someone here unthoughtfully panned the flaming lips, and as a fellow okie, i feel the need to mention their great record, the soft bulletin. not only does the album appear on most all the year's best lists of 1999, but it's also been lauded as 'undeniably essential' by the record review on their ten-year lookback in 2009. the album defines symphonic rock. there's simply nothing in the genre that compares, except maybe the couple lips albums that followed. the soft bulletin is huge in scope. there's a naivety in the lyrical perspective similar to many a neil young song. this is paired with the bonham like bash and swirling pink floyd like orchestration. it's one of a kind. i've seen them live four times including an outdoor show in chicago that seemed to leave everyone changed, like we had all read the same great novel together. that night was religious without religion (as flannery o'connor might say). i really like the record before this one, clouds taste metallic, as it's even more innocent sounding, like a man just discovering his forlorn existence although surrounded by his electric guitar and loud kit. they're easily the best thing to come out of oklahoma in decades, and fall in nicely with jj cale, leon russel and, of course, charlie christian. woody guthrie is in a whole other category...

The owner of our record store chain thought it was a "momentary downturn" in revenues.

I saw the grim reaper coming full speed just in the nick of time.

...and made the uncanny decision to go into indie promotion.

Not for the faint of heart.

There are a very few left here, but they are pretty decent.

Electric Fetus is my favorite.

OK, I'll keep playing, looking through my LP's

Billy Vera and the Beaters
David Lindley/El Rayo X
Dave Edmonds
Big Twist and the Mellow Fellows
Robbin Thompson (Pogue would know them)
Steel Breeze (parachute pants)
Phantom, Rocker and Slim
Disciples of Soul
Screaming Jets
Nicolette Larson when Templeman produced her.
Nighthawks
Rockpile
Bluesbusters (Paul Barre-led band)
Rossington-Collins

I used to find albums by band members from different bands on side projects, etc.
Whitford/St. Holmes
Old and In the Way with a really different version of Jagger on "Wild Horses"
Concerts for the People of Kampuchea
Loss Leaders by Warner Brothers, probably my favorite compilation set, besides Atlantic Blues.

Dude...paragraph breaks.

Having once been one, I will contest your point. You try listening to people tell you Cats is great music all day long, having idiots ask you for the (racial expletive deleted) music, and having to listen to the first Tracy Chapman album too many times, and so on. A soul-wrenching job. I didn't listen to music for a couple of years after I was fired. There's a story in and of itself, don't ask.

I will say, however, that the store I worked for was owned by Satan, and fortunately, he took his back a few years past.

The "major" (read: only big store to survive the purge) store here just declared bankruptcy. It was okay, except for the part where they refused to give a friend her job back after maternity leave. Haven't shopped there since.

We are blessed with an excellent small store, owned by a former co worker of mine. It's weird how many of my former co-workers at the record store still work at record stores, especially considering how few of them are left.

Should have been much more popular than they were.

just watched the commander in chief drape the highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom, on one very dapper bob dylan. the ceremony was very touching, and for some reason, i shed a tear for coach pat summitt as she was recognized. (i don't know why, she just looked so sweet standing there next to our president.)

now playing: hurricane (off my favorite dylan album, desire)

fify

I had some of those on a Paramount once....they worked pretty well.

I understand every word you are saying, I really do.

I started as a fifteen hour a week counter employee and before I was finished with that part of my music business career, I managed a seven store chain with about 70 employees to take care of on a monthly basis.

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in that business, but I ended up shutting down all seven of the stores.

One at a time.

Why?

A million reasons. The biggest mistake we made was not listening to our customers. You know the ones.

The ones that wanted to buy the new Tracy Chapman album. We thought we knew more than the customers and started to look down on their taste in music.

They started to find everything they needed elsewhere and by the time we figured that out, it was way too late.

So sorry you got fired, but I was the one had to let 70 people go when we didn't play our cards well.

Sad to fire folks, but in our case, there was no more revenue to sustain our livelihoods.

Actually, I was quite glad to get fired from that job. I don't think I've ever been so elated to receive bad news.

Imagine this: the head manager was the one who had to fire me. They needed a second manager to witness the firing, and in the middle of the whole thing, he began crying. I wound up having to comfort him. Talking to him later, they had not told him or any of the other managers what was happening. Maybe because I was fired because the company had not been supplying me the health insurance I had been paying for, amoung other things. I was also one of their buyers; the firing came the day after they had gotten a computer ordering system up and running. Go figure.

Obviously, not working for these fools is one of the best things ever to happen to me.

I feel for you, though. My friend who runs Deep Groove used to work for Plan 9. The Nine used to have seven or eight stores. Now they have two. He had to let go the people at the other six, and he said it was the worst and most dehumanizing thing he had ever done. He seems much happier running his little and excellent shop.

Milwaukee used to have the Radio Doctor.
Go in there, hum a few bars, sing a line or two, and he'd tell you artist, song, album.

Worked for me on Burton Cumming's My Own Way to Rock.
I knew one line of one song, he plucked the album out and I still have it.
Drove from there straight to Playback-The Electronic Playground, picked up a Rotel turntable.
1978

Those were the days. I went into Best Buy last week to see if they have turntables.
They do. It has a USB connection.

I'm glad Joe Walsh is sober, and his new LP is analog. That and Yeungling make a better day.

I like Crawling from the Wreckage.
Not as funny as The Wreck of the Barbie Ferrari by Hiatt, but pretty good.

Best Buy. Turntables.


silly lad.

Radio Doctors was a customer of mine when I was in distribution.

Sold them Replacements, Suburbs, and Soul Asylum records when I worked for TwinTone.

I liked them as they never returned anything.

Yes, everyone knows turntables should be purchased at garage sales!