Bear's Lair

2011-09-08T22:11:00.002-04:00

I've been listening to lots of Tijuana Brass stuff lately, getting ready to discuss it on the Hoffman forum.

I still don't get it?

2011-03-06T20:33:00.002-05:00

I have a pretty diverce collection of music, 7000 albums plus, I can listen to just about anything! Captain Beefheart, King Uszniewicz, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Esquivel, Martin Denny, Yes, The Cure, Wanda Landowska, Harry Nilsson, The Pretty Things, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Perez Prado, Glenn Gould, Charles Mingus, Lucia Pamela, The Beach Boys, Bert Kaempfert, The Kinks, The Mothers, Otis Redding, Korla Pandit, Fats Waller. I can listen to anything (except for country and post 1996 Rap) but I can't figure out this group called:

The Mom And Dads.
They sound awful, like the band that's playing in some Moose lodge to a bunch of old 65 year olds in the back in the 70's. Their instumentation consists of accordion, piano, alto sax, and a 3 piece drum set (snare, bass, and floor tom. No cymbals or rack tom, this guy has a row of temple blocks on top of his bass drum). They have [scratching head] 3 platinum albums, one that went double and four gold albums, who in the fuck bought them?! I want to know. Their music is terrible. Everything is played slow, whole note melodies, the drummer playing the same "clippity klop" tempo on every song. These guys make Mantovani sound like Monk. I got Trout Mask Replica after the second listen, it's one of those albums that has to sink in before you get it. I remember playing it in the living room with my sister present back in 1977. She was into her Dan Fogelberg/Stephen Bishop phase at the time. I'll wonder in the living room and pop my Trout Mask Replica 8-track in the family's Zenith Allegro stereo, and then blast her with Captain Beefheart in all of his off kilter glory. After 10 minutes, she had tears streaming down her face crying for me to take it off, she cound't take it or get it, or both. TMR is one of those albums that you have to get, listen and absorb it's goodness, once you do you get it. That is how I feel about the Mom And Dads, I don't get them. Every song sounds the same with the flatulent sounding sax, Myron Floren on Lunesta accordion, a piano that plays just half notes, and a drummer that taps on on wood blocks doing his klippity klop thing. It doesn't make me cry but I get the urge to get plastered like the audience at the Moose, it's the only way you can listen to it. The Mom & Dads makes those 50's era Jackie Gleason albums with the kitchy girlie covers sound like Motorhead in comparison. The Mom & Dads serve one purpose in my collection, to run people out of the house after a all night party. Yoko Ono used to serve that purpose at one time with her voice that sounds like somebody swinging a cat around by it's tail. I wonder if I played the Mom & Dads to drive everyone out, they would stay and get the urge to drink more.

I'm back

2010-12-04T22:32:00.002-05:00

I'm still here. I haven't died yet, some people would like to see me dead, why I don't know. It's probably my personality, or my standoffish aproach to certain people. I like to work alone and be alone, and I don't like to work with people who can't carry their weight. Something happened today that reminds me of the High School gratuation fiasco in 1982 when I got a post card in the mail that read "HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION EXCERCISES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO ANOTHER SCHOOL USING THE HALL. WE WILL CALL YOU WITH THE DATE FOR THE RESCHEDULE". On the bottom of the card, it read "IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND YOU DON'T WALK". Me and several other students never got a call so I got fucked out of my big day, the bitch never even gave me back my cap & gown money either. Dog Meat hand picked the ones she wanted to walk the isle, clique-ee bullshit. My diploma came in the mail, I felt like burning the fucking thing when I got it. Twelve years for this, a diploma in the mail. If it was my brother, my idiot father would call every lawyer in the phone book just like the time when his boy got knocked cold by some derylict at a Burger King. Which brings me to this... our Christmas party. This bitch who has it out for me for some reason never gave me a RSVP sheet for the party, she gave everyone in the room one but I never got one. When I asked her for one, she muttered something when she walked out of the area which I did not hear. Then I hear 2 days ago that the party is today and they would not take my RSVP, so here I fucking am. The place I work for is so damn clique'e it's not funny. If you are a friend of a manager, you get kicked up the ladder in a month or so, plus perks and rapid rewards up the ass. I think I'm back in high school all over again, fucking deja vu.

Progress

2009-11-06T20:05:00.000-05:00

Hello to whom ever is reading this.
I've been on Facebook for awaile but I decided to come here and bullshit a little.
Facebook is cool, it's like having a High School reunion in cyberspace, but you invite the people you want. Forget the nerd or the stoner who dropped out, hang with your pals and chat and send photos. It's fun but I'm a bloghead at heart, I love to go on about records, music and my bear cave/man cave/record room/guitar room/studio/stereo room that is 75% complete. All I need is one more big shelf that could hold 1000+ classical albums and I'm done. The room is coming along nicely.

RIP Trigger

2009-09-13T22:18:00.007-04:00

Today was my day to shine and I blew it, thanks to "Trigger" my faithful old Ludwig Speed King petal. Let me start the story...... to let you all know, I play for the Lord now.

Once apon a time...in the early 90's I played in almost every blues band in the area. That got old quick, it gets tireing playing the contents of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers "Beano/Clapton" album front to back except I pulled off the drum solo night after night (What I Say), and the same old Stax/Volt "Blues Brothers" schlock that they are pushing off as "playin' de blues". "Walkin' The Dog" is as blues as "Mannish Boy" is to R&B, it got old quick so I spilt the blooooze scene to play country.......big freakin' mistake! At the time I had a yellow Gretsch kit that Tony Williams played on in the mid-80s, When the kit was set up on the stage it was like waiving a red flag infront of a bull. Here's all these green teeth rednecks looking at it seething, saying things like "thats a yella drumset, he mustah have a yellah streak on 'is back" and my favorite: "uuuh...huh huh huh that's a yellah drumset uh huh huh, he musta be a faggut uh huh huh". I can still see those unwashed roofers in their dirty t-shirts in my face with their Billy Bob/Jack O'Lantern teeth. I would fire one back "uh huh huh you floss with clothes line, go to night school n' get a edjacashun uh huh huh huh" just for fun. Next week I would bring my Ludwig blue sparkle set and everyone is calm, even the numbscull roofers. That was a typical night at Ives Estates.

I'm looking for that Ludwig set, I sold it in the mid-90's for $600 and I want them back but it's easy to identify them, all 4 drums are stamped 11/3/70 on the inside of the shells and have the blue and olive badges, the sizes are 13/16/18/22, I want them back.

Anywho to start the story, my neighbor ran this country show at Ives Estates and I promised to help him to play drums with his and his partner Lefty's band untill they find a replacement. Their last drummer was busted on stage after being on the lam for molesting his own daughter (for real). The police arrested him on stage after a set since he was on the run from the law. That place was a white trash fantasy camp. If you wanted to smoke a cigarette, just inhale the air, the air was thick with second hand smoke, when you drove off you can see it billow from the doors and vents. The bread they served with their BBQ tasted like cigarette smoke, the longer they sold beer the wilder the nights got. You could jump in the shower and still smell like smoke when you dried off. There was this one lady who had a arm in a sling who used to drive us nuts. She would grab the microphone after a song while we were in the middle of a set and say "achy breaky achy breaky", after that you can see the battle lines going into formation. It's line dancin' time, even the roofers are in it, and we would have to play Miley's dads one big hit. For a few months the Bear was steering the boat but the C&W gig at Ives Estates did not last because the co-manager of the band thought I was hitting on his old lady, she looked 30 from the back (when playing) when you see a nice figure, but when you see her face she looks 70, almost like someones Granny, yikes! I had my own girlfriend at the time, thank you. This guy (who is married) got jellous when he saw me showing her how to change the battery inside her Guild acoustic guitar. Two weeks later I saw a different drumset on the stage with the name H-U-C-K on the front. This guy sucked un-merciful, I had to show him how to play with dynamics for starters, and everything he played sounded like a polka or a 2-step. Lefty was so paranoid that I was going to skip town with his pruneface old lady, so he sacked me. The band wanted me back but Lefty (his name) would have no word of it and came up with one excuse after another, so they all left one by one. So Lefty was stuck with the banjo player who did not know what the term "sit this one out" ment, and 3 flat top players. Then lefty loaded up and sold my neighbor's PA gear (a typical hillbilly thing to do) and fled town leaving my neighbor holding the bag and bills from the hall.

