smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | moteeko@telerama.com |
| Subject | First Records and Epiphanies |
| Date | Sun, 29 Jun 2003 00:33:32 -0400 (EDT) |
[Part 1 text/plain ISO-8859-1 (2.7 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
FIRST RECORD: Hmm...very foggy. I remember a record called something like "Do
The Yogi" that I wanted because I thought they were singing about Yogi Bear. (I
was maybe 5 or 6 at the time) I begged and pleaded with the people that had it
to give it to me, and they finally relented just to shut me up. I was so
thrilled that I ran around the house with the record, tripped, and broke it.
Or maybe it was the flip side of the Tymes' "So Much In Love," a number called
"Roscoe James McLain." Heh heh...my mom stole that one off my cousin for me, I
think....it ended up in the suitcase when we got back to Florida after visiting
Pittsburgh.
Legally, she did buy us the Monkees' first two albums, though. Maybe the first
45 I bought on my own was "Bottle of Wine" by the Fireballs.
MUSICAL EPIPHANY: After Mom was killed by a drunk driver in '73 (Dad died in
'62), my sister and I were brought back to Pittsburgh by relatives. (They didn't
ask about that Tymes 45, though). Almost immediately, my oldies knowledge
database was quadrupled by exposure to what people refer to as the "Pittsburgh
Sounds," which are not so much records cut in Pittsburgh, but songs made popular
by local DJ's such as Porky Chedwick, Terry Lee and Mad Mike. One song, "High On
A Hill," by Scott English (co-writer of Barry Manilow's "Mandy") was almost
always voted #1 in oldies countdowns, even above locals like the Marcels and
Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners!
Moving forward, all my musical knowledge came from the radio, and I wondered
where all the fun, poppy songs went as the 70's progressed. Somebody introduced
me to a guy down the street named John Biss, who was described to me as "a guy
who likes that goofy music like you." John played me The Ramones and the Damned.
Having only bought oldies up to that point, I went in search of all this new
stuff.
Also being a comic book fan meant visiting Eide's Comics, which - at the time -
was the only major comic store in the city. Greg Eide brought in a college buddy
by the name of Jim Spitznagel to run the store's record department. Shortly
thereafter, Jim left to start his own record store, the fabulous Jim's Records.
And Jim was on a mission to educate everybody on the great music that radio
wasn't playing. It got to the point that when I walked in every Saturday, I was
handed a stack of LP's or 45's and told that I would love 'em. And 99% of the
time he was right.
Bying all the music magazines started happening around this time as well, so I
had a whole new source to learn about all the great stuff that people were
doing.
And the search continues to this day, with Audities spreading the gospel of pop!
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.