you guys can read this if you want. i like you guys.

thought it might be entertaining to some. first thing i've written since i stopped writing. it's rant-y.

if it is NOT entertaining to you, though, don't sue me!

disclaimer: i do not hate all boomer. JUST most of the boomer who come in my store. haha!

https://medium.com/@scottseward68/open-for-business-confessions-of-a-used-record-dealer-in-new-england-42985dbca372

That’s great! Write more, I wanna hear more about your dad

really enjoying this scott

I appreciated the nuanced analysis of boomer cohorts and the specificity of the hateful examples, much more persuasive than undifferentiated boomer bashing

He says, “So, how does this work when you buy stuff?” “Do you plug into some database or something…” And I said, “Yes, I am a robot and I plug into my database.” And I said it in the voice of a robot!

LOL

I liked this, but I for one, actually miss Connecticut (for the proximity to more interesting places, haha).

I reposted this to FB and Discord. Good stuff.

nice little blog you have here

i used to have a blog! its still out there...i'd be afraid to look at it. though some of it is probably okay.

i have to say that i actually showed this weeks ago to an ilxor whose opinion i think highly of and they liked it and that's how i got the confidence to share. thank you to them if they read this. i do miss the outlet. of writing. i'm just glad you guys haven't gotten sick of my blab on here in general. i feel like i've been blabbing for months.

lovely piece, Scott. Thanks!

He says, “So, how does this work when you buy stuff?” “Do you plug into some database or something…” And I said, “Yes, I am a robot and I plug into my database.” And I said it in the voice of a robot!

I hope you made jerky robotic arm movements when you said it.

Nice piece Scott, I had two irl lols... you're a good writer...

This is greatness. I will share it out more properly tomorrow!

Keep on blabbing, that was great.

absolutely loved this

Very good. I like your writing style, with the runs of short sentences and the digressions you weave in and out of.

My feeling is that it’s a type of person, and it gets worse with age, so it peaks at the age of the men you have repeatedly run into, but I see the very same traits in people in their thirties and forties, and then it must be that they get amplified later.

But the particular reference points for men of that boomer age NOW – The Band, Eric Clapton and so on, maybe even playing the guitar themselves and owning a collection of guitars and amps, and all the fussing over hi-fi stereo equipment – make it especially annoying. I’m approaching that age myself, but I’ve never liked Eric Clapton or blues rock of any kind. I just don’t like it, perhaps because it was just before my time. I was once in various bands with someone about ten years older than me, and it was constant talk about the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Sorry, not interested, not then, not now. To be fair, he was a proper musician, not a dilettante with ten guitars, though he probably did own ten. I would also never go in a shop and start talking to the owner in that way. It wouldn’t occur to me to do something like that. I don’t like dogs either, or babies for that matter.

My wife is American, so I mentioned that I’d read your blog post and asked her if she’d ever been to Hartford, Connecticut. She said yes, and she doesn’t like it.

Great stuff bud. The struggle is real.

The bit about boomers and blues music just made me LOL on the train.

Omg a blog! In 2024!!

Very enjoyable, Scott.

"an LSD-soaked episode of Happy Days with an Eric Clapton soundtrack"!

Amazing. Thank you for sharing with us Scott.

First and last grafs esp. strong, catch a wave (oops boomer music ref), and as someone who worked in music product stores for many years, I know exactly where you're coming from (strike more boomer talk). Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, Lucy Sante (boomers all) are among those currently digging this on gmail thread, and Lucy knows your brother's store, is amazed, no maybe (oops).
Boomer rant is predictable, but there are a lot of people who are predictable in just that way, and yes every fucking one of them visits record stores.

Pickin' on the blues? Mr. Seward has been known to post favorable comments on I Love Music's renowned Do You Blues? thread.

Great essay Scott. It's being shared by about a dozen friends on social media right now lol.

Not even all of them ilxors!

great stuff scott, really enjoyable read! i encounter this variety of boomer at the farmers market where they try to break hundred dollar bills for a single bunch of cilantro and get the peach guy to deliver a sermon on fall growing patterns while buying zero peaches
HATE THEM

I'm happy you guys like it! It inspires me to continue. Old life in this gen X dog. And I don't hate dogs i promise! maybe just ask before you come in and let it run around everywhere. and please don't put your hot coffee cup on top of the records while you look at records. the records are not a table.

very happy, don, that you guys are enjoying it as well. tell frank i say hi and i hope he is well. that's awesome that lucy likes it. i am a big fan. cheers to all!

All this talk about the blues reminded me of this Onion classic https://www.theonion.com/affluent-white-man-enjoys-causes-the-blues-1819565488

Hurrah! Yes many friends on FB and elsewhere have all loved it. Rightly.

They are bemused by just about everything that regular people do. It’s as if they can’t believe that people still do things.

I can't tell you how often I bump into this attitude, scott. Thanks for writing and keep at it.

Enjoyed this! Sharing with a friend who has a record store in (removed identifying detail).

shared with a friend who is opening a store later this summer

I miss old people who were old, too. The other side of the generation chasm. Grandmas who liked Lawrence Welk and Liberace.

I was chatting with a boomer neighbor on the street, who is still actively working in the law. Had a trip to Philly, was sharing an Uber with "a job I never heard of before, an Influencer"

the influencer was super chatty British guy, asked the driver to take him to the best Philly Cheese Steak.

The driver, small talking, let it be known he was a member of the Stylistics. At which point the influencer went nuts and took all sorts of photos.

When my friend got out later, he said "I feel weird tipping you, you may have more money than me?"

The Stylistic had to explain that other than oldies tours to Japan, he has no income from music.

Kinda surprised any blues/r'n'b/r'n'r fan wasn't aware that most musicians like that never got anything from their hits, but I shouldn’t be!