That was at the same time I was playing in a oldies band called "Just Like Us".
These guys did not suck, they swallowed. The last gig I played with them was proof. Holli Brailsford, my girlfriend at the time was giving me the audience vibe while manning the tape machine. We cleared the room, that night. The gig was a 50's style sock hop for Autism at the Knights Of Columbus Hall in North Miami Beach on 11/5/95. The first set went over OK except for "Brown Eyed Girl". Ed the novice had to buy a $3000 off-the-rack Gibson Les Paul Custom Black Beauty when his Epiphone did the job. He started off the song on the wrong fret and blamed the guitar for going out-of-tune, then grabbed his Gibson Blueshawk and continued. The keyboard player (brother in-law) was holding chords for 12 bars or as long as he could milk it with his Ensoniq keyboard was stuck in Vox Conti mode 95% of the night. Ever hear a ballad like "Everything I Do, I'd Do It For You" with someone playing chords on a Vox Continental organ playing the low keys and non-existent fingerwork, everything sounded like a Doors cover. The second set set was the dooser. Cecilia (the singer) came back stewed from the hall's bar and that's when it went downhill. The bass player (who was pooching the guitarist's wife) trashed the Autisim accociation's approved set and started playing what they wanted to play. When they started into "Southern Man" (at a 50's sock hop, no thumbs up from the Fonz), half of the crowd left. "Who's Cryin' Now" was even funnier when pluted Cessie was caterwauling off key, think of that clip of Jefferson Starship from Germany with a tanked Grace from VH-1's Behind The Music and you'll get the picture. She comes in, more like jumps in during the solo at the end almost causing the song to derail, after that 1/4 of the crowd leaves. By the end of the second set, there's only a handful of people left. After the gig I took my $200 and went home, and never touched the drums for at least 3 years and that was therapy for my wrist surgery. Oh... I did sit in with Piano Bob and the Snowman during that time. That whole JLU experience put a bad taste in my mouth that I just gave up on playing with people. Cecilia hated Holli since she had a better voice, could count bars and cracked jokes at her expence. Holli was telling me what people were saying in the audience which was a scream. She told me about one guy who yelled out "who hired these guys", another one who yelled out "the only one who could play is the drummer, the rest of you need lessons". On the DAT tapes I have from the mixing board, the former is not heard but the first one is during the second set. Add compression to the between song silence and you can hear everything in the room, even the man of honor requesting "Wooly Bully" after every song.

Before that I played in a band called "Snugglebunny" from 1989-92, we were almost signed to Def American. We also were tapped to be GG Allin's backing band when he was a fugitive, but he was arrested (thank you Lord) and sent away. We would do some GG tunes when the audience was full of fans for The Goods just to send them running in fear. That was the most fun I had playing in a band.

Before that I was in the Psycho Dasies with John Saxton and Tim Powell who worked at Blue Note with me, that was in early 1989. John was a cad. He took a cassette rough mix of a 4-track tape and sold it to a Australian record label called "Dogmeat" for $600 just to buy dope, I found out about it from a indi-rock record distibutor, when I confronted John about it, he started crying. We were signed to a label called Resononse in Holland. They gave John $1200 to record a album which he used to purchase recreational substances. I'm not innocent since at that time, I had a big problem with Percosets due to a cracked gum from having a mollar pulled by a dentist at the 163rd street mall, I was out of my tree but not as bad as John was. He spent the money and the label was hassling him "we want our record" so I brought out my Akai 4-track and recorded some live shows to "give them their album". John kept knocking over the vocal mike over each night, or he's pulling the wires out of the amplifier's speaker crying "my amp blew up" just to get out of playing so none of the tapes are good. When Resononse threatened him with a law suit, he borrowed $1200 from a ex-band member and recorded the album with some drug buddies who all dead now. Me and Tim were pissed and out for blood since we rehearsed for weeks doing the new material. To be honest, I never seen a person do so much dope in one sitting, turn blue, and me and his girlfriend would revive him and walk him around the house to get his heart going again. We got our revenge at Churchills when me and Tim left John on stage drooling on his shoes and almost falling off of the stool he was sitting on. Snugglebunny was formed that night. Pat (the singer) was flicking Flintstone vitamins in John's gaping mouth while Tim was telling dirty jokes, I did a drum solo ala Shelly Manne complete with cigarette. Raul the guitarist was sitting at the bar laughing at the whole thing. The 4 of us were talking "you're a singer, I'm a guitar player, you're a bassist, he's a drummer, let's start a band" while watching John's girlfriend carry him off the stage and pack up his guitar and his Marshall combo amp he tore the wires off the back of the speaker because he was too stoned to play which was a typical ploy. We applauded Jill after as she carted off John and his stuff as we put a end to the Psycho Dasies.

We booked some studio time and it clicked. In 1992 it came to a end over Tim's ex-girlfriend dating Pat. We got another bass player but it was never the same.

After the whole JLU debackle Holli took me to church and reintroduced me to the Lord, now I play for him. I played all sorts of crappy music so now I can put it in the past. I play with the praise band at United Methodist Church in Claymont Delaware every Sunday at 10am each morning and cound't be happier. This is the first time since Snugglebunny that I have fun playing with people. Today was my moment to shine. At service we do 5 songs, the last one was "Tell The World" which is a loud racous tune. Len (the leader) gave me instructions "play loud, bang them with all your might, pump up the congregation", I did all right! I told Andy the bass player, "kill the low cut on the SWR amp, I want rumble and see loose bladders in the first 2 rows, set tasers to kill". Everything is going great untill the middle of the song where there's a part with just drums and group vocals (think of the beat from "Oh Mickey You're So Fine") and my right foot is doing it's thing while Trigger's wood beater is slamming against hide. Halfway though that part, the beater went flying from the petal landing 3 feet away. I put the beater back in while keeping the beat on the snare, and it pops out again, and again after that. By the end of the song my Speed King totaly came apart. I knocked the bass drum over at the end of the service and everyone in the band died laughing when they saw the post of the petal hanging off the hoop, the footboard was on the floor and the beater was by my foot. The singers tried to reassemble Trigger but it kept comming apart. I had that Ludwig Speed King petal since the Psycho Dasies days and now it's toast, I'm bummed. I have a DW and I hate it since the chain keeps coming off the gear like a cheap bike. I also have a DW hi-hat petal that I can't stand as well (it's overpriced junk) where I have nails bent in the holes where the rivets came out of just to keep it together, I still miss my old Rogers Swivomatic hi-hat that broke during a Snugglebunny gig. I guess I'm now on a quest to find another Speed King. Ebay! I can't stand the thought of replacing Trigger. Linda (my Sister) gave her to me as a Christmas present back in 1989.

To quote Nick Lowe "and so it goes".

God bless,

Mr Bear

Things are going smoothly

2009-09-09T20:32:00.004-04:00

I'm back to report that things are going along smoothly.
The two new racks are in and both are packed, one with jazz, the other with rock, I can use another two but I have nowhere to put them. A few weeks ago at Costco, I scored this big metal rack which I'm planning to put where this delopadated workbench stands, I may do that next week since I have a few days off. Get rid of the old kindling shitbox and put a nice metal rack in it's place and fill it up with Easy Listening, Vocals, and Exotica.

