A Story of a Man and His Records

There comes a time in every record collectors “career” when you must decide what your relationship to your collection is.  It actually makes a BIG difference once you define this relationship, because it will also define the relationship that you have with your family and their ultimate relationship to your collection as with friends, house visitors, admirers…even utility people that find their way into your house to help clean it up or repair some plumbing.

A long time ago I made a decision to treat my records as I did when I was in junior high school.  While I actually do not remember a time that I did not collect, junior high…along with my first allowance and ability to take a bus alone…was my first surge into the glorious world of having a record library.  My brother had the Harmony Guide to Rock and Roll and I would troll its pages looking for cool covers.  Then it was off to Revolver Records on Clement to see if they had any of the titles I was looking for (The Jam’s first record, The Who’s Sell Out, London Calling), seeing if Billy behind the counter had any recommendations, and just taking in the scene (note to younger self: the first Kraftwerk  Pylon-cover record…original pressing…selling for $5 and not moving…BUY IT).

When I got home I would tear the LP out of the sleeve and throw it on the table.  Sit on my bed. Stare out the window at the alley behind the house…focus on the horizon and be blown away.  When both sides were played, throw the record on top of it’s cover, pull out another, put the new cover on top of the just-played platter and throw the new slab onto the table. Repeat. Repeat. Dinner. Homework. Sneak Repeat. Homework. Repeat. Bed.  By the time I woke up in the morning I had to excavate the pile to get to whichever record I woke up thinking about so I could get it on and get my morning soundtrack rolling.  Care for the record’s health and well-being? Enough not to sit on it, or use it as a Frisbee….but truth be told, scratches happened, ripped covers were part of it…and it all felt wild and glorious (and maybe it was a good thing I DIDN’T buy that Kraftwerk treasure).

It was after a faithful night at Geoffrey Weiss’s house in Los Angeles, where I solidified my relationship with my collection. Geoffrey had just bought a turntable where you had to literally screw in the record to play it.  He would take out some genius record…probably from the late 60s (by my request) and probably one of ten known copies….. take it out of the plastic sleeve, gracefully hydroplane it out the cover, screw the fucker in, and then I think there was some other warm-up measure that the player needed to coax it to spew a little audio.  And it sounded great. And the music was brilliant…and yet I wanted start scratching the grooves like a DJ or throw another LP on top of the first  or grab the sleeve with both hands and lick it…something tactile to make me feel involved aside from the eardrum hit. 

I got home that night, poured a glass of whisky, and started listening to and making piles of records until the sun came up.  Inner sleeves? Had no time for them.

And so I intentionally grew my collection with passion mixed with a little recklessness.  Right now I have piles of LPs next to the turntable in the living room, including some naked discs of rare titles…and while there will be a moment in which to clean them up and alphabetize them back into the thick of it, to me those messy piles represent the remnants of a good time. 

My son Asher took my Congos vinyl and used is as a disc to slide accross the floor like a weighted shuffleboard puck. Completely ruined it.  Unplayable even by noise enthusiasts. Unacceptable completely.  But truth be told, I admire the fun and am just glad he is interacting.  Being of mortal flesh, I am going to get older and wither and die. There is no reason for my collection to age along with me.  Look down upon my as you will, we shall see who ends up smiling.  Records are meant to have fun with.

The fact is, like with everything else, we are all different.  There are people who have a fairly decent collection, and who only own a Crosley turntable with a needle just above the quality of a dull nail.  There are those who DJ often enough to wear their records down to the bone.  There are those who stopped caring a long time ago, and forgot to check if there was too much moisture in the basement where their collection ended up.  There are those born-again types who got into collecting late in life, and have more enthusiasm for the sport than can be comprehended.  There are those who brag about how much they paid for a record, and those who brag at the incredible deal they found at a garage sale.  There are those who never take off the plastic wrapper, as a grandparent does to a couch.

