Iron Modeler

Remember record stores?

Today is National Record Store day.  For those of you under 25, a record store was where you went to buy music in the form of vinyl albums and tapes--both cassettes and 8-Track tapes.  After 1982, you could also buy Compact Discs).  But there was more to the record store than that--you could get all sorts of neat stuff--concert posters, T-shirts, buttons, guitar picks, drumsticks, headphones (those clunky ones with the plastic ear cups), stereo patch cords, and phonograph styluses. 

The store I remember as a kid in Ft. Lauderdale is Peaches Records and Tapes next to Holiday Park on Sunrise Boulevard.  Not only was the place packed with all sorts of musical recordings, but various recording artists used to make it a stop whenever they were in the area.  There used to be a sort of "Walk of Fame" out front, where these musicians would sign their names and add their handprints to wet concrete.  Hollywood Boulevard it was not, but to see the signatures and handprints of The Sex Pistols outside your local record store was kind of cool.

It also seemed that the smaller the stores were, the more neat stuff they'd carry.  All of these stores were truly Mom-and-Pops, no large chains for the most part--although Camelot Music seemed to be a decent place (there was one in Daytona Beach in the Volusia Mall, and they made several dollars off of me over the six years I was there). 

By the time I graduated from college, the music industry had changed a bit.  8-Track tapes were history (the last one I saw in a store was about 1983), albums were looked down upon because of their "dirty" sound quality, and cassettes were reaching obsolescence.  Digital music was stealing the show in the form of CD's, and a lot of the acts from the '60s and '70s were compiling the now-familiar Box Set--they'd take their catalog, pick out their seminal efforts, and wrap them up in a new, shiny package for you to buy.  There were some available in vinyl and tape, but I believe that the record companies were betting on the CD versions--you'd buy the compilations, and then you'd have to buy (or re-buy) the rest of the catalog.  Purists, by the way, weren't too fond of digitalized music--it was cold, too clean, and in some cases you could hear background noises (coughs, chairs falling over) in the re-mastered works.  I'm no audiophile, believe me--I like what I like, but the "distractions" don't really bother me.

After a while, more an more stores started to carry more music than they had previously.  The discount stores carried a small selection, as did the department stores.  There was also mail order in the form of Columbia House and RCA Record Service, where you bought an introductory offer ("Buy 10 records or tapes for a Quarter*".  The asterisk led you to the rest of the story--you needed to buy so many at the regular price after that before you could cancel).  But the bookstores like Barnes and Noble began carrying a good deal of music.  The electronics stores carried a large selection.  All of this served to take business away from the locals.

Before too long, someone figured out how to take digital recordings and package them into data files.  Then they figured out that they could be shared, swapped, or sold.  These days, a lot of "albums" aren't available in stores--you purchase them on the Interwebs and download them.  And you can only imagine what that's done to the local record store--if you can find one.

Alas, music, too, was a niche market.

Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

 

Musical diversions and sidetrips

I've tried to compose this post several times, and every time I'd get further and further off on tangents.  Let's see if I can keep it 'tween the ditches this time...

I've reached an age where, when I hear any particular song from my past on the radio, I'm immediately reminded of when I was younger and heard the same song.  Yesterday's instance was Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat"--the radio station we listen to at work played it in the morning, and I was reminded of 1976/1977 all over again.  The funny thing with me is that not only will I remember a particular time, I usually remember which model I was building at the time.  For instance, there was one summer where I had the Styx albums "Grand Illusion" and "Pieces of Eight" in heavy rotation on the old 8-Track (Yes, I had an 8-Track as a kid, and I kept the format until long past when most people had abandoned it.  In fact, the stereo up in our workshop still has an 8-Track player!) , and that same summer was when I built Monogram's 1/48 scale B-24J kit.  Styx also accompanied a near-all night build of Monogram's 1/48 scale Me-262.  Ted Nugent's "Dog Eat Dog" and "Double Live Gonzo" were the soundtracks to several builds, and Jethro Tull was an almost constant companion through many models.

When I was young, I didn't really appreciate music.  I don't know why, but that changed when I was in Third or Fourth grade.  The music teacher at my school had a way of making me listen to what I was hearing, rather than just letting the various notes rattle around in my coconut a few times before going out the other ear.  I even took some piano lessons, learned to play recorder in Fifth grade, and we also had a piano lab in Middle school that I enjoyed.  But, save for those few experiences on the performing side, my interest since then has simply been as a consumer--although there have been times I wished I had learned how to play an instrument.  And, of course, I wouldn't want to take piano lessons, or guitar lessons--nope, I'd want to learn something eclectic and out in left field, perhaps the mandolin...

Speaking of eclectic, my tastes in music are certainly that.  Over the years, I've been a fan of many artists and many genres of music.  The aforementioned artists (Styx, The Nuge, and Tull) were the tip of the iceberg.  The funny thing is that I wasn't really a big follower of some of the artists that I listen to these days--they were then simply background sounds that accompanied a favorite activity.  My main interest in music then--as now--was Jethro Tull, and I can't put a definitive answer as to "why".  Between the lyrics, the theme, and the fact that you can listen to early Tull and hear jazz/blues based music, while later iterations are flavored by folk, electronic, and the exotic, well, you can get anything you want.  I also went through my Black Sabbath/Ozzy and Hendrix phases...and still listen to some of their off-the beaten-path stuff, too.  Then, to be really eclectic, there's always that 8-Track of the "Moving Waves" album by Focus.  Want some fun?  Put on "Hocus Pocus", and if that doesn't mellow you out, nothing--not even the strongest of pharmaceuticals or alcoholic beverages--will.

Today, though, listening to either the "Oldies" channel or the "we play music from the '70's. '80's, and today" (still don't have an XM radio--remember, I held on to 8-Track tapes into the early 1980's), I hear a lot of songs I heard as a kid, which brings me back to Al Stewart, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, America, Bread...never really a fan when I was younger, but I've come to appreciate the work as I've *ahem* matured.  You can only listen to AC/DC for so long before you start to think that while they're still good, there has to be something better.  Unfortunately, today's music--a good deal of it, at least--is the Shop-Vac of s-u-c-k.  Sure, every era has some clunkers, but the modern trend towards people who are famous for being famous, drunk, or out of control means that I have little tolerance for it.  Exceptions include Kelly Clarkson (that girl has a set of pipes that won't quit), Katy Perry (she's got a sense of humor, and a lot of her music would have been right at home during the New Wave), Sara Bareilles, and, as corny as it sounds, Michael Bublé.  That leaves acts of years gone by, many of which are still performing, still recording, albeit to smaller audiences.

And, when I'm feeling nostalgic for my college days, nothing cures those blues like putting in one of the CD's from Rhino Record's "Like, Omigod!  The 80's Pop Culture Box (Totally!)".  If Missing Persons, Bow Wow Wow, Haircut 100, or Donny Iris can't fix what ails ya, nothing can.

We won't go into the discussion on MTV and whether or not the music industry was ruined when MTV debuted.  Not yet, at least...

Be good to one another.  I bid you Peace.