Most of the damaged stuff is fixed.
With a bucket of bleechy water and a rag, I cleaned the mold off the covers sucessfully inside and out. The JATP boxes survived with just a little discoloring, Most of the covers had some discoloring when dried which was a relief, some had some damage from the paper sticking together. Some of them need to be reglued. I'm still on a quest to find replacement covers at the thrifts, the two I'm desperatly trying to find are Kinks Kontroversy and Once Again by Barclay James Harvest (on Sire Dist. by Polydor), I'm hoping on finding some trashed LPs that I can get for the covers, the rest of the flood victims are somewhat common but I would like to save my Tull Porkys/Peckos.

To clean them I took a risk.
I made a solution of bleechy water (1/2 cup of unscented bleech & a gallon of water) and a sponge and wiped the LPs removing the mold/mildew. Once the stuff melts off the surface, I cleaned the LP with Disc Doctor solution with a Nitty Gritty machine. A LP that was once caked with moldy funk is now squeeky clean. It works. My 1S copy of Burgers (Hot Tuna) is playable once again.

Basement remodel, and the aftermath of the backed up sewer pipe

2009-08-09T23:55:00.011-04:00

You want the bad news

or the good news first.

The good news..........

The two racks are in, assembled and standing proud in the cellar ready to recieve their goodies to store. From all the shit I have, I can use two more for the classical and spaceage pop albums that are still piled high. I also need a separate rack just for R&B that are piled up in two spots in the cellar, ditto for soundtracks. Make that four more racks. Soon were going to run out of cellar space.

The ugly news.............

Remember the last post about the sewer pipe backing up. For weeks, we had to take short showers and use the dish washer and washing machine spareingly. Everytime we turned on the water we had a nice deep puddle that was six feet round, 1 1/2" deep by the drain (AKA glory hole). If one took a nice shower, the cellar was one big shitty mess where the sewage would come up and do it's thing leaving it's funky residue on the basement floor. Two weeks ago, we had a plumber come by and unclogged the sewer pipe that was full of roots from the tree out side, plus a piece of a handywipe that mysteriously found it's way down the loo. That's all over now, Margaret was cleaning the floor with bleach turning converting the "doo doo room with the reek complete" into a nice smelling cellar. She went though two buckets of water in the process scrubbing the floor while I moved the empty racks to get the funk underneith of them. We still have a ton of work to do but that's going to wait untill next week or next Tuesday depending what our plans are.

Boxes, which kind are better?

I had two boxes of records on the floor that were there before all this happened. Both of them are on plastic containers just in case of a flood, one box is carboard, the other is a Bags Unlimited black plastic container. Take a wild guess which one survived and came out unscathed!!! The cardboard box that contained all of my Jazz comps and JATP sets came out freakin' unharmed, where the collectable rock LPs inside the super duper plastic container from Bags Unlimited were 95% trashed, and thats it sitting on a plastic lid and the farthest away from the water/drain, the cardboard box was closest to the drain.

The cardboard box is indeed the winner.

The bad news...............

I lost a cache of albums to water damage in our flooding, close to 100 LPs are toast. The crates behind the boxes were high on a 3" high wooden plank so all of them survived. I'm very thankful that some of them survived. Some of the records that I kept in sleeves survived, some didn't. A mint copy of Wheels Of Fire, a original Atco pressing with laquers cut at Atlantic studios that sounds great survived unscathed. Ditto for a copy of Bowie's Hunky Dory, a genuine first press on RCA with the textured cover with no type on the front. A UK press of Roxy Music's Siren on Island (pink rim) came out OK with only a tiny bit of damage inside the gatefold cover. Water also got inside a copy of the first Faust album, the one on clear vinyl that came in a clear cover with a clear insert (German Polydor), that one survived as well. No mildew but steamy moisture got inside. My treasued copy of the Hollies "Hollies (Very Last Day)" LP on BGO is another goner, this LP isa mis-press where it's labeled mono but plays stereo. It's plastic outersleeve could not hold the fluid and got wet, it's drying out along with a UK Vertigo sampler, a UK press of the first Kinks album in stereo. A mint copy of Spanky & Our Gang's "Greatest Hits" on Mercury did not survive. It still had the original shrink wrap and was in a nice thick outersleeve and it still got waterlogged. The vinyl was soaked and it was in a plastic lined inner-sleeve, I wonder how long those records were marinating in water inside that plastic wonderbox? Some of them are no big deal like 1B 1A stamper Billy Joel albums and US Jethro Tull "Porky" cuts. I did lose some gems like some of my kiddie records like the original press Dr. Seuss Camden LPs that I had for ages, sealed Sesame Street mid-70s albums, various Chipmunks albums, and a few Golden LPs. Also in the deluge I lost a 35 LP complete NFL music library, a few of the LPs were water damaged to begin with but now the covers are all bonded together. I have 2 out of the 3 Frank Zappa "Shut Up & Play Yer Guitar" mail order LPs, both of them are toast. My Gentle Giant collection is toast. My copies of Three Frends, Octopus, along all of the Capitol albums are stuck together like glue. A few original Ricky Nelson, Monkees,Sandy Nelson, ELP, John Mayall, and Hot Tuna albums are casualties. In the mess, my original US press of Barclay James Harvest "Once Again" on Sire (Dist. by Polydor) is now confirmed as trash. I'm very bummed about this.

Shelves arrived.............hooray!

2009-08-05T14:33:00.003-04:00

Not much has changed in the dungeon on doom, except that my 2 shelves arrived. Now I'm getting ready for a big freaking remodling of the cellar. I'll spare you the gory details, but the pipe that leads to the sewer clogged and the basement floor looked nasty with sewage back-up. Now that is fixed, remdeling is on the way. I even celebrated by getting a heavy-duty metal rack from Costco to put more stuff in.

Keep posted.

Welcome to the Bearcave, a look at my collection.

2009-06-17T23:31:00.034-04:00

Welcome to my cellar. Don't trip over that pile of vintage vinyl over there. It's all over the place.
This is the wall of my studio which is burried at the moment. There is a autographed pickgaurd from John Paul Jones, a original 1957 Exotica (I love that cover), a original Jim Flora "Mambo For Cats" cover, and a fully autographed Ink Spots LP. Plus a two cool girlie covers.

By the way,

My Name is Michael Arlt, my friends refer to me as "Bear", I've been collecting records since I was seven years old. My first LP is a copy of "The Monkees Greatest Hits" on Colgems that I still have. Not the same one but a copy I bought two years later when me and my siblings wore the original out. On that pile you will notice a original LOC "Elvis Christmas Album", King Creole, and a original 78 album for "Going My Way" which has sentimental value to me. That's only the tip of the iceberg

Here is a tower comprised of 4 Peaches crates (I was a assistant manager there in 1982 in the North Miami Beach store). The top one is all audiophile stuff, the second is all Beach Boys. The Beach Boys stuff continues, after that it's all Sinatra. Those two huge piles are all rock albums awating shelves, whenever Lowes gets them back in. I'm waiting guys.

This is my jazz and rock section.

I have to keep half folded album covers on the bottom sections to keep our cats from clawing at the album spines, they already hit the N rock section. If you can see those white spines dead center to the start of the next row, that's the complete Duke Ellington DETS series on LP. INthe backround, more vocals and country on the floor awating shelves from Lowes.

More rock and 10" LPs.

If you're looking for the Ventures or Zappa, it's all here.

A better look at the pile on the floor.
I'm ready to grab the junk on those shelves and give it the heave ho.
My records need a safe home.

My classical, reggae, R&B, Soundtracks, Florida loungecore, and box sets.
I wish the lighting was better so you can reade the spines.
In the mess you can see a horde of Time-Life "Giants Of Jazz", Joker "Bix" box, and the two EMI 20-LP boxsets of Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole that I bought for my Mother when I bought her a stereo for her aniversary almost 20 years ago. The little Peaches crate is full of Sinatra EPs and jukebox LPs. The best sounding version of "The Voice" is in the front of the crate, the double 45rpm set. I'm lucky to have the complete Beethoven Bicentenial Collection that I got at work for $20, it was going to be pitched. Five of the boxes are still sealed. The set sounds great since it was pressed with DGs metal parts.