Great article, Scott. I sent it to a friend of mine. Your sense of humor and writing reminds me of him.

it's funny, maria is out in front now most of the week while i'm in back pricing and putting things on Discogs and she now gets all those people who used to drive me crazy. she tells me about them. which means that i get to utter my favorite phrase: "welcome to my world". 15 straight years of people coming in and telling you that they heard that records were coming back. and for 15 years those people never bought a record. she got a real live one last week. one of the usual suspects comes in and tells her - and he was telling her not asking her or trying to start a conversation: *PEOPLE DON'T LISTEN TO RECORDS ANYMORE*. and she nicely says oh yeah people actually do....and then he says *THERE IS NOTHING TO PLAY THEM ON ANYMORE*. *YOU CAN'T GET TURNTABLES ANYMORE*. and she says actually you can....and he says *YOUNG PEOPLE DON'T LISTEN TO THEM ANYMORE*. and she says actually young people do listen to records. and then he says *YOUNG PEOPLE DON'T GO TO SEE LIVE MUSIC ANYMORE*. and she says no i think young people do go see live music. and then he says.......WELL GOOD LUCK WITH ALL THIS. and leaves.
you don't get that at Walgreens or CVS.

thanks! and thank you all again. i'll just keep thanking you all.

ilx has always been very supportive. it has meant a lot to me.

i don't know if i ever mentioned this but waaaaaaay back before i started posting here i heard about ilx from frank kogan in an e-mail and of course i searched for my name when i heard that people talked about rock critics here and someone said something like yeah i don't know about SS and someone else said something like *he's the perfect critic for other critics* and i was like hell yeah! i'm good with that. fuck normal people. i didn't want to write for them. haha! this was probably 2003? it might have been geeta. anyway, that inspired me for real. i didn't even know if anyone liked what i was doing other than chuck - and frank and don - and they were all obviously crazy. in a good way. things like that kept me inspired to do it.

I read this as a sequel to the chapter in Marooned: the latest instalment of a bemused picaresque through the world of work - grocery store employee, custodian, record-store owner...

one of my very favorite movies. free on Youtube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w1FoHxjv0k

Yeah this was great. I like rants when they are funny.

Makes me wonder what the stereotypical annoying Gen-X record store visitor will be like once the torch is passed.

gen x record dads generally just look really depressed and like they had way too many IPAs the night before. they rarely give me shit. they rarely speak!

https://riotfest.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Portlandia_801A_BandReunion_MPX-1920x1080_R1.jpg

gen x record dads generally just look really depressed and like they had way too many IPAs the night before. they rarely give me shit. they rarely speak!

I have never been in your shop but it feels good to be seen!

Enjoyed your blog. I miss blogs.

lovely late development is gen x moms coming in by themselves and browsing and buying. also mostly silently. just more women in general now and its such a relief from the non-stop dude parade.

re: "i used to have a blog" - yeah i know, i rediscovered & read it quite recently, it's still there & it's still great

oh wow thanks! i just looked at it for the first time in years. it feels archaeological.

seeing women in large numbers in record stores is totally a new (welcome) experience for me as well.

I haven't actually worked in a store in a long, long time, but I feel like the big generational record-store dad shift was that any given Boomer would presume they understood records more than a younger person behind the counter, as though they'd walked into a store selling their personal childhood possessions and might be asked to explain or sign a few, whereas Gen Xers tend to presume the opposite and desperately want the worker to validate them as cool and knowledgeable

^^^ It me

As a gen x woman lifelong record shopper and former store employee, I very much want to be left alone to make my choices. I 100% don't want to boast about my knowledge nor do I seek the validation of the person behind the counter. Also resent being lumped together based on reproductive choices. Not all women are moms! But I like this essay regardless.

oh gosh i didn't mean to lump everyone together. i meant actual moms. but there are all kinds of gen x women who come in. we have a big queer woman population here of every age too and queer moms and non-moms alike also make up a good portion of our buyers. thank the heavens.

and non-binary people. and the like. lots of younger queer folks. they didn't used to be such a big part of our customer-base. a lot of things have changed in general here since the pandemic. people moved to the country. all kinds of people. which is an awesome by-product of a terrible thing.

i WAS kinda lumping sad gen x dads together though. i basically meant people who reminded me of myself. slow. world-weary. heavy sighs. maybe not so quick to look at the records underneath because it means bending.

still requesting that someone who worked in record/CD stores in the late 90s-early 00s write a treatise on capitalism and planned obsolescence as viewed through CD and video anti-theft technology

because that shit was an unbelievable scam

i WAS kinda lumping sad gen x dads together though. i basically meant people who reminded me of myself. slow. world-weary. heavy sighs. maybe not so quick to look at the records underneath because it means bending.

still requesting that someone who worked in record/CD stores in the late 90s-early 00s write a treatise on capitalism and planned obsolescence as viewed through CD and video anti-theft technology

because that shit was an unbelievable scam

Should have been a link there. But I meant stuff like CD-Text, cd-i, Compact Disc + Graphics, etc.

my usual record store MO is to not say a word except hello because I worked retail for years and mostly just wanted to not talk to customers at all. although if I came into your store I'd probably at least cop to being an ILXor. otherwise that would be entrapment.

omg, please do!. i had an ilxor come in and they were paying for stuff and they only told me as they were leaving. i mean you don't want to miss out on your friend and family discount. or just come in and say hi. no need to buy anything. like i've said before, i've met dozens of people from here and i've enjoyed talking to all of them. even matos!

So I first saw skot's Medium maximal comeback when Chuck sent the link around, in reply to that xpost gmail thread incl. him Frank Lucy S, Mark S & others, which I started (subject line: Sunday Supplement: Chubby Checker Influenced By Moon) with this link to skotpost from 20 years ago, which starts w dorm revelations (not that kind) hosted by historic Dan Bunnybrains in historic Danbury CT, incl. Chubby Checker's musical connections to Jimi Hendrix, producer-wise and more---good read! And I still gotta catch up with this music: https://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2004/02/

a different - longer? - version of that ended up in Ugly Things magazine way back when. i was the first person - as far as i know - to write about that album. still never officially rereleased but word is Chubby hates it.

