix tape flawless.  The main thing is keeping it fun.  Have a good time with it!

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#435: How to Write a Music Review

GETTING MORE TALE #435: How to Write a Music Review

So you want to throw your voice into the din, and write album reviews?  Good for you!  Allow me to offer some suggestions to help yours stand out.

First and foremost:  Know your subject.  That doesn’t mean you have to do a whole bunch of research.  It means you should listen to the music and pay attention to the parts you want to talk about.  Don’t say, “This song is really catchy” before you realize you can’t remember how it goes the next day.  Listen and let it speak.  It’s always tempting to blast a new release and say, “It’s awesome!” or “It sucks!”  Just browse Amazon for hundreds of reviews like that.  Don’t say something is “awesome” or “sucks” unless you are sure that’s how you feel about it, and can back it up in your review.

Research isn’t necessary, but you do have to make sure your review is factually correct.  If you don’t, the trolls will come out.  For example don’t say “Steve Perry is singing better than ever on the latest Journey album,” because that’s not him!  Make sure you get those things straight – who plays on the album, who wrote the songs.  All this can be easily determined via Wikipedia which is usually accurate enough for a review.  It takes a few extra minutes, but helps ensure you won’t sound like an idiot.  When all this information is out there and available for free, there’s no excuse for inaccuracy.

Another great tip:   Be passionate.   It’s music after all.  How does it make you feel?  Put that feeling (positive or negative) into your review.  If readers can pick up on your passion, it’ll help keep them engaged.  You don’t want a dry, boring review that people skip to the end to read the rating.

One reviewers’ strategy that I recommend:  Read other reviews.  Lots and lots of them.  See what you like, and do not like, about other writers’ styles.  What can you do better?  Use this to inform your own style.  Perhaps, like me, you like a review that is thorough.  On the other hand perhaps you prefer to cut to the chase.  Either technique is valid and perhaps you will choose to mix the two.  To me, the most rewarding part of reading other reviews is picking up on words and phrases that I might not have used otherwise.  There are only so many ways that I have in my verbal arsenal to describe “awesome” riffs, “killer” lead vocals, “pounding” drums, “bone-shaking” bass, or “scorching” lead guitars.  Add more words and phrases to your bag by paying attention to other writers.  And by all means, don’t be afraid to use a thesaurus!  I use them all the time, to remind myself of words I like but just can’t think of when I need them!

Once you’ve written a few reviews, I think it’s important to shake it up.  Keep your readers interested by changing up your style a bit.  Don’t do every single review as track-by-track.  Don’t use the same format every time.  Don’t allow yourself to get bored with your own writing.  If you’re bored, will your readers follow suit?

What about length?  Length does not matter.  If you have a lot to say, then say it.  Writing reviews online is completely different from doing it for print publications.  There are no word limits, and there are no censors.  Short is fine too.  Some of the best reviews I’ve ever read were just one sentence.  “Shit Sandwich” – everybody remembers that two-word review from This is Spinal Tap.    Of course the review “Shit Sandwich”, classic as it is, does violate an earlier rule:  “Don’t just say an album sucks.”  Sometimes you can get away with it, if you’re an established reviewer, because readers can refer back to your past more detailed work and see what you had to say about the band before.  This is a thin line – the fine line between clever and stupid….

How about photos and videos?  They are helpful to augment a review.  The help break it up visually and add more information.  But even though a picture can speak 1000 words, make sure your words are up to par.  The words must come first.  Everything else is just icing.  (Don’t use too much icing, either!)

Ultimately, the best advice is the simplest:  Enjoy what you do.  Write music reviews simply because that’s what you want to do.   If you spend all day talking about and thinking about music anyway, chances are you’ve already written a bunch of great reviews in your head.  Now you just need to get them out on paper.

Get out there and do it – there’s nobody to stop you!

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#432: The Complaint Department

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#432: The Complaint Department

When I run out of fresh things to talk about, that’s when it’s time to go digging through the LeBrain HQ archives!  This time I’ve retrieved some comments from the Complaint Department!

IMG_20150901_173315_editComplaint #1:  “You don’t review enough new releases!”

Yes, yes I know.  This is a rut I’m stuck in.  I like to spend some serious alone time with an album before I’m comfortable releasing a full-on review.  By the time I get the album (usually a Japanese import or whatever version has bonus tracks) and give it a fair listen, it’s rarely a new release anymore!  I prefer to review a physical CD whenever possible.  This is so I can read the lyrics, the liner notes, and show you pictures of the physical product.  It’s also so I can hear it in full CD quality sound.

I’d love if more contributors would step up and review some new releases for me.  Unfortunately most of my former contributors now write for their own sites!  Think you have what it takes to put your opinion on the internet for no money and no recognition?  Drop me a line!