A (almost) complete set of Franklin Mint's Big Band collection.
I got that set at Blue Note from a girl who sold it to me for $50, great sound and pressings. The Ellington sets are a must own. Next to that is the Trane box, World Records Beatles Box, and a autographed copy of "From One Charlie" by Charlie Watts. Next to that in the plastic is a copy of the super rare promo only Complete Dial Sessions by Charlie Parker.

This is the funky area of the collection.
All the stuff that's hard to catagorise is in this area.

One thing I love to collect are stereo test records.

I must have at least one (or two) from each major label, the best ones being from London, Audio Fidelity, Roulette, Capitol, Columbia, and RCA.

The best ones are from the stereo makers themselves.

My favorite is the Sylvania "Golden Time" LP that is pressed on gold vinyl and comes in a gatefold cover with a pop-up of a smiling family listening to a Sylvania console stereo that was made for hi-fi dealers who sold Sylvania stereos in department stores.

The cover states "play this only on a Sylvania stereo", funny stuff.
You hear the announcer stating "this is the sound of a normal stereo" with the image narrowed and the sound compressed", and "this is the sound of a Sylvania stereo" and the sound blooms were the image widens and compression drops, it sounds great on my Adcom system.

These are most of my Beatles collection.
Everything is 1972 Apple from the first LP up to the red and blue LPs, and Purple "Wally" Capitol labels. Everything after that is UK, and then bootleg.

Dig the two cool UK Elvis boxsets, Thingfish and Anthology lazerdisc.

Here's my Al Hirt collection.

He's the King in my book.

Everything is here including both versions of the Southland LP,
and some one of a kind promo and foreign pressings.

I'm still waiting for Lowes to get those shelves in to get those LPs off the floor.
The next post will be about thift store finds.

See 'ya.

Mr. Bear

New post

2009-06-10T00:55:00.000-04:00

This has been my first new post in over a year.
If you are looking for free music, you know crap that you put on a ipod to listen to...go elsewhere!
Were talkin' vintage vinyl here....pops, ticks, scratches, mildewed covers, the fun stuff.

Keep posted,
Mr. Bear

I'm back (again)

2008-02-02T01:09:00.001-05:00

Hi'ya friends and welcome back to the show that never ends.
This is your pal Michael "Mr. Bear" Arlt, a 25 year industry vet looking at the things I used to love slowly dying and thinking to myself that "it's too fucked to fix" since it's beyond repair. Too start the ball rolling, when I retired in 2002 the music sucked so bad and I mean SUCKED I cound't take it anymore. It seems that the labels care about is the green stuff over talent and are looking for the perverbial "it" girl, the one who will give a lucky label a RIAA diamond and a big cash flow so you (record company execs) can party party party. It ain't gonna happen baby bubba, the party's over. I'll tell you why.

The music industry died when it quit developing acts and artists and went the pre-fab route with boybands, little girl acts, flavor of the month street rappers, atractive teenagers with little or no tallent that PR and the media can sell to mindless teenyboppers, and bland guitar based music that used to rock at one time. It seemed to happen back in the late 90's when the public endured the solo outings from the last edition of the Mickey Mouse Klub. Then the crap started to sell in quanities to the point where the labels put everything on the back burner and bringing out one boyband after another (to keep the teenyboppers who made Titanic one of the biggest movies ever) just to rake in their green. I can't forget about Britt and Christina, since they made their labels happy, the music buying public is pummeled by little girl acts which all sound the same, same boring programed, sequenced, and sampled backing tracks, Oh! Britts now in the happy home with chirping birds and basket weavers who twiddle their thumbs and toes, take Rhianna instead, same shit in a different wrapper.

It seems too that you have to have a college degree to get in the biz, me and my friends didn't. My friend Lindell T. was the one who discovered New Found Glory who brought them into the store to play before they were signed to MCA. The labels were hiring college kids to rep the stores who had no clue about the catalog or the artists. When I tried to jump, I was told that "you have to have a MBA to get a label job". Back in the day, it was a bunch of music lovers running the show, now it's just a bunch of frat boys looking for a hot peroxide blond to sign on the doted line. To whoever is in charge of the industry, I have 5 words to say to you:

YOU FUCKED UP BIG TIME!

Back in the day, there was a network called MTV which was a big thing used to break acts when they used to show these things called "videos", which they still show them once in a while. They're shown when they don't have a reality show starring a bunch of spoiled rich kids who live on the beach, or another one about a spoiled 16 year old girl who's bitching about the color of her new BMW convertable, if MTV has no air time avalable, they'll show videos. They usually put them on when the other networks are showing infomecials like a second though. How could you let the greatest tool for marketing acts slip away! What a bunch of dumbshits! MTV2 was supposed to be like the old MTV but it's now a clone of BET, while VH1 is a clone of E!. VH1 is the sister network of MTV which was to market music programming to a older audience. It seems they mention music when they are not showing reruns of the "Fabulous Life of _______" or the VH1 version of the Hollywood Insider with all those juicy tidbits that inquiring minds should know. I can't forget all of those endless shows about Puff Daddy or Paris Hilton which go on 20 hours a day. Two of the best tools for marketing and breaking acts just slipped though your fingers, give yourself a pat on the back.

I can't forget the biggest thing that killed the golden goose.......greed!
When the list price went up to $19.98 for a compact disc, shoplifting also skyrocketed since kids don't have the money to purchase them, plus George "Baby Doc" Bush's fucked up economy doesn't help make matters which brings the next part of the equation.......downloading.
I can imagine hearing this at a UMG board meeting:
Q: The peasants are revolting over the high prices oh sire, what shall we do?
A: Let 'um eat cake, Eminem want's to make his 50M so he can retire at 22.
Shania want's a mantion in Switzerland since she's quitting the business next year and she gave us five or so diamond discs so she deserves it, screw the little people.
A: Sire, theres a bunch in pirates in Sweden who want you to walk the plank.

So you have it, you have a industry trying to cater itself to a fickle generation who's tastes changes just like a Pampers on a baby. A popular artist now will be history next year while the frat boys who run the lables scratch their heads while the public downloads their crap because they overpriced the product and with this lousy economy who can afford to buy twenty dollar compact discs. Plus the advent of the iPod doesn't help matters, the new walkman of generation Z, just stick it in your computer's USB port and dump all stuff on there your heart could stand. One young guy I work with buys his music from itunes since he does most his listening on a iPhone that he plugs into his car stereo. Kids nowdays don't even care about the packaging, they just want the bits. If the industry was smart, they would come up with some ideas for legal music downloads instead of wallowing over illegal internet downloads. I'll drop you 3 hints:
1: where do kids hang out
2: vending machines

I have a idea.... a kiosk vending machine that you can plug in to and sell downloads.
The consumer is happy since they got the song they wanted, the company/artists got paid so everybody's happy. If somebody comes up with that idea, I deserve credit ;)

The reason why Virgin is fizzling is they are giving away catalog (loss leaders) to get the public in the shops to buy (overpriced) new releases. Since I'm not a crowd person, I'll buy my music from Amazon. No downloads for me, I like the packaging and the thrill of holding it in my hand. A bunch of low bitrate bianary bits on a hard drive doesn't do it for me.
I'm a record man anyway. I love to hold a nice thick slab of wax and hear it in all of it's analog glory, there's nothing like it!

See what nicotine withdraw will do to you, 3 days and counting.