Mark S on that oftmentioned gmail thread:

I attended EMP in 2007 in Seattle and Scott gave the best (or anyway most memorable because funniest) paper, about death metal I believe (I am not an expert on all the metals, plus it was 17 years ago). Did he write it up? I hope so but don’t know. Afterward he and Maria headed a party to go get (I think) pizza and he was lovely and I talked a great deal to Maria, whom very much likewise.

Mark, here's Scott's EMP paper (on folk metal, actually) -- the top (which I guess means final) post on his old blog, from a decade ago. It is indeed hilarious.

don, i'm gonna have to hire you as my publicist! haha! god, 2007 was several lifetimes ago. saw so many ILXors. it was such a treat to spend time with Mark S. he is such a great person to hang out with. Spent quality time with him and Simon Reynolds and went to a party at Matos manor. that was the first time i had ever spoken in public! i was on a panel with Erik Davis - a real writer! - and before i went on he said to me "you're gonna be great". i have no idea how he could know that. but he is kinda mystical.

2007 really was a million years ago, wasn't it? I met you in 2007 at the NYC reading for Marooned.

that was the same year!!?? holy toledo. that was fun. there were a lot of people there! and i read something weird that wasn't even from the book. jon williams was there. ian. i met nabisco and sang freud and unperson all in one night. jon lewis. laurel. ilx-time. and then my brother played at Cake Shop later that night. i never leave the house but when i do i like it to be memorable.

it's good! it's good writing! i love your writing. not just how much you know about music, how passionate you are about music, your _writing_, the way you _write_ about it.

-

some thoughts.

i've never been to connecticut. when i think about connecticut, i think about new haven pizza. i don't think i've ever been to connecticut. i've only eaten new haven pizza here in portland. it's the second most popular city in the us for new haven pizza, so i'm told. it's good pizza. better than st. louis pizza or altoona-style pizza.

i'm not so much bemused by what regular people do as the idea that there _are_ "regular people", people like your customers. i see signs of them. i went to a movie last night and there were some realtors trying to leverage their queerness for business in the most entitled, white, cringeworthy ways. they seemed to be appealing more to straight people who wanted to perform "allyship" by having a queer realtor. i guess that makes sense. most of the queer people i know aren't exactly ready to buy houses in portland.

time is weird to me. i've lived in the past for years and now i guess i'm "cutting edge" by virtue of being trans but i don't feel cutting edge. i feel extremely archaic. this is the only place i'm on the public internet. even when i talk about the present i talk about it in terms of the past, the way it _used to be_. i don't want to talk about my present. when i was young they said "those who say don't know, those who know don't say". i don't think it's true. i don't know _how_ to say. easier to talk about...

but i am old, i've always thought of myself as old. i mean i'm younger than you, scott, but "you're only as old as you feel". i've felt old, always. "boomer" = "old". i grew up with this weird, like... i wanted to be a boomer. i wished i had been there in the sixties, when things seemed exciting, things seem like they _mattered_, and now i guess for better or for worse things are exciting and i'm somehow caught up in it just by, like. existing. i worshipped these people, i wanted to be like these people, and now the idea of the "boomer" - because it's a _mindset_, not an age, one can be a boomer at any age. there are people who are younger than me who are boomers. i call myself a boomer, because to them boomer is a slur, like cis is a slur, and it's not the _word_, it's how we _use_ it, and we use it that way because of _how they act_. and they don't understand. they don't know. that's the bemusement, to me. it's not that they don't understand other people, it's this _clinical lack of insight_. they know not what they do.

my favorite thing about the term "generation x" is that it was coined to describe boomers. my "generation's" name is a boomer hand-me-down. it seems appropriate.

Dogs are big here. I don't know how it is elsewhere. "Emotional support animals". Animals won't fuck with you like people will, is I guess how it is. My QPP's roommate has an ESA. Flash bites me. I don't know why. I'm not hostile to Flash. People did "no dogs allowed" like in that Snoopy movie so I guess they came up with ESAs so they could have dogs around and like. Everybody _is_ an emotional wreck, everybody I know. People make all kinds of compromises but sometimes, you know how it is. People set "boundaries" in ways that make other people responsible for their shit. And sometimes people use ESAs like that. Not always. Sometimes. So stores have signs up now saying "If you got a seeing-eye dog, fine, but no fucking ESAs please." Sometimes in those precise words. I was at a bar Wednesday that had a sign out front saying "We survived a pandemic, we'll survive your shitty Yelp review". I kinda like that attitude. It's very East Coast. The West Coast isn't necessarily known as a "fuck you" kind of place, but more and more I got that old East Coast "fuck you" feeling. Maybe there's not that much difference between East and West like there used to be, maybe there never was. The Brahmins are now boomers with weed gummies and you have them on either coast.

Learning to fake emotion, I know that as a trauma thing. When someone is in an abuse situation. You don't get to be yourself. I was listening this morning, coincidentally, to _The Gouster_, from Bowie's "Who Can I Be Now?" The chameleon. Grew up queer with a schizophrenic brother.

(REDACTED):
I am a new person every day
It's called self improvement

Kate Cavatappi — Today at 8:52 AM:
or sometimes 4. Identity disturbance with markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

That's the thing. It's all about _them_, it's always all about _them_, and they don't understand what it's like for everybody else to have to put up with their bullshit without being able to hold them accountable, because they have all the power, always have. All their life. To me that's the difference between them and the people who are "mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs and/or depressed and/or desperate and/or chronically ill, and/or dying of terminal diseases", to be a "boomer" means not confronting any of that, believing that one's going to live until 150, believing that Your Generation ended racism and saved the world and that the people who hate you aren't treating you LIKE YOU DESERVE TO BE TREATED. But they never treat anybody else, you know. The way they think they _deserve to be treated_.

Kate Cavatappi — Today at 12:25 PM:
I've always tried to live by the "treat people as you want to be treated" kind of person. Unfortunately I used to kind of hate myself so that caused a lot of problems...