Complaint #2: “How come you haven’t reviewed any Creed?”

This is being worked on.  Watch this space.

Complaint #3: “You post articles just to poke the bear.”

This is partly true.  When I have something negative to say about music, I try to do it in a funny way.  Well, you know about the internet and humour — sometimes things can be taken the wrong way.  (I know you’re surprised.)  Plus, I’m not that funny.  If I’m out of line, you can go ahead and tell me so.  Let’s have some friendly, adult musical discussions.  When I’m on a roll, it’s just for a laugh and so we have something to discuss, so let’s do it!  Just keep it civil.  No name calling.

IMG_20150901_173532_editComplaint #4: “In your Record Store Tales, you make yourself out to be the hero of the story and everyone else like buffoons.  Then, you made yourself the victim at the end.”

Really?  You think the guy who shit his pants in the store is the hero and not a buffoon himself?  Well OK then!  I can’t help how people read the stories with their own interpretation.  I was no hero, I was a big zero.  Zero the Hero!  I messed up too, quite royally in some cases, like the time some  kid stole our “free CD” stamper on my watch.  All of this was on my performance reviews.  They transferred me from one store to another because my sales were way down and I was having problems controlling my staff.  I don’t think the bosses were buffoons.  How could I knock somebody who has created a business that has lasted 25 years and counting?  I just think I was taken advantage of, after years of being the nice-guy yes-man.  Spoogecakes used to refer to me as the owner’s “lackey”, but nobody wants to be the lackey forever.  I have admitted that I was depressed and despondent in the last years.  If I have committed any sins, it’s that I didn’t assert myself, or get out of there sooner.  That’s my fault.  I was too afraid of my bosses to stand up for myself.

Complaint #5: “You talk about heavy metal too much, and not enough about other great artists that you may be missing out on.”

True!  I write what I know best, but we do need to get more variety of quality music up here.  We need to get more artists represented, although I’ve covered a sampling of country, jazz and and classical before.  This is a challenge I accept.  Look forward to more branching out in the future!

#429: “What kind of music do you like?”

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#429: “What kind of music do you like?”

Have you ever spent a little bit of time trying to get to know somebody new that you were interested in romantically? Probably, unless you have people throwing themselves at you like little girls at a Bieber concert. I’m sure most of us have made that small talk, when first making someone’s acquaintance. Nowadays it’s often done in email.  Routine questions and the like.

You know the typical subjects, when you just meet somebody. Do you like pets? Do you like to travel? What’s your favourite food?  (My answers always were:  1. Yes, 2. No, and 3. Anything that swims.)

The most difficult question of them all, the one that I could go on and on and on about was: “What kind of music do you like?”

What kind of music do I like?? How many hours do we have???

How do I answer that question? How do you answer that question?

It’s also a bit of a loaded question.  I learned early in life that if I answered simply “Heavy Metal”, that was a dealbreaker with a lot of girls!  I’m sure things are a lot different today.  I remember my buddy Bob telling me, “This girl at work said she’d go out with me, if I didn’t listen to rock.”

I used to try and keep my answers short. When a person is just starting to get to know you, they don’t necessarily want an essay-form answer to a simple question. “What kind of music do you like?”  I refused to answer “everything” because when most people say they like “all music”, 99% of the time, it’s not true. I’ve certainly dated people who claimed to like “all” music, but didn’t seem to enjoy anything I picked in the car….

Keeping things simple, I used to try to answer the music question in the following ways:

1. “Anything with guitars”.

I stopped using that one early because frankly it’s not true. Ben Folds Five didn’t use guitars. I have jazz and classical music without guitars. And there’s lots of music out there with guitars that just plain sucks!

2. “Anything that rocks”.

I thought, “Hey, that’s better than my other answer. Lots of music rocks. Even electronic music can rock.” But it doesn’t really answer the question, does it? It’s a subjective answer. It’s like answering, “Anything good.”

I had one really, really annoying customer at the Record Store one afternoon. She wanted some new music to listen to. It didn’t have to be “new” new, just new to her. When asked what kind of music she liked, she just answered, “Good music.”

She kept us running around for the next hour, trying to find CDs in the store that she would like. She would sit and try them on the listening station. She sampled the discs that we picked for her to try, and just answer, “I didn’t like these.” We asked again, is there anything specific you’re looking for? “I just like good music,” she answered, clearly as frustrated as we were.

My getting-to-know-you answer evolved into the following:

3. “I buy CDs from every section of the music store, but my favourites usually have loud guitars.”

Honest, true and short. And hopefully from that answer the young lady knew what she was getting into with me!