I'm back.....................again

2007-03-03T18:47:00.000-05:00

I'm here and back!
Got my computer fixed and now I'm back to share my thoughts on a unwilling public.
Before I had problems with Google's new Beta, I was working on a tribute to my cat Catrina who died on 12/1. This has been one sucky December. At least I'm working and bringing home some cool stuff. I just got a spiffy new computer that I hope will be trouble free, the one I'm using now is a HP P3 933, the new one is a P4 1.7Ghz I got from work. Last Christmas I turned 44 and could not wait for New Years to kick in. I've been involved in the record business since 1979 and I've seen alot. I can't freaking belive that EMI/EMD has shut down Virgin. The record industry needs to act fast and get agressive before it's too late, before the fucking I-Pod'ers do in a billion dollar industry. It's fun to grab while it's free, but when you bankrupt a company who puts out the product in the process, the ride is over. I'm going to give Bob Irwin (at Sundazed) a call this week to get his take on the matter. It doesn't help that disposable income is almost a thing of the past if you are a adult, no wonder why everything is geared towards teens. I'm setting up a ProTools setup on a IMac I got from work so I can finish up my solo album but I'm nervous about releasing it. Not because I'm afraid that people will hate it but will download it to death on Mininova or Blogger once word gets out (like Surjan Stevens) in the media. Now that Virgin is a thing of the past, where does that leave the Stones and the rest of the roster.

Catrina 1988-2006

2006-11-27T12:40:00.000-05:00

This is a tribute to my cat Catrina I was working on before password (and computer) problems kept me from finishing it. Now I'm back full power, I might as well

This is Catrina in her "bowling pin" pose. She was a big girl. She was even funnier trotting into the yard after "mousing" with her belly buldging with Mickey's relatives. This cat was even funnier when she brought some dead ones home as gifts.

Me and my wife thought she was getting fat so we took her out for a walk in the snow on 1/06, she hated it.

This is what she looks like normally

This is what she looks like after a few pieces of sashimi.

When I moved to New Jersey from Florida in 11/2002, Catrina came with me.
The poor kitty was losing her mind in the truck. Everytime I opened the door she would try to bolt out. My first year in Jersey was a cold and snowy one. I lived on Delaware Avenue in Penns Grove, in front of the Delaware River. Still everytime I opened the door, Catrina would attempt to bolt out the door. I feared the worst since the SUV driving assholes used the street as a speedway, I lost track of the dead ducks and geese they ran over. I seen one run over a mother duck when she was walking her babies across the street. If the cat got out and was hit, I've would have been devistated. She was hit by some asshole in a 4X4 back in Florida when she was sitting in our yard by the edge of the road when that truck veered into our yard and hit her. Her hip was dislocated and since then she walked with this swagger. To cure her of darting out, I got a small dog harness (cat harnesses were too small) and took her for a walk to break her out of that habit. She sniffed the snow and walked around causously. After 5 minutes she began to caterwaul out of control. After that she would stare out the window at the fluffy white stuff. She hated snow until the end.

This cat went though 2 Littermaid catboxes.
She stripped the gears on the first, and broke the belt that makes the rake go back and forth, she hated that thing. Catrina used to beat it with her paws when the cleaning rake did it's thing, another time she took a big dump on it. I guess those things were for little kitties.

This is my favorite picture of her, wiggling on the carpet in bliss.
The house has not been the same since you left us.
We miss you.

The greatest video of all time

2006-11-19T01:36:00.000-05:00

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/143043/funny_cats_4/

The Japanese people love their kitties.
Here's a translation of the song:

The title is "AIXIA NO UTA".

(1)
I'm a goofy, but pleasant cat.
I run, jump and leap.
Everyday is happy.

I ran about in the gaiety.
So hungry, what's for dinner?
Ah AIXIA, KUROKAN (means The Black Can-canned cat food of AIXIA.Co., Ltd.)
Meow It gives you animal spirits,
it makes you healthy.

Let's eat KUROKAN that tastes good.
Lala AIXIA, KUROKAN Love you,
AIXIA AI SURU XIAWASE (happiness to love)
I'm always fine with KUROKAN

(2)
A-a, I-i, X, I, A I Wanna Be A Cat!
A-a, I-i, X, I, A
Allez, Allez Les Chats
A I X, I, A Way Too Go, Hooray!

Why can't the US have commercials as great as this

My life in the record business 1979-2002 part 2 Record Haven stories

2006-11-11T03:09:00.000-05:00

Record Haven was a fun and freakish place. Before I worked there, I used to shop there in my teens back in the day since they had used records and 8-track tape trade-ins. These people took anything, as long as you had the $2 trade-in fee it did not matter. My grandmother would give me a used 8-tracks for Christmas like "The Best Of The Partridge Family", or one of those cheesey bootleg tapes of "todays top hits #4" where the signals are overloaded and the music is unlistenable. I would say thanks and take them to Record Haven and trade them in. One of these visits I got introduced to Bob who was the big cheese on the punk rock scene in 1978. To decribe the guy, think of wicked Uncle Ernie with a hairy unibrow and big scary bug eyes and not all burners fireing. This guy appealed to me when I seen him crouched under the counter gazing at these 3 stoner boys who were in there to buy the latest by Ted Nugent & Kansas. Bob's greeting "hello mongoloids, wattayawant?" while staring them down crouching behind the counter with those crazed eyes. When they left, he put on the B52's Private Idaho and started pogoing around the store, whooping out loud in victory. That day I bought I bought the first Devo 45 and we hit it off talking about posers and bands we liked. One of my fond memeories of him was watching him flip out. Bob became a mentor to me corupting my already warped fragile mind. I would grab my father's Burt Kaempfert & Russ Morgan 8-tracks that he listened to once and tossed aside since he could NOT figure out how to work the stereo, and trade them in for Zappa and Who 8-Tracks, and talk shop with Bob for a hour or so.

One of these days he was expecting a 25 count box of records from Tone. Yes...it was a celebatory time since it was the release day of the Cichilids debut album "Be True To Your School", Bob was the producer and manager of the Cichlids. The Cichlids were the first (and only) rock band signed to Miami's TK Records who were known as a Disco label. To set the scene, there was a small crowd in the store. The UPS truck came and dropped off the box and Bob was like a child on his birthday. Bob was talking in his semi cartoony voice "this is our first album on Gator Rock Records, Henry Stone promised us our own label". Bob opened the box and pulled out the first album and smiled at first, but he flipped it over all of that changed. You can see the steam builing up in his head looking for escape. Then he exploded "THEY PUT US ON BOLD! THE MOTHERFUCKER LIED! HE PUT US ON BOLD! WERE NOTHING BUT A TAX SHELTER". Poor Bob lost his mind. Then he was flinging albums across the room snapping the strings on the dusty mobiles that have been hanging since the late 60's. Records were flying, people were ducking from the records that were sailing around the room. "WERE A TAX SHELTER, THAT BASTARD PUT US ON THE SAME LABEL AS GREG & DUANE ALLMAN, I WAS SCREWED". We used to have this sheepish guy who only wanted to talk to Irv since he thought that he was the only one qualified to fix 8-track tapes. This guy made the mistake of stading there asking for Irv, then Bob stomped up to this poor soul, held the corner of a Cichlids record to this guy's throat yelling "OUT! OUT! OUT!" marching him backwards out the door, I thought the guy was going to have a cardiac out of terror. People were picking up the albums in the parking lot wandering what the stink was about. We were cleaning up the mess in the store before Irv came back. Bob was cool but had serious anger management issues to deal with.

Another Bob story:

Irv got some promo goods from the CBS rep, all for ELO's "Discovery" album. Irv's son collected ELO and wanted the items when his father was done with them so they agreed. There was a counter standee about a 18" tall, a large 5' standup, and a cardboard sabre sword that was supposed to hang from the ceiling that read "Electric Light Orchestra's Discovery on Jet Records". The 2 standups were of this arabian nights looking guy. Irv looked at Bob and Skunkwoman then said "don't let nothing happen to these because my son wants them, understand!". They both nodded yes and Irv left. Then Bob grabs the cardboard sabre and gives the little Ali Baba counter standup a menacing glare and says "I don't like your looks". Then he swings the sword like a batter going for a home run hit, the standee goes flying off the counter onto the floor. It's head is only held by a tiny piece of paper. Irv is coming back in because he forgot something. Bob is freaking out "get me the tape, get me the tape". He gets the tape and wraps a good quarter inch of the transparent stuff around it's neck. The little standee has a neck brace but it's head flopped down. Irv saw it and exploded "I CAN'T LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH BUH!" (when Irv got excited, his words sounded like buh buh buh buh since he talked fast). Poor Bob was walking around the store muttering obsenities for the rest of the night. I worked with Bob for a short while when he tried to go country when punk died (or went mainstream) managing Larry Joe Miller and Charlie Pickett. After that died out, Bob moved to New York. Steve & Gary took over but left after awile. Then Skunkwoman worked there, she wasn't much fun just sat there smoking those cheap cigarettes which burned my eyes.