It's good to read your post. I was asking about it the other day here... Is it me? Is it only me who lives in this situation, who sees these people? Is it only Portland? And from what you say it's not. What you say makes me feel like desperate people are everywhere. It's just hard to talk about and acknowledge, without fear or shame, and so people don't want to talk about it.

It's that contrast. The boomers with all the records and the desperate people, and the former are the latter but with money.

-

we have a big queer woman population here of every age too and queer moms and non-moms alike also make up a good portion of our buyers. thank the heavens.

and non-binary people. and the like. lots of younger queer folks. they didn't used to be such a big part of our customer-base. a lot of things have changed in general here since the pandemic. people moved to the country. all kinds of people. which is an awesome by-product of a terrible thing.

i WAS kinda lumping sad gen x dads together though. i basically meant people who reminded me of myself. slow. world-weary. heavy sighs. maybe not so quick to look at the records underneath because it means bending.

― scott seward

i was never able to dad because gender dysphoria and all but slow, world-weary... again, that's the out of time thing, i always had these old man vibes... there's a picture of me from when i'm 20 where i'm look like a 50 year old chain-smoking golfer in 1971. but it's also interesting to know that, again. it's not just portland. the queer people. the pandemic babies. queerness has changed _so much_ over the course of the pandemic, and I don't know if it's coincidental or if the pandemic brought about a sea change.

for me the pandemic was... even more than trump, it's, what's the term? "stochastic incompetence"? stochastic incompetence changed my life.

-

i too really miss blogs. i had a blog between '20 and '22, a pandemic blog... it's the only way i can really write. i use ILX like a blog sometimes. i don't know what else to do, where else i can write that other human beings at least have a chance of reading. like i sad. i feel very out of time.

I read you, Kate! Thanks for the post! You can be who you are here. That's what I like about ILX. I don't have a lot of people I can talk to about a lot of things. In real life. I feel safe here! I also have therapist fear. I mean, I think it would benefit me. I could probably use a little of the ol' DBT. But I'm afraid to tell someone I don't know about my stuff. You know? Now I just wish i was starting a band so that i could call it Stochastic Incompetence.

hi scott! i too remember that seattle meet-up with great fondness, thank u for yr kind words :)

so long ago tho :(

But x many of us are still around! Not nec on ilx, but I hear things.

my thing that i posted here is in this. i still don't have a copy. i didn't even know it was out! my kinda editing situation. zero contact or involvement.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/462392090_10162249770432137_731882273653155772_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=_Jxe01W1TUsQ7kNvgE0FH1W&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=AEIfPkAFGK6UHUlacf0YIBJ&oh=00_AYD0a0iK6-3OZ9EcQHNj9q573DVm-LwTjJIQxDIHWoDT8Q&oe=6709CACB

I did get my copy of that, it was great to read it (again)!

thanks! i have to find a copy.

Not sure if you have a Barnes & Noble near you, but they usually carry Maggot Brain now, I've seen it there.

yeah, that's a good spot to check. they are sold out online at the third man store.

Hadn't seen this one yet---Lucy Sante cover girl on another recent issue, so obvs. you and MBV and Neshell in good co.

*M*eshell!

nice to be in a magazine with my friend andy zax. and yeti mike of course.

yesterday was a big step for me. as i wrote on the antidepressant thread:

i feel hopeful. i feel like i want to be closer to people again!. its nuts. i was at the store all day by myself yesterday because maria was working a record show at wesleyan and i talked to people all day and had a really good time. awesome writer/rock crit icon/poet karen schoemer came in and we had a nice talk about writing and stuff. people like her inspire me so much. she has a band with friends of mine. i felt engaged and not weird or brittle like i'd been feeling for fucking ever. i realized how detrimental hiding in the back of the store for the last year or more and having maria out front has become. i never wanted to see anyone. it just perpetuated my depression.
the biggest miracle was Sunday afternoon. i went to a house party/show at my friend beverly's house and her awesome band Stella Kola played and other cool people played and then...i read! some of my stuff. in public! with a microphone! in front of, like, 20 people. for about 25 minutes. and people really liked it and i liked it and i was in a garage and the weather was nice and there were dogs and little kids and maria near me. and i wasn't drinking or anything and i felt fine and happy to be with friends who i never see because i never ever leave the house. i asked Beverly if i could read too. about a week ago. i knew that would make it so that i had to go. but i didn't dread it or stress about it. i had a very long and stressful and emotional week last week too. family death. my uncle's memorial and my sad beautiful cousins. my birthday that always makes me feel sad for unknown reasons. just thoughts of family. the people i love who are gone. my mom. my sister. i also worked a ton physically. so much that it hurt. but i got through it all. its not a black cloud covering me or following me. its something i just worked through.
i'm really ready for more of this. i really was working so hard to make myself better on my own for years and it wasn't working. its hard for me to ask for help. i'm so glad i did though. next stop...therapy.

― scott seward, Monday, October 7, 2024 4:36 AM (twelve hours ago

Rat on, hang in there!

good luck! that sounds promising!

thanks, friends.

oh and i know you guys like stats. here's my Medium numbers:

External referrals
95%

email, IM, and direct

858

facebook.com

534

twitter.com

530

ilxor.com

352

bsky.app

108

instagram.com

70

google.com

31

losslessbored.com

7

mail.google.com

4

getpocket.com

2

All other external referrals

5

i feel hopeful. i feel like i want to be closer to people again!. its nuts. i was at the store all day by myself yesterday because maria was working a record show at wesleyan and i talked to people all day and had a really good time. awesome writer/rock crit icon/poet karen schoemer came in and we had a nice talk about writing and stuff. people like her inspire me so much. she has a band with friends of mine. i felt engaged and not weird or brittle like i'd been feeling for fucking ever. i realized how detrimental hiding in the back of the store for the last year or more and having maria out front has become. i never wanted to see anyone. it just perpetuated my depression.
the biggest miracle was Sunday afternoon. i went to a house party/show at my friend beverly's house and her awesome band Stella Kola played and other cool people played and then...i read! some of my stuff. in public! with a microphone! in front of, like, 20 people. for about 25 minutes. and people really liked it and i liked it and i was in a garage and the weather was nice and there were dogs and little kids and maria near me. and i wasn't drinking or anything and i felt fine and happy to be with friends who i never see because i never ever leave the house. i asked Beverly if i could read too. about a week ago. i knew that would make it so that i had to go. but i didn't dread it or stress about it. i had a very long and stressful and emotional week last week too. family death. my uncle's memorial and my sad beautiful cousins. my birthday that always makes me feel sad for unknown reasons. just thoughts of family. the people i love who are gone. my mom. my sister. i also worked a ton physically. so much that it hurt. but i got through it all. its not a black cloud covering me or following me. its something i just worked through.
i'm really ready for more of this. i really was working so hard to make myself better on my own for years and it wasn't working. its hard for me to ask for help. i'm so glad i did though. next stop...therapy.

― scott seward

god i'm so glad to hear that scott. you deserve all the good things.

more if you need more. 2nd installment of ol' crankypuss. sharing here first.

https://medium.com/p/9706ea4f45eb

oh but feel free to share elsewhere if you want.

Awesome

And even better, because so edutaining for me, is your first Taylor Swift (1989) listening experience, with so much stuff about her music and the 80s that I didn't know or had forgotten (Basia!)

I don't know if images from Bluesky posts will load or not...

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qqmdcy4tomfothvkdtkw2boc/bafkreid7dqa4b4mpawnvdtyq5djgvbbvtzgekyao4n7t3zlpl6nn4xueoq@jpeg

LOL

ha, yeah, i just saw that on Facebook.

pretty damn accurate...

If it was in Absurd Music Ideas, I got it from here.

hahaha yes I just saw that as well and sent it to my storeowner friend Callie

also very accurate...

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/465010191_10232073787321141_7410047390918988808_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=yP6O7zY-RWcQ7kNvgGK6b2q&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&_nc_gid=AceVzp9dKtEPWRpkMtmAWVo&oh=00_AYC8S42rY3_bzAnERk8pU4EnZE2L7J5v-iCxCGJ9_RNTUg&oe=67299C74

i will say this about inflation. since the pandemic, nobody has really bugged us about price. or tried to get stuff for way cheaper. i should really take advantage and jack my prices up even more but i just don't have the heart to.

I’ve been decreasing my prices! People have no dough. Decreasing them on normal stuff, that is. Collector-y shit just seems to keep climbing.

this month was a little alarming sales-wise. i blame the election.

scott i am in your neck of the woods and have been meaning to come say hello and throw some $ your way. are you generally at the store if it's open?

Alarming in a bad way?

no, alarming in a good way, obviously! haha, is there a good alarming?

LS, i am here until 4pm if you mean today. i'll be here tomorrow too. Sunday probably not unless i feel guilty and feel like i have to work. but maria is the sunday girl (as sung by blondie) generally.

duly noted - not today and not sure when i'll get there but maybe monday...

hurry up and wait

i will be here all day Monday. its just me here on Monday. playing terrible music. i felt bad that Maria didn't have two complete days off so i told her not to worry about coming in on Mondays and i already really regret it because its slow and i forget what being nice to people is like. but sometimes its nice to just play records and work. i'm usually in back now every other day.

i've got all the hits.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/465461975_10162316716212137_5484273787013156021_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=mPYd7cbPh4gQ7kNvgFi6MBB&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&_nc_gid=A_BiexvmzFDD1Tp0bT8zUIw&oh=00_AYAMQzHlHbRuw3rlRtyLlHROHON95wugIv0X4XTnsI_XBQ&oe=672AECC0

Do you have the 45 promo floppy disc version tho

I know very little about 1883!

Scott what kind of analysis do you do of sales to improve your business?

the back of that record is all Escher-y.

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https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/465147287_10162316716757137_3825479211764755657_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=O4JcSJ8SKFcQ7kNvgGM3j6o&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&_nc_gid=ALeKEmrMZqfkLoS22YV2r8K&oh=00_AYB5m3majDrj7hyvPrWbX2Wy3woJp1LFxHl-RVH4Sewznw&oe=672B0759

a beautiful stylus wrecker

People threaten to sell their collections full of “rare” “gems” that are “near mint” and they do this for years. If I ever do get any of their stuff it’s almost always littered with beat up Jackson Browne records

Some years ago I was at a record store during a big sale, the kind of day where people spend lots of time carefully combing the shelves. A guy next to me was focused on dusty jackson browne CDs, best of comps and the like, which made me really curious. Even though I’m still stubbornly stuck on buying CDs, I wonder what people go to a record store to look for unremarkable Jackson Browne CDs? I mean, he’s probably just someone that never adjusted to downloading/streaming music and likes Jackson Browne just enough to pay $5 for a best of CD. Obviously people aren’t obliged to want rare and/or valuable stuff, but it was also a wonder that people still exist, attaching a certain kind of value to the depreciated residue of another era of music consumptions.