There are those who have horrible taste and super high-end equipment.  They have the kind of stereo set-up where the music only sounds good in one part of the room.  And yes, David Hyman, there are those who have good taste but for some reason still buy records by Kenny G and Patricia Barber, records that have been recorded and mixed and mastered in some beyond high-definition-audiophile process, but whose music is truly dreadful.  Supposedly, Barber recordings seep from every crevice of the annual NAMM convention, used to show off the newest high-end receiver/headphone/speaker. 

To me…it is all about middle-range fidelity.  Give me a 70s solid-state Pioneer receiver. Give me the Techniques turntable I bought with my Bar Mitzvah money…give me some ugly fake wood-looking 70s furniture speakers…and let me ride.  That is, of course , as long as you are listening to 12 inch, 33 and a third post-Dave-Brubeck-Take-Five items…or 45s for that matter.  For 78s…all tube, bigger furniture pieces with a built-in bar is needed. I think I still own one of those Cadillacs in Los Angeles somewhere.  Through their use, your Fats Domino selections will sound best, presenting the true, warm low-end sound of the time. 

Records should be listened to on the format and that apparatus that was most commonly used when the music was recorded.

Records are the language I use to communicate with some of my closest friends and going record shopping with them is like going to Shangri-La (sometimes literally).  We suggest records to each other…get excited when a great title is being sold cheap.  Whatever I buy gets tested out immediately, and whatever passes my completely subjective test gets added to my collection and makes the collection more powerful.  Oh yes, my record collection is power.  And it gets stronger all of the time.

I love my records like I have loved my dogs.  Hell, I love my records like I love myself…I could treat myself a whole lot better, but that might occasionally hinder the good time.  I love the healthy relationship I have developed with my collection.

And as for my kids’ less-healthy attitudes, destroying my collection as they grow, hunt, evolve, prank? I still have to figure that out.  Records behind bars feels like William Blake’s fenced off church. What is the need? But if they destroy my original pressing of the Heartbreakers LAMF—and yes, I don’t mind the production or the mix—what then?  What then….

Ode To Little Richard

In the mid-nineties it was easy to get an acquaintance with Little Richard. All you had to do was haunt the bar at the Hyatt Hotel on Sunset where he lived and at one time or another you would find yourself talking to him over a drink…talking about how he discovered Rock and Roll or a new project he was concocting…listening and watching a legend perform in front of you, as if you were at Carnegie Hall.

I didn’t go to the Hyatt to search him out. I would go for a pre-concert drink before venturing across the street to the House of Blues.  When I first saw him holding court there, my jaw dropped.  There he was…all made up with his legendary pomp and flashy clothes, as if he had just come back from killing it at American Bandstand. Flamboyantly throwing his hands around with every sentence he preached, Little Richard was everything you hoped he would be.  And he even remembered you after a first meeting.

When Shane MacGowan and the Popes were playing The House Of Blues, I took Shane down to the bar…to see if Little Richard was there.  And when we walked in and heard his Wop-bop-a-loo-bop voice above the crowd, we went right over to where that sound was coming from, and I got to introduce the Irish songwriting legend to the inventor of Rock and Roll.  Shane professed just how much Richard’s music and flair influenced him from the beginning of his artistic journey.  How he had never heard or seen anything like Richard before.  Richard took it all in…the praise was what always fueled him, made him stand even taller, loom larger….made the warm room light shine off of his made-up face just a little more brilliantly.

When a drunken Irish husband of a colleague at Warner Brothers tried to bust into their conversation, ignoring Richard while aggressively trying to get Shane’s attention, both musicians simultaneously told the guy to get lost: “This man has something to tell me,” Richard said. Don’t interrupt the good tidings.

Months later, the Blues Foundation produced an evening honoring Ruth Brown, Etta James and Koko Taylor at the House Of Blues. It was one of those events where they packed the floor with long tables crammed together, so that the back of each seat was against another at the next table.  When the presentation for Brown began and the speaker started talking about the legacy of the woman who built Atlantic records, I started hearing a murmur behind me.