Record Haven chronics:

There were a few customers that would come in that I would somewhat dread. Gene would come in blabbering a mile a minute slobbering while he talked, he would ramble on at 78 RPM till he was gasping for air. Gene has to be one of the dumbest MF's who ever lived. First of all he lost eight weeks of severence pay when he walked off the job with 3 hours to go to smoke a joint with some friends when Richards Department Store folded in the mid-70's. Around the same time, some dealer gave him a box of Mescaline caps to watch while he was dodging the feds. Doofus Gene ate the box and fried his brains in the process. His family was out of the movie "Spider Baby" . He had a younger brother who wanted nothing to do with him and his mother and acted embassased when he was around. Gene lived with his mother who was running a puppy mill in her utility room, she had a head like a Almaden bottle with two big flapping jowls and 2 teeth in her bottom jaw like a bulldog. When his mother would greet you, she would always talk about her bowel problems (example: I went to the mall, then I had a diareah attack). When she called his name is was like "Ashheeeeenn" or "Adge'ne" since she had only 2 teeth. When I first went to his house I was very nervous, the place smelled like old stale urine. He had his 90 year old grandmother sitting by the front door who was plain creepy since she resembled a mummy, there was always a full decathator bag sitting right by her feet, that plus the smell of the dogs made you thankful for fresh air. When the old lady died his mother yelled out "there goes her social security check". Gene was a card. He was also schitzo from eating those Mescaline caps like M&Ms, you looked at him the wrong way and he would pull a mechete on you. We used to refer to him as "the Barking Pumpkin" since he only had a few teeth left in his mouth and only a few braincells left from eating a box of hallucinegens like they were peanuts. When he got pissed he would literly bark (I'm getting mad, I'm getting mad...woof!). You could stick a candle in his head and watch his eyes glow like a Jack-o-lantern, That's why he was refered to as "The Barking Pumpkin" and this was in 1979. He was arreseted for molesting a 3 year girl a few years later, you see that's what hallucinagens will do to you.

Put him and Sigurd in the same room and the 2 can drive a same man insane. Sigurd is a 10 year old boy trapped in a 30 year old man's body, he's also known as "the world's most annoying person". When you address him by his first name, he would get offended and respond "my name is Sigurd Edmund Huggman the III. We used to refer to him as "Huggies" since he acted like a big baby. What happens when you cross Spongebob Squarepants with Poindexter from Revenge Of The Nerds, and cross pollonate him with Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, you get Sigurd.

He pissed off Bob off once. Sigurd was going though his anoying act rejecting special ordered albums because the lettering on the spines were off, tiny invisible creases and arguing over trivial things. Bob grabbed a ballpeen hammer and knocked Sigurd down. Then Bob was on top of Sigurd tapping on his front teeth with the hammer saying "don't move Sigurd of I'll knock your teeth down your throat" while Huggies layed there motionless in terror tinking on his front teeth with the ballpeen hammer, tink tink tink huh huh huh tink tink tink huh huh huh, you get the picture. Sigurd would bring out the worst in people.

Stan and Cal, Two butt-buddies who are Sigurd's friends. You had to see these 2 in action. Once they were having a lover's quarrel and in the process tossing each others collectable albums on the street before State Road 7 which is a main drag. This went on for a hour or so. Me and Skunkwoman watched these 2 going at it frizbeeing rare collectable records in the street while they screamed like girls. It was funnier when a car ran over it. Sigurd wanted to be Cal to the point where they dressed identical and had the same color and hair style. The picture on Cal's driver's licene has him bald on one side and full hair with beard on the other, I guess the South Florida heat baked his brain (or he was eating psychedelic peanuts with Gene). Stan was a con-man, always trying to sell resealed trashed records as new. I don't remember how many times we kicked him out. He even tried that in the North Miami store. He worked at Lane Bryant and had access to their shrink wrap machine. Stan though he was a great drummer and had business cards made up that read "Former Drummer With Art Blakey" (I have one somewhere), yes...he played tom-tom on the testes to Blues March in his bedroom. I found out later that he sat in with him on Conga for 1 song when he played Musician's Exchange in Ft. Lauderdale. It would have sounded better if the wording on the card read "Percusionist".

A few more stories......

Tiny Tim came in back in 1981, the poor guy was working at Hemmingways on US1 as a doorman. He came in looking for new tunes for his act. Before that, Gary came by with a bag of weed and rolled a doobie. Then me, Gary, and Skunkwoman smoked it in the bathroom. I don't know what it was or what was in there but I was more than wrecked. All I remember was this overweight guy with fire engine red hair wearing a lavender prom jacket with huge lapels with his pants were dragging on the ground. I thought I was hallucinating "oh fuck...am I seeing things or am I seeing Tiny Tim". He opened the door and shouted out "Hello all you happy people". I thought to myself "Oh fuck, it is Tiny Tim". He was asking about "what's new and hot" and suggested a few things, I sobered up quick. Skunkwoman started feeling ill during the whole time and layed down on the trade 8-track racks moaning in pain. I asked him about his appearence in the 1968 Beatles Fan Club Record and he replied that it was recorded in George Harrison's bedroom, pretty nice guy. Tiny kept going behind the counter grabbing the phone making long distance calls to his manager which pissed off Skunkwoman but was not in any shape to stop him since she was rolling in agony over a McDonalds hamburger she ate. He picked out his 3 cassettes and was ready to check out (Street Songs by Rick James, the balloon album by Air Supply, and a 3rd tape that I don't remember). Gary kept yelling stuff at him like "I heard your mother almost caved in your scull with a hammer" and "I heard that Miss Vicky dumped you because she caught you in bed with some little boys". Tiny was getting nervous, we were telling Gary to shut up since Tiny Tim was ready to walk out into his waiting cab. Tiny paid for the tapes and left. My first brush with a celeb in a record store and not the last either.

After I left Record Haven, I used to pop in there on my days off to watch the usual antics. I was there with Skunkwoman when this angry guy barged in the door. Skunkwoman asked him "may I help you?". The guy talked in a foreign accent and was hard to understand he yelled out "where's Lou, I'm going to kick his ass". She responded "why?". The giant metal guy from another country responded "he's pushing Def Leppard and not us". Then he yelled out that "he was from Krokus", who were opening for Blue Oyster Cult at the Hollywood Sportatorium. I never knew why he came there to beat up Lou since they are on ARISTA in the US and he was a rep for Polygram, or because the local fans prefered Def Leppard and Record Haven at that time was metal central. OK which was a better record: Long Stick Goes Boom or Photograph?

First of all Record haven was located in a large stripmall. Next to the store was a laudramat. This girl used to work there and came in regulary for tapes. The laudramat was open all night and was wide open, the place had no back door. There were these 2 stoner guys (think of 2 burnt Beavis & Butt-head types with mullets) who used to hang around there all the time looking for money so they could get wasted. When the girl left to do her personal business, the 2 guys opened up a panel in the drop ceiling and crawled in. They wanted to burgalarise the ceramics store that was next to us. These 2 clowns were crawling around in the ceiling when they thought they hit the ceramics store. They opened up the ceiling to take a peek, wrong place we have 15 feet to go..........CRASH! right into Record Haven. The weight of the 2 fools made the drop ceiling give way. I remember going to work and seeing a good six foot of ceiling missing by the used LP bins in the back of the store. Irv told me what happened. The silent alarm was triggered and the police came within a minute and arrested them both.