Anyways, the point is, since then “beat up Jackson Browne records” has become a kind of shorthand for certain kind of people at record stores that also match what you describe here.

https://i.imgur.com/AlU78Xp.jpeg

Scott do you have any vaporwave in the store ?

no. i haven't bought new records in awhile. i like vaporwave record covers. it would be cool to have a bunch of them. i was going to spend a bunch of money to get new records for the holidays and...i stopped myself! its so boring to buy. i always end up getting the same boring stuff. i might do just one big hipster order from forced exposure and be done with it for the year. i really don't care if i have classic rock reissues for people. people can just buy pink floyd records on amazon. i was pretty good about it too since the pandemic. its just more fun to buy stuff that's fun to me. wholesale prices for new vinyl though...i mean you think bacon costs a lot. we need trump in that white house to bring the price of aphex twin records down.
i buy wholesale books twice a year and that's fun for me. i really get into reading reviews of sci-fi novels to choose the right cheap remainders.

my third installment:

https://medium.com/p/977aa410e43b

fantastic, thanks

You're wrong about Cruzados, but that's OK. I remember my dad took me to one of those horrifying old Village record stores once, a place called House Of Oldies, I think. He was looking for an album that had one side by one doo-wop group and another side by another, it was called The Checkers Meet The Diamonds or something like that. Anyway, the guy who ran it was basically Willem Dafoe as Nosferatu and the place looked like it had been stocked by ripping off the roof and pouring the records in by the craneload. Total insanity, but of course Dafoe knew exactly where everything was. He didn't have the album my dad wanted.

lol House of Oldies was the worst!

loved this, a world away from my own experience in Sydney and yet totally relatable and familiar - when I was waz a teenager the city was absolutely heaving with scungy old record shops and bookshops run by weirdos - now there are a handful of genteel vinyl outlets and not one single second-hand book store, which feels like a pretty solid indicator of culture death - my contemporary experience of the city is largely feeling nostalgic for a time when it wasn’t a generic Vibrant Retail Experience

Greatness once again!

So much fun to read,thanks Scott

They built their own realities amidst the chaos surrounding them! What a cool trick

great stuff. super intrigued by these scary Village record stores/garbage dumps, sounds insanely fun in 2025z

Enjoyed the j&r call out
Bought the original king crimson run in gatefold CD versions there back in the day

thanks you guys. that was a fun one to write. i had to stop myself. i can write endlessly about supermarkets. trying to keep them all to the same general length.

"You're wrong about Cruzados, but that's OK."

i was just trying to think of the names on that thread i started a million years ago without actually searching for it. i could have used the Del-Lords instead. though i don't really remember what Cruzados sounded like. they, being Plugz-related and Latino, probably weren't totally boring Michelob rock. but their production probably sucked because most 1984-1988 roots rock production did.

TS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?

RS Magazine just wanted some American fun in the 80s. Yee-ha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5IaF7n2xA8

I really liked this ... there's a lot more in it than I got on a first reading

Love it, thanks Skot

Love a good Scott rant

I loved the part about how it felt going into those old book and record shops in NYC in the 80s, or the mystique of the imports section of Tower Records.

An especially great one!

One of the many things I hate about the Stop & Shop robot is that it is named Marty — as in, they are all named Marty, so what feels like a name isn't even an individual name. I just read that it weighs only 130 pounds, so maybe we can all start picking it up and moving it out of the way.

thanks again you guys. feel free to share somewhere if you like. i want people to read them. they woke up my brain a little. they are fun to do too.

My mom has also been known to put things in front of Marty the Robot to freak it out. She also pushed him a couple of different times. She said she once saw the robot inadvertently (?) chase a woman down an aisle.

For some reason, the last time I was in a Stop & Shop (I usually go to Market Basket) the robot was dressed up as a chicken, with a beak – or maybe it was supposed to be a turkey, since it had a wattle. But this was well after Thanksgiving.

Fave so far is opening, the unexpected sensory gifts, rainbow ov smells: a lot of old American cities used to be like that, maybe they all were, certainly a decade or so after Clean Air Act, when I first went to Nashville, it was through that shot in Altman's Nashvilledowntown: newspapers blowing around rainy night streets, fireplug buildings (some of which contained Bluebird Cafe, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, Ernest Tubb's Record Shop, many more lesser-known and some even seemingly nameless joints, Exit In over towards the Music Row---Vandy interface, I think).Blonde On Blonde had always sounded so NYC to me, and in a sense it was,is, but also recorded with Nashville Cats in Nashville, who had no trouble with the atmosphere)(likewise Charlie McCoy playing guitar all through the previous album's "Desolation Row").
And way before that, when my grandfather insisted on driving us from North Alabama to Chicago before the Interstates were finished, lot of it was one bad-cough urban sprawl, so I was always ready for things to get more congested, then thinning out again (retaining the smell,as you say).

I was very into the Plugz, but the Cruzados album with "We're All Just Hangin' Out in California" seemed too vibey smoov, like lesser Byrds by way of much lesser "Don't Fear The Reaper"----yet a live set on cable was the shit, maybe because of this one mavericky guitar slinger,who may not have been on the albu I had---nevertheless, lots of hot stuff on that thread you started,though I still am too ignorant of Green On Red (Chuck Prophet has since made some good solo albs, I know that much).
Will re-read this latest installment several times, thanks again!

Thanks, Don! Have you ever written at length on Nashville or other places that you have lived? I would love to read if so.

I always play Rank & File's Long Gone Dead album when I get it in at the store. I always loved that song but the whole album is good.

When all is said and done, The Gun Club were kinda my fave 80s roots rock band back then. If you want to call them that. Gothpunk Americana is still Americana. Those albums are so cool. though 1985 was the year of The Knitters for me. I played that album so much.

I picture the dad who sent his kid for Graham Parker records as trying to amass the complete Pazz and Jop winners.

Ha! Wouldn't be too big a job for kid seeking P&J GP, who seemed to sink through those polls pretty quickly after he ditched The Rumour, at the end of the 70s (The Real Macaw was a pretty good singer-songwriter album for 1983, but don't think it placed very highly)
xp Scott, I only visited Nashville, but some of that may end up in a long thing I'm still trying to finish.

Yeah, that Rank and File album---and I hope, now that X have finally called it quits, that we might get another Knitters album.

Scott, I really enjoyed this. Thanks for keeping up the good fight.

thank you!

Your description of not wanting to talk to record store employees certainly articulated everything I felt - I would never get to the end of my list if I kept getting input unasked for!