It started softly:

Speaker: “Ruth Brown’s musical accomplishments are beyond comparison”

Person behind me: “You damn right”

Speaker: “It was Ruth Brown who brought Rhythm and Blues to a Pop audience”

Voice behind me, louder: “Keep speaking brother”

Speaker: “Ruth Brown’s voice was a powerhouse, like no other”

Voice behind me, almost yelling: “Praise Jesus!”

At this point my chair was rumbling from the energy of the person sitting right behind me, from Little Richard. Without warning he jumped off his seat…practically stood on top of it….launching himself onto the stage to sermon about his good friend Ruth.  About in the early days how he would sneak in to see her perform, how he lifted his famous LUCILLE scream from her.  He waxed about their times together at the dawning of a new era, when both crossed incredible boundaries with their music.  He even sang part of her famous hit, “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean.”

Everything before his speech was just a warm up.

On his way back from the stage he gave me a big sweaty hello and we talked, back to back, about his love of Ruth Brown until the meal was served.

My favorite Little Richard story happened after his keynote at South By Southwest in 2004.   Everyone knows that the worst part of SXSW is the walk of shame through a packed Austin airport on the Sunday morning.  Hung over. Time to go home.  I was boarding a plane to take me back to Los Angeles.  The line to get on the plane was long and stuck. As I boarded, backpack heavy with demos and body rocked with sleeplessness, the first thing I noticed was Little Richard, sitting in first class, all dressed up but looking pensively outside his window.

The boarding line was at a standstill, waiting for someone ahead of us to get out of the aisle.  So I decided to go for it: “Look over there.” I shouted, impolitely pointing my finger at the legend in front of me, “It’s Little Richard. It is the guy who invented Rock and Roll.”

Without missing a beat, Richard transformed, jumped right up on his feet, threw a statuesque pose with his fingers piercing the air, opened wide his eyes and smile and answered, “YOU DAMN RIGHT. IT IS LITTLE RICHARD RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW.”  Everyone got a handshake as they walked to their seats, and their crappy Sunday morning was made magical.

There is a big, exhausting question as to who really invented Rock and Roll. Was it Ike Turner when he took Jimmy Liggins’ CADILLAC BOOGIE and reworked it as ROCKET 88? Was it Carl Perkins and BLUE SUEDE SHOES? Or was it Little Richard when he told drummer Earl Palmer to change his drum beat from shuffle to back--on the fly-- in the studio when recording TUTTI FRUITI and launching into a new groove?

None who care will ever agree on when that exact creation moment came, but one thing is for sure…without the genius and flamboyance of Little Richard, Rock and Roll would never have been infused with the showmanship, reckless abandon and anarchistic fun that it needed to live thrive and survive.

Only Little Richard could do that…and as far as I could tell, he made it known to everyone who was lucky to meet him. 

One Spring's Playlist

As the curse with all record collectors/music addicts, there are times where certain artists, genres, songs, albums, random and/or incongruous bits of stranger sounds: become an all-encompassing fixation. If you were a neighbor of our small family during the past months, and you listened closely (which believe me, none of our neighbors would did), you were delighted by the sounds of early 70s America. Good old country influenced folk flavored rock. Just the groove needed during the crisp months of the outer Sunset, when the ladies commonly remark on HOW GOOD THE WEATHER REALLY IS near the ocean and the dog areas of Golden Gate Park glisten sun drenched trees until late in the day, smelling of nature aromating as it bakes in the light.