My life in the record business 1979-2002 part 1

2006-11-07T01:59:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about writing a book based on my years in the record industry. I'll make it more like my memoirs. To start it off, the first place I worked for was Record Haven on Pines Bld. in Pembroke Pines Florida, this store was in business since 1966. Record Haven was famous for 2 things:

1) A huge selection of bootleg vinyl

2) The worlds largest sellection of used 8-track tapes.

The store had racks and bins filled with 8-track carts. When the place got over run with the things, Irv would stuff the racks with them and nail a piece of plywood in the front of the rack to keep the junk from falling out.

The year was 1979 and I was in work experience in high school and needed a job. The 2 guys who worked there before me got fired for stealing and he was left with this mentally unbalanced girl. Most of the time when I shopped there, she was laying down on the trade 8-track racks complaining "my stomach hurts" while I combed though the used LP racks.

How I got the job.

One of these days she promised to drop me off since I did not have a driving licence, but she had to go to her house first. I was nervous at first but said "OK". To describe her, she had a dykeish quality to her and wore the same clothes day after day. Plus she smoked these cheap cigarettes that smelled like burning smoldering Everglades brush and she talked with a deep voice. This girl was affectionally known as "Skunkwoman" due to her long salt & pepper hair with a grey streak down the middle. She lived in a townhouse in North Miami which was a low income area with all these sleezy looking people around. Across the street from her lived this hippy chick and her Pakistani boyfriend, she had a son who was (in this girl's words) inbread, the offspring from her and a relatives liason (I guess it does'nt matter who you do it with, as long as the sex is good, but next time use birth control). I met her once, she seemed somewhat OK, the sterotypical acid damaged hippy airhead. The boyfriend made me feel unconfortable staring and scowling with these crazed eyes because I'm talking to his old lady, I'm sure if you handed him a sabre he would work over the neighborhood, he was one scary looking dude. Skunkwoman used to drive the kid around and crack jokes at his expence while listening to him explain how to play with the phones. He knew every phone number in the book, which ones to call for free long distance and test tones which were great for crank calls. This was going on for awhile but it went sour when she cracked a joke about "your hot mom", a night or two earlier Skunkwoman was confessing her bi-sexual experiences to the both of us. That night, the kid nailed a letter on her door mentioning "please end your love affair with my mother, please leave us alone" which set her off. The next thing you know was she burst though their front door and started wailing on the kid as he watched TV. Then the boyfriend started wailing on her, then she called for me to help. I stood there motionless thinking "I should have called home instead of having this flake drive me". When I walked in the door, all 3 had her dogpiled on the ground untill the police came. The North Miami police came and questioned everyone there including me about "what happened". After 3 hours of BS, she dropped me off yelling the entire time about "the psycho inbread kid" and "why did you stand there". I told her "why didn't you call him out and confront him singularly instead of storming in his house, use your brain". Hey! I'm just a 17 year old kid on a school night waiting to get dropped off, not to be pummeled by a crazy Pakistani who's 6' 5" and 300 pounds to same your dumb ass.

Two days later at Record Haven, I confronted Irv again for a job. The store was getting crank calls (the kid loved giving them) every couple of minutes and Skunkwoman was a screaming mess throwing 8-tracks and yelling. Irv looked at her and asked her to leave. He told her "you better go home and get your problems sorted out, you cannot bring them to the store". Then he looked at me and said "you want a job, you're hired". I was the quiet person that Irv liked and followed orders without a arguement. After a month Irv showed me the ropes on how the store worked, how to order, how to do inventory, and dealing with the 1-stops like MJS and Tone. When things started to roll, Irv made me the manager. Irv owned some condos on University drive and wanted to do mantenance work on them but had to leave the store, so Irv was there in the mornings and I was there from 2 o' clock on till closing. The only thing I did not do was the deposit drop which Irv did since I did not drive, Irv came by at closing to lock the store up and collect the recepts. Four months after work experience started, Mr. Verbecke (our work experience/DECA teacher) asked us each "how are you doing at your job?". One kid blurted out "I started sweeping floors and now I got promoted to cashier". The next one was like "at Winn-Dixie I started in produce and now I'm in the Deli"; "over at Taco Viva I started as a server and now I'm a cook" yada yada yada yada. Now it's my turn "OK you Michael, how did you progress at you job?", I sheepishly blurted "oh umm....I'm the manager of the store". No one belived me. Everyone there was eiter flipping burgers or bagging groceries and here I am running a record store at 17 (going on 18). Mr. Verbecke did not belive me so he went there and seen it for himself and confirmed it with Irv. It was known in class that I ran the store and was not a BS artist, all the students were trying to get me to sell them records at cost, or let them know when the new blockbusters are comming out. All this was not going to last. Since Record Haven was bootleg mecca, a new competetor on 441 called "Record Liquidators" wanted to be the big game. To get Irv out of the picture, Aaron called the RIAA and fingered all of Irv's bootleg distibutors. A few months after the call, Aaron's store got broken into and all of his bootlegs and rare wax was stolen. After the break-in, he moved to 167th street next to Peaches. Not long after his move, Aaron was busted for selling drug paraphenalia in North Miami Beach, it is illegal to sell it in North Miami but not in Broward where he was. That day when I arrived to work, Irv was scrambling around the store pulling all the bootlegs and boxing them after he got a phone call that tipped him off about Aaron's RIAA phone call. We got all the albums boxed up and out of the store in case if they paid us a visit. I think all this was getting to Irv, the RIAA call, the scene changing, the Quadrophenia style clashes between punks and stoners in the parking lot. In the spring of 1981, Irv sold the store to Lou who was the local rep for Polygram (and a lousy businessman to boot) so he can put the money into his condo. I talked to Lou and he wanted to make this "a family affair" with him and his wife but asked me "not to tell a soul because it will cost him his Polygram pention". Days after the purchase, Lou turns to store into a Polygram dump bin, half of the store's inventory was all Polygram product. Word got out anyway from label reps and Lou lost his pention, the dolt could not wait another month to dump his crap. When I got word I went to another record store that was opening up on 441 called "Vibrations 3", I talked to the manager there and he hired me on the spot, I never filled out a application if I remember correctly. Then Lou hired Skunkwoman to help his wife on the weekends.