Never did get to go to those giant NYC shops in their glory days, but I will paste my favorite 90s NYC memory here:

In 1993 I took the bus down from Boston to visit friends in the Village, and before meeting up, I decided to detour to St. Marks to look for LPs. I immediately gravitated towards a set of milk crates on the sidewalk in front of a record shop, and while I hunched and flipped through them, I sensed two people in my peripheral vision, one at each side of me. I turned to my left, and the guy said to me, "Hey, you can get most of those same records for cheaper at that place." He was pointing across the street. I turned to my right, and the guy on that side looked me in the eye and asked, "Will you pee on me?"

lol

I feel like you could have negotiated something there

Hey Scott what did your dad do? Maybe you've written about it before and i missed it?
The movements described made me think : drug dealer

he worked for trucking companies. sales. he went to big companies to get their freight business. he was away a ton when i was growing up. he went all over the place. not a glamourous job. but he liked to travel.

I was wondering about that too, and also how he knew so many jazz musicians.

he went to shows in nyc forever. since the 50s. he knew a bunch of people casually. the jazz world is pretty small. you end up knowing who your fans are if you are a musician. i don't know how many times my dad saw someone like george coleman but it was a lot. i probably saw george coleman 3 or 4 times myself back then. he would drive people home from gigs sometimes. but he would also go to tons of shows in CT when we lived there. and then later upstate when he lived near Saratoga. Skidmore had a good jazz department and Lake George had festivals. he just didn't have any good jazz friends in the 70s and early 80s to go to shows with when we lived in CT. so we went with him. or he stayed late in the city and went by himself. after i moved out he luckily became friends with a neighbor who played drums and he would go to a ton of shows with them. and then way later he went to shows with his friend stan who still lives in brooklyn. masta ace's father-in-law.
he originally was thinking of going into radio/broadcasting. he loved radio. so he worked at CBS and NBC in the 50s as a page/usher/gofer. he worked on Your Show Of Shows, and the Ed Sullivan Show, and The Ernie Kovacs Show and a ton more. he used to go on walks with Ernie during the day when Ernie wanted to get out and clear his head. he would walk Edie Adams' dog. he liked it. but then he got my mom pregnant so he had to get married and get a more serious job. that led to trucking. and alcoholism. and buying too many jazz records.

my dad with his high school friends from Summit, NJ at Birdland with Stan Kenton. my dad really loved Stan. hey, it was the 50s.

from left to right: ashley seward, russell starkes, julian hill, andy catana, dickie dennis, mackey, and stan kenton.

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Wow, thanks for sharing that scott

Wow---been thinking about looking for this pic from a long-ago post on ilx----your father and Stan look as I remember (execpt I had Stan in an Eisenhower bomber jacket, in there between Charles Lindbergh and Charlie Starkweather, the pure products of America goin crazy, as Stan glimpses maybe the ultimate version of "The Peanut Vendor"(main thing I know by him is City of Glass---Stan Kenton Plays the Music of Bob Graettinger---so amazing---novelist Robert Stone wrote about acid parties feat. orig 10" LP of that, at Kesey's house on Perry Lane in Palo Alto, when they were Stanford grad students [then they'd go roaring up to Frisco jazz clubs]) Kovacs, hell yes!

I swear the next one will be the really really funny one. I was nervous about this so I sent it to a few people and Karen Schoemer really liked it a lot and had such a great response to it and I truly respect her as a writer so I felt better about it and it made me more willing to put it out there. Almost a year since the first one I wrote. I do want to end up with one...thing. We'll see. Baby steps. I'm not sharing this on my own Facebook because cousins but if you like it feel free to share it with your loved ones or on your own Soc/Med! Honesty is my new policy. I might put it on the Bluesky.

Trigger Warning: SELF-HARM, SELF-ABUSE, DRUG USE, DRUG ABUSE, ALCOHOL ABUSE, TOBACCO, DEPRESSION, MENTAL ILLNESS, CONNECTICUT, RECORDS, VINCENT GALLO

https://medium.com/@scottseward68/where-there-is-smoke-confessions-of-a-used-record-dealer-in-new-england-a20fca456b38

<3

I don't have anything useful to say other than a) WOW and b) you are a really good and characterful writer, Scott.

This is so, so good.

I have some family in Trumbull. Is that near your store?

thanks you guys.

i'm not actually in CT anymore, calstars. i just grew up there. trumbull is about half an hour from where i grew up.

Great read, Scott.

Read the first one in Maggot Brain over breakfast this snowy morn.

Great writing, Scott. Not just describing the mindstates you’re grappling with but making them visible and visceral on the page.

Indeed. You and I inhabit such different worlds, Scott, and you fully dragged me into your world, helping me to understand it better.

thank you for writing that, scott

Thanks you guys! it means a lot to me that you appreciated it.

i really appreciate you sharing your stories scott. it really inspires me. i'm thinking of starting a blog again, on medium or something. i just feel kinda scared because i feel like the stuff i write needs to be Serious Business and sometimes i just want to say dumb shit.

i finally broke down and got a bsky. a lot of the reason i kept off social media is because i was afraid it would ruin my professional reputation or some shit. whatever. i don't have a professional reputation to protect anymore. i feel free in a kris kristofferson sense. i might start talking about my life in public other than posts here. i've been trying to bury a lot, to hold a lot of stuff back, and it hasn't been working really good.

if there's anything i can say to your post it's that if i've learned anything, it's that i'm already whole, that i'm not broken, that i never was. and i think you're a whole person too, even if it doesn't seem like that. a person can be whole and still feel hurt, still feel really really bad, still feel guilt and shame and all that stuff. it might sound weird to say but you're a role model to me, have been as long as i've known you, and even moreso now. that might be hard to believe. i find it hard to believe all the people who look up to me as role models. at the same time i know it's true and i'm glad to have been able to do that.

the thing that's scary about writing is how much i cry. and a lot of that is that it's easier to cry when i'm on estrogen, but whether someone cries or not, expressing that pain is so hard and so important. anyway i cried reading your story, and that's a good thing. and i think it's super cool that you're doing it. you're one of my favorite people on ilx.