Did you used to get that question? How did you answer it? Leave a comment!

“Heavy metal, hard-core, punk, pop, or thrash.
You can call it anything it don’t matter to me.
Call it what you want.
It’s all music to me.”

#425: The Soup Nazi

Dedicated to Sebastien Xavier Meunier

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#425: The Soup Nazi

One of the classic, most popular antagonists from the old TV show Seinfeld is the Soup Nazi .  This character, the proprietor of a busy, highly rated soup joint in Manhattan, was eccentric to say the least.  The Soup Nazi had strict rules about lining up and ordering your soup.

Jerry: “There’s only one caveat.  The guy who runs the place is a little temperamental, especially about the ordering procedure.  He’s secretly referred to as the Soup Nazi.”

Elaine: “Why? What happens if you don’t order right?”

Jerry:  “He yells and you don’t get your soup.”

That’s right!  Deviate from procedure, and there’s no soup for you!  Jerry continues:

Jerry: “As you walk in the place, move immediately to your right.  The main thing is to keep the line moving.  It’s very important not to embellish on your order.  No extraneous comments.  No questions.  No compliments.”

As it turned out, George complained about some forgotten bread.  He was given a refund and had his soup taken away!  “No soup for you!”  Elaine ended up with a one year ban!  The only Seinfeld character with whom the Soup Nazi seems to have an understanding is Kramer.  “You suffer for your soup,” says Cosmo Kramer.  “You demand perfection from yourself, from your soup.”

I have always had a…what’s the word?…not admiration, but something like that…for the Soup Nazi.  Envy, perhaps.  Not for his gruff demeanor.  Not for his rude reactions to people.  Not for a badass moustache.  Just for his demand…nay!…his expectation on a nice, quiet orderly line.  I like order.

DOUCHE 3-1

LeBrain at the counter, circa 1998, going through a box of discs.

You might be surprised to learn that a used CD store can have a very, very busy counter area.  It’s quite easy for things to go sideways if you’re not on top of them.  The used CD store was a place in which you’re performing multiple duties simultaneously.  While you are buying a pile of 50 CDs (which you have organized meticulously by condition and offering price), you could also be looking up inventory for someone else, and doing a sale for someone else.   Is that the phone ringing?

On a busy day, I could have several piles of discs that I’m buying from customers, and also a few more piles that customers want to buy, but have set aside while they look around some more.  It can get very confusing very quickly if there is not order.

Back in Part 274 of Record Store Tales, we took a look at a type of customer I dubbed the “Hawks”.  These are folks with a lot of CDs to sell.  They were the most annoying customers in the world:  sellers who just want to hang out at the front counter, watch what you’re doing, and chat.  They are completely oblivious to the concept of other people.  They don’t realize there is someone else behind them who is trying to buy something, while they lean and take up all the counter space themselves.  The Soup Nazi didn’t put up with that.

Since I wasn’t a Soup Nazi (and had bosses who could fire me and stuff), I would just politely (as I could manage) tell the guy that he has a line forming behind him, and could he please move off to the side?  I’d encourage them to go and get a coffee and come back later if I was going through a lot of CDs for them.

Even worse than Hawks in some ways though were customers who were just nosy.  “What are these?” they’d ask, before jumbling the piles of CDs that I had meticulously arranged earlier.  “Those belong to someone else, I had them all organized so please don’t mix them up.”  Frustration boils inside, fake smiles on the outside!

So yes, condemn me if you wish.  I can sympathize with the Soup Nazi.  I’m sure the following people burned his britches just as much as they burned mine!

  • The ones who are too busy chatting with their friends or on a cell phone to notice they are NEXT IN LINE!
  • Counter leaners who take up the whole thing, while bombarding you with BAD BREATH!  They tend to leave the counter dirty, and/or sweaty.
  • Counter parkers, who decide not to look around the store at all, but just park there and ask questions. They don’t like making room for paying customers.  They don’t even know there are any other customers.  They just have questions.  LOTS AND LOTS OF QUESTIONS!
  • CLINGERS. These people are not your friends, but they don’t know that.  Friends understand that you’re working and they are not, so they don’t bother you too much.  Clingers were usually customers who seemed lonely, and just wanted to hang out.  They like to chat, ask questions, and make it look like that CD in their hand is something they are really going to purchase.  But no, is it all just an elaborate hoax.  They just needed to kill a couple hours, and someone to talk to.  The person behind the counter is a captive audience.  They buy like, one or two discs a year just so they can’t be officially labelled a nuisance.

Looking back on it today, maybe it would have been better for my soul had I just take a few tips from the Soup Nazi.  No discs for you!

STORE RULES