My soundtrack was clear (in no particular order):

1. One In A Hundred (Gene Clark)
2. The Virgin (Gene Clark)
3. Lover Of The Bayou (Byrds, live)
4. Just A Season (The Byrds)
5. Release (Michael Nesmith)
6. Three-Quarters Blind Eyes (Plush)
7. When A Woman Calls My Name (Miracle Workers)
8. Horses (Palace Songs)
9. North Cumberland Blues (Jerry Jeff Walker)
10. Nobody (Bill Cowsill)

A very special thanks to Streetlight Records in Santa Cruz for providing a truly epic record buying experience that helped kick this off.

Ishmael philosphy from Moby Dick

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp-all others but liars!"

Sometimes Progress

"Sometimes progress takes the form of historical amnesia"
-Christopher Clausen, Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2010

SF STATUE SERIES PT. 1: ASHURBANIPAL

Across from the SF Main Public Library, standing in front of the south wall of the Asian Art Museum, is the mighty statue of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal by Iraqi sculptor Fred Parhad (who at the time was a California resident). Commissioned in 1987 by The Assyrian Fund For The Arts and installed in 1988, the statue is a truly majestic 8 foot tall triumph. When it was installed, there was (of course) controversy around HOW it looked. Some said it looked more like the hero of the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh. But regardless of this fact, it was the first (maybe only) statue of this 7th century ruler and a gem for the city.
As for Fred Parhad, he has since done a statue of Sumuramat for Chicago and one of Hammurabi for Detroit.

A Day Off

Spent yesterday attempting to do nothing. Nothing but reading, throwing some platters on, and chasing away the hurried holiday-filled day before.
It started out pouring down rain yesterday morning...a welcome way to ooze through the day. But when the sun came out, everything changed. My wife informed me simultaneously that her monthly OB appointment was at 2pm and while that did not fit in to the day of nothingness, it became its welcome, wonderful focal point. And yes, we got to hear our little girl's heart beat, with a growing gusto from last month. I am living to meet her.
Wile E and I took an amazing stroll through Golden Gate Park. Her pace is slowing with age, and she seemed to tire quicker, but we both enjoyed the blossoming arena fresh from the morning mist. The cherry blossoms are in total bloom right now, as are the plants that produce the varied purple thistle-like flowers.
Back home and back into the land of Moby Dick. Reached the half-way point yesterday and am plowing through the tough reading waters. The first Sperm Whale has been caught and the crew is dealing with its dismemberment. Pretty damn gruesome, highlighted by the film Barb and I watched later in the evening, Star Trek IV, where the focus is on whale predators and the human actions towards whale extinction. And if that was not bad enough, while the flick rolled, a mouse trap went off in our kitchen not killing the mouse, but trapping one of its hind legs. It kept scurrying around the room, trap in tow, squealing something awful. Why this day was framed with a theme of animal-endangerment was beyond me, leaving me with no other option than to try and set the mouse free. This is no small feet. The mouse was writhing. I had no desire to touch it. I took some prongs and loaded the mouse and the trap into a tupperware trough. Using a kneif, holding the trap with the prongs, I jimmied the trap open and the mouse got its leg out, immediately attempting not to escape, but to eat the rest of the trap's peanut butter. Wile E and I brought the trough out to the backyard, stepped away and kicked it over. The mouse scurried to freedom and I felt that I had accomplished a task that for some reason was meant for me this day.
Strangely, a day-off can be a melancholy thing and the lack-of-direction heaviness hit me mid afternoon. Pointlessness set in. The un-directed, foundation-less, existential pointlessness. In recent chapters of Moby Dick, it speaks of the soul "full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life."
Trying to shake it off, I went to the usual salvation of the record collection. Dusted off The Lollipop Shoppe record from the 60s (front man Fred Cole was SO GOOD at SXSW with his new band Pierced Arrow), and threw the needle on the groove. It really is one of the greatest slabs of psychedelia in the world: Oregon-dark, hazy and groovy. By song two I was cooking up dinner, including Alice Water's recipe for cabbage which rocks. The day ended as it began, with contentment. Why I must dwell on the half-known life is beyond me, but at least I went back to the known and slept close to my wife and unborn baby girl.