Aww, thanks, Kate! I really appreciate that. I feel like Ilxors have kinda been my perfect audience all the way back to the days when I wrote for the Village Voice. They get me and they know where I'm coming from even if their experiences are different. If people here liked what I was doing then I was happy with that. But it does feel different to share personal stuff on a public website outside of here. And it has opened me up more. I think it would be great if you wrote longform stuff on a site like Medium. I picked it because it was easy? There might be better places. I haven't paid to be a member or anything. You get more perks if you pay. But I just like the clean look of the site. Sometimes I forget that I even had a blog in the old days! You are a good writer and super smart and have so much to say about your own experience. I think people would really dig it. And I think its more important than ever for people to be vocal about who they are. Even if that can be truly scary to do in public.

As someone eternally trying to give up smoking (i'm down to not buying them, but regularly hanging out with smokers who are generous with their cigs), I felt this one. Great read Scott.

Thanks!

I forgot to mention that my fave band Stella Kola had a show at my pal raymond's bookstore and they asked me to read before the show and I read that one about being in the city with my dad and my dad came to listen so that was nice even though I know all the swearing bugs him. It was a tribute of sorts to him.

nice

Thanks for sharing this Scott. I've enjoyed reading all of the entries so far, but this was my favorite. Hope you keep 'em coming in one form or another.

Thank you! They have been good for me and I'm glad people have enjoyed them.

I'm going to see a therapist - or actually i think they are in-training to be a therapist - FOR THE FIRST TIME next week and I'm tempted to just print this one out and hand it to them at the end of our first meeting. Ha! What the hell would they think?

I knew I was in good hands when I looked this person up and saw that before their therapy career-path they were an actor who appeared on two episodes of American Horror Story. Perfect! This country kinda writes itself, doesn't it?

Any decent therapist would do their 'neutral-creeping-into-this the best you got?' face!

I really enjoyed reading this (if that's the right word). I've got a son who I know has an incredibly complex, traumatic inner life, the extent of which I've only sensed, and it's still rare to see this stuff written down and discussed. Keep them coming!

And I hope your journey towards some kind of peace continues. Best.

Thank you so much. The encouragement is very helpful. it really is.

All these pieces have been good, but that one was great. Glad to know you.

aww, thanks, phil. i was thinking the other day that the first truly autobiographical thing i ever wrote was for your book many many moons ago.

I loled at this:

My love for that stuff is the only reason I have been able to keep a store open for 16 years. It certainly isn’t the money or that guy who is possibly ten different guys who comes in and asks me if I have any Tool and then talks about Tool and then leaves only to come back again and again because some people, it turns out, are Tool or nothing kind of people. It’s the Tool way or the highway for these intrepid…tools.

and at the boring friends of your kids "who stare at you catatonically."

I loved this, scott, especially the way you avoided the moralism.

And without smoking, why bother drinking? It just made drinking sadder than usual.

To me it's the opposite. I see no point in smoking without drinkig. I can't smoke sober.

I'm going to see a therapist - or actually i think they are in-training to be a therapist - FOR THE FIRST TIME next week and I'm tempted to just print this one out and hand it to them at the end of our first meeting. Ha! What the hell would they think?

Great idea IMO

Scott, this is a great essay. Thank you for sharing. :)

xp it is a great idea. i just finished up a very personal writing project, probably the most sustained personal writing i've ever done, and i'm absolutely sending it to my therapist. (also i really loved this piece scott, and it helped me untangle some stuff in that very project)

Glad it was helpful, Ivy!

this is blowing me away. thank you for writing and sharing this.

This was a great read. I relate to a lot of this.

Thank You x 2 !!

Cigarette with coffee and a newspaper and rye toast and bacon and a hangover was the best thing ever. Thanks for the reminder. I don't even eat much bacon these days, as it's not as good without the full suite.

Agree about handing it to your therapist. Other than that: super-eloquent scary. O SHIT---you've come through so much, which I kinda knew but didn't---hang in there, Brother.

You’ve come a long way, baby

my person didn't want to read my thing. they were very artful about it and it made me guess that they have regulations about taking things from people. also...and i hadn't thought about this...i was basically giving them homework. i'm sure they have enough to do. i did mention that it was on medium.com if they were ever bored.

they asked if i had any goals that i would like to achieve from therapy and i said: this is kinda the goal. to talk to a real person in real life. and then i added: uh, and to exercise more. sure, exercise. that was just to sound more normal though.

also told them there would be no way i could be talking to them without the medicine i'd been taking. they were nice enough. but really any breathing person would have been fine. also, i didn't dissolve into a pool of tears. my number one fear. i couldn't really tell if them wearing a mask made it easier or harder for me.

i'm on an unpaid ilx sabbatical but i did want to share this new thing with you guys. and please feel free to share on the socials if you think some of your friends might like it. the newest issue of maggot brain magazine will have my long sad one in it. coming out now-ish. naked and unashamed. peace out. luv ya all.

https://medium.com/p/58410bff6c79

Great as always Scott

I've included a link in tomorrow's newsletter. Great stuff as always.

loved this, my favorite so far

Great one, Scott.
I could read your writing all day and night.
It kinda makes me miss working in a record store, even, despite how awful a lot of people are.\\

Great read, Scott! Thank You!

glad to see you've got a new one! if you read this i hope your sabbatical is going well. thinking of you.

Really enjoyable read, Scott. Take care!

I loved reading this

same

yeah!

If ILX had a Like button, I’d be smashing it hard.

^

Thanks for continuing to write these and share them Scott, always wonderful.

Quite so!

looking forward to a good read!!!

https://medium.com/p/2cb535160945

Thanks Scott.

Yeah I read this

this one hits hard: olfactory notes from the underground

thank you for sharing, please keep 'em coming

^

Great stuff! I think about smells a lot.

My fave so far: your nose, and all these other people (travel is broadening).

just beautiful writing

thanks for sharing Scott - really miss your contributions to this place but these pieces are outstanding

Thanks Skot <3

Great read. Thank you!

echoing everyone, love when you share these scott

A truly wonderful piece, once again.

Greatly enjoyed this. Thanks.