Ever since I was a kid living on Irene Road in Lyndhurst, Ohio, Friday has always been “trash day” at our house…
My father use to say: “When I die, don't waste your time and money burying me. Just throw me on the tree lawn in a Hefty bag on Friday morning”…
I worked on a garbage truck for three summers to pay for college…
However, none of these are the stories I want to tell just yet… and…
What they have to do with the song of the day is a matter of patience…
Growing up in suburban Cleveland, before I discovered the #9 bus that ran downtown, didn't leave me with many options when it came to record shopping. For a while there was a stereo store dangerously located at the top of my street, called Tokyo Shapiro (??), and it maintained a small eclectic selection of vinyl that would occasionally cause my paper route money to disappear (I bought my first of several copies of Genesis' Selling England by The Pound there — another story for another time). There was also a record department in the J.C. Penny's at the local mall—believe it or not— and I think Woolworth's had a record and tape department too. Sears, at the opposite end of the mall, must have just figured the competition was too stiff because they had nothing to offer my discerning “Big Game” tastes. Interestingly, the record departments in both Penny's and Woolworth's were “corralled” and the only way in or out was through a turnstile gate. No other department featured this store-within-a-store design and I can only guess it was some kind of security measure to keep teenagers from walking out with hundreds of dollars worth of 12” records tucked inconspicuously in their pants!
Occasionally I would find something interesting at Pennys, but whoever stocked the bins at Woolworths was hopeless. The best retail source for my addiction was an independently owned store in the mall called Record Rendezvous (the place where records meet???). It primarily catered to jazz and classical enthusiasts, but it begrudgingly stocked Rock A-Z as well. And here, at long last, is where my multi-layered preamble ends and the real story begins. Well, sort of.
My father use to say: “When I die, don't waste your time and money burying me. Just throw me on the tree lawn in a Hefty bag on Friday morning”…
I worked on a garbage truck for three summers to pay for college…
However, none of these are the stories I want to tell just yet… and…
What they have to do with the song of the day is a matter of patience…
Growing up in suburban Cleveland, before I discovered the #9 bus that ran downtown, didn't leave me with many options when it came to record shopping. For a while there was a stereo store dangerously located at the top of my street, called Tokyo Shapiro (??), and it maintained a small eclectic selection of vinyl that would occasionally cause my paper route money to disappear (I bought my first of several copies of Genesis' Selling England by The Pound there — another story for another time). There was also a record department in the J.C. Penny's at the local mall—believe it or not— and I think Woolworth's had a record and tape department too. Sears, at the opposite end of the mall, must have just figured the competition was too stiff because they had nothing to offer my discerning “Big Game” tastes. Interestingly, the record departments in both Penny's and Woolworth's were “corralled” and the only way in or out was through a turnstile gate. No other department featured this store-within-a-store design and I can only guess it was some kind of security measure to keep teenagers from walking out with hundreds of dollars worth of 12” records tucked inconspicuously in their pants!
Occasionally I would find something interesting at Pennys, but whoever stocked the bins at Woolworths was hopeless. The best retail source for my addiction was an independently owned store in the mall called Record Rendezvous (the place where records meet???). It primarily catered to jazz and classical enthusiasts, but it begrudgingly stocked Rock A-Z as well. And here, at long last, is where my multi-layered preamble ends and the real story begins. Well, sort of.
Record Rendezvous was always a sure bet for mainstream releases, but from time to time I found the occasional obscure and unusual recording too. But on this particular day in 1973 I was a boy on a mission. The previous night I had sat up until 1am watching Don Kirshner's Rock Concert (a weekly music show featuring live performances by 3-4 bands) and just having my teenage white suburban boy head blown apart. Buried late in the show was a band from New York City called… The New York Dolls. Needless to say, I had never seen anything like David Johansen, Johnny Thunders and Sylvian Sylvian in my life. What was really disconcerting though, was how much I loved the music they made. Talk about mixed signals! Make up. Power chords. Tight spandex pants. Thumping punk beat. Teased hair and platform shoes. Catchy chorus…
OK, I had to buy this LP. The only problem was, I discovered, the cover featured the band in glorious full drag and their name emblazened across the front in lipstick. OK, actually the cover (and even the back cover!) wasn't really the problem. The problem was: in order to purchase this fabulous piece of plastic I had to run the scrutinizing gauntlet of the 60-year old Jewish lady at the cash register who eyed every kid in the store like a criminal or, soon in my case, a criminal and a pervert. What to do, what to do? Sadly I did what any confused teen would do in order to avoid a stern look of disapproval from someone who could be his grandmother… I hid the Dolls album amongst four other over priced LP's (none of which I can remember, or probably ever wanted in the first place)—like some kind of camouflage—and made my purchase. It was like “disguising” the purchase of a pack of condoms with an Almond Joy, a pack of bologna and a half gallon of milk! Despite my clever "smoke screen" I still got the “does your poor mother know what your buying” look…
Of course, once I got home and the needle hit the vinyl I knew any self-inflicted embarrassment I had suffered, was well worth it. As rock critic Ira Robbins wrote: “The New York Dolls have the style, attitude, rawness and audacity to reinterpret the notion of punk as it had existed in the '60's and to create a decidedly '70's over the edge new reality.” The Dolls were my first foray into gender-bending punk and new wave. They opened my eyes and ears and mind to something completely new and wild and exciting. They also “singlehandedly began the local New York scene that later spawned The Ramones, Blondie, Television, the Talking Heads” and other bands I would find myself listening to a few years later. Today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is “Trash” by The New York Dolls, and it is just as catchy and audacious to me now, as it was when I took it out of the Record Rendezvous bag over 30 years ago. Enjoy. (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)