The saga of Lou.....
To end the story of Record Haven, Lou killed it. First with a "Heavy Metal club" in which you pay $25 a year and you can get 15% off any metal record in the store. Lou did not know how to mark up a album. I tried to teach him he he would bellow "this is my store and I do things my way". He would mark a import $3 over what he paid for it so he would be cheaper than Open, or any of the other local shops. He lost his shirt on that and stopped it after a few months. The metal crowd was ready to kill him since he took their membership cash but refused to give the discounts. It would have been better for him to "do the math" first before starting this club since all the decent Metal records were either a import or a indie label release which cost more. I remeber him bragging about selling a full 50 count box of Metallica's "Kill 'Em All" in a weekend when it was on Megaforce. Since he pissed off the metal crowd after the demise of the "Heavy Metal Club" they went someplace else, probably to Zac's Rock Shoppe. I remember when the First Baptist Church of Taft street was protesting in the parking lot after Lou's wife sold a Venom album to a kid in the church's congregation, this is a crazy neo fascist church that burns records and books on a regular basis. They were anointing crosses on the windows and carrying on like there was no tomorrow over a Venom album. During this time, Skunkwoman was robbing him blind. She was stealing his rock cassettes and returning them to Jeffersons department store for cash refunds. Lou did a trade with some guy for country cassettes for the leftover metal albums. What a sucker! Most of them were non-returnable anyway. Since country albums have the shelf life of milk, those albums go out of print fast and most of them were from the late 70's and this was 1983. Lou's saviors at this time were the Seminole Indians who came in and started buying the country cassettes. Then he started ordering newer titles for the customers, and when he found his new niche he steps on his dick as usual. His wife made a crack when she was cashing them out like "you injuns are always crying that you're poor, you got more jack than me" when one of them handed her a Visa platinum card. One of my high school friends is a full blooded Iroquois and his mother attends the Seminole's tribal meetings. His Mother asked me "do you still work at Record Haven?", I responded "no, I left them ages ago after the place was sold". Then she said "the Native Americans are boycotting them after the owner's wife made a crack about us being poor injuns". What a schmoe. Lou's wife is like Roseanne, big and ugly and has a mouth to match. She likes to curse out and insult customers and not thinking about the aftershocks. With the Seminoles and metalheads gone you thing the USS Record Haven would sink, not yet. He opens up a rock and rap store in the late 80's in a conservative country yahoo redneck section known as Davie. That place went out with a wimper. Know your area before you open, rednecks don't listen to Run DMC, Slayer or Public Enemy, he would have had better luck selling off the country cassettes that he was ordering for the Seminoles that are now sitting dormat. I would go by there every couple of months just to see "what he's done now". He traded all the tapes for useless promo 45's, the stuff that looked like it was cleaned from the backroom of a AM station and dumpstered. He though he had treasure trove but it was trash. I felt bad after buying 3 45's from him since I creamed it out. A few months after that it was Sports memorbilia with a line on the floor separating the records from the jock junk. After that Pokemon cards. The saga came to a end when Lou's wife sent her son to the high school across the street from the store to sell pot. She and her son were busted and the store closed down. Then she died of cancer a year later. I was wondering if they were selling pot pay for her medical expenses or to keep the store afloat. Anyway it's gone but it was a blast while it lasted, right up to when Irv sold it.

One of my treasured mementos from my Record Haven days is a pile of 8-tracks. When Lou bought the store he was giving away all of the 8-track trade bin racks. I got one of them which weighed a ton. After I got it home I was wonering what tresures does it contain, so I took out a hammer and pulled off the plywood pannels in the front and it was chock full of old early 70's promo posters, Muntz 4-track carts, beat-up trade LP's, a broken Muntz 4-track player, crumbling brown paper shopping bags, and a bunch of other things that I can't remember.

I can write a book on Record Haven, so much freaky stuff happened in that place. Maybee later.

Tower Philly RIP

2006-11-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

I found out from my wife that the Tower store in Philly is closing down, that's a bummer. To me it died when they closed down their classical & magazine store across the street and moved it into the main building on South Street (cue in the Orlons). I enjoyed going there in the 90's. Saving up some cash to shop in the big T back in the days when I ran a record store in North Miami Beach Florida. I used to go for classical since Bassin Distributors did not carry much of it and magazines from overseas, it was a cool place to shop and had a amazing sound system. When they moved the classical into the main building, something was lost. Who wants to shop for Bartok or Varese while having to hear trendy house or pounding disco played at 121 deibels. The reason why they play it so loud is that the shmucks who listen to it are deaf from hearing it played at 130 deibels at raves. Over at the store in NMB, we kept Rock, Jazz, & Urban in three separate rooms. We learned things about the behavior functions in certain humans when certain music was played:
Delta blues played when there are large numbers of "hip-hop" shoppers.
Death metal and R&B fans don't mix.
R&B shoppers don't like "real" jazz and think Kenny G is a real jazz musician.
The muzac you hear on the Weather Channel is considered "jazz" to a number of people.
Nobody likes country (myself included).
Goth brings out the worst in people.
You can clear the room by playing anything if the room is filled with Gospel customers.
Get a few broadway cast collectors from South Beach and people freeze in shock, one has to experience the antics of "Chip & Dale" from The Love Club shopping for Garland and Streisand. It even got better when they wanted to play test albums by Carol Channing, Geneive Waite, and Liza Minnelli. Alot of people suffered when they stopped by, both customer and employee alike.
When you deal in different styles of music, it's good to have a different sound system in each department. People who shop for classical don't like house music or visa versa.

Back to Philly.... I stopped going there for awile after I found the Philly Record Exchange and 4th Street Jazz. Gosh I must have put hundeds on my charge cards after my excusions there. I had to pass on my NJ/PA vacation for 2 years due to finacial dificulties. When I came back to Philly in 2002, 4th Street Jazz was gone and Philly Record Exchange went punk. Tower was trying to get people to come back by selling Sony "Best Value" and WEA "Super Savers" CD's for $7.98 each. I know they wernt making much on them since they wholesale for the same price, I guess they were selling them cheap just to get people to come in to buy a CD at the regular $18.98 price. I would check out the inventory but it was no different from FYE or Specs so I left. Then came Amazon who had the inventory, the oddball imports, the specialist collector labels, indie labels, the obsure bands, stuff that Tower would not carry since they turned into a glorified mall store. I was reading Bainwol's blog about Tower and he said basically that "it's demise was because of downloading". I say yes to that and to the following:
Poor economy (lack of disposable income)
poor management (mentioned earlier)
mediocre selection (where's the goods?)
internet leaching (downloading)
discount super stores (Best Buy, Target & Wal-Mart)
internet super stores (Amazon, CD Baby)

A combination of all of the above led to the demise of the big Tower. I wonder how long the store in North Miami Beach is going to last with a super Wal-Mart across the street who's selling CD's $4.00 under list. Who would want to get the latest by Britney "Beyonce" Aguilera or Justin "Puffy" Usher at Tower for $18.98 when you could buy the crap at Target for $13.98. Target sells the Beatles catalog for $9.98 each where Tower would probably charge full list. Free internet downloads (via internet blogs or torrent files) don't help matters. I do most of my music shopping though Amazon since they deal with the specialist music and independent labels I like that the stores won't carry. Since the stuff I like doesn't move numbers like todays manufactured pop crud, so I support the retailer who stocks what I like. When the White House transformed itself into the Death Star in 2000, alot of people got screwed in the process. One of my friends who was riding high in the 90's doing tech support for a computer company got let got years ago when his job got outsourced to India. The same happened to one of my relatives who works in the tech field. Alot of people out of work means no money, no disposable income to buy music. Damn! I would love to get that Red Hot Chili Peppers boxset but I don't have thirty bucks for it since I have to use it to pay the phone bill, oh well life goes on.

I think the thing that killed the record industry is the invention of the iPod. It's a gadget almost the size of a cassette that hold 40 gigs of data, you can download all the stuff (legally and illegally) to your heart's content and go deaf at the same time. Most of the time the listeners just want the crappy music and not the physical device so they'll download the album, either from a legit service (like i tunes) or from a P2P service (Bearshare, Limewire). Because of downloading, poor Brittany won't be able to afford that gold plated car and has to opt for a silver one instead due to lost royalties from internet downloading. It may sound funny but it's not. Lot of small indie labels and artists are being hurt from free internet downloads. The indie lables work with tight budgets and when the revenue gets tight things get cut back. Fewer and fewer releases to the point where it's over.

I remember back in the 80's when DAT came out and CBS was shitting bricks over it. At this time CBS owned Columbia Records. Sony brought out the revolutionary DAT machine which had the capability to make perfect digital 16/44 carbon copy dubs of CD's though a toslinc connection in the back of the unit. CBS put knotches in 2 of their biggest titles to prevent digital copying (Streisand's Broadway Album and Thriller). CBS put up such a stink that Sony bought the company so it could make software for it's new recorders and did great with it. The thing I hate about the new albums is that they are mixed super loud so they will sound great on a iPod, meanwhile not careing about the home listener (90db dynamic range RIP). You have big name engineers mastering CD's so they would sound great on your iPod, it's the equivelent of Stan Ricker or Steve Hoffman mastering records for the Kenner close-and-play record player. One of my dreams is to own my own record/music store. I think I'll use my money to buy stock in Miracle Ear when the iPod users go deaf, I'll be a billionaire by 50.