FUN TIMES @ YE OLDE RECORD STORE

My top three for THIS MORNING ONLY!

1. A group of hispanic migrant workers asking for "Socks Postal." I said "The sex pistols?" And fucking-a is I wasn't correct.

2. Watching REO SPEEDWAGON "behind the music" and no vomiting blood.

3. Looking inside the new Liz Phair album. Jesus Christ.

The guitarist for a well known UK indie band coming into Tower Recoreds stoned off his gourd, walking around the entire cassette section, picking up EVERY SINGLE CASSETTE in turn, holding it up practically to his eyeballs and moving his lips silently mouthing something out (I was on the register, I couldn't hear what he was saying.) I watched him do this for over an hour while no one came to my register. When he finally shuffled towards the register, dammit, wouldn't you just know it, there was a sudden rush of customers, another till was opened AND HE DIDN'T GO TO MY TILL!!

Wah, boo-hoo, etc.

We used to have such fun afterhours. I used to pretend to be French and not understand the customers if they asked for records I objected to.

2003's running gag (held over from 2002 & 2001) --

Customer (blank look): "Do you have _____?"

Me (runs and grabs cd): "Yep, here ya go!" --smiles--

Customer (blank look unchanged): "Hmmm..."

Me: "What?"

Customer (puts cd back in my hand): "I think I'll just download it instead." --smiles--

--sigh--

I used to work with a guy who consistently filed Van Morrison's stuff in the "V"s. He didn't last too long.

I always see Steely Dan under 'D' in used racks, which is so depressing.

I worked in a record store when "Appetite for Destruction" came out... I sold a cassingle (when's the last time you wrote that word?) of "Sweet Child O' Mine" to a meek, mousy woman who'd heard it on the radio. She loved it so much, she came back to buy the album, which I gladly sold her.

And the following weekend, she returned it... crying. Obviously shaken and troubled, unable to speak... just that she wanted to return, it wasn't what she expected. She was CRYING... G'n'R hasn't given me much pleasure since then.

Dissing on David Gray, and then looking over to see that Dave Matthews was shopping (this was in c'ville, VA)

and busting shoplifters. I always wanted to ask them why they didn't run, because I sure wasn't going to chase them.

Einsturzende Neubauten records under N... hah hah!. Yes, Mr. Neubauten.

In most shops in Japan, CDs are filed by artist's first name. That was an annoying habit to pick up.

i think it's cute

Selling 50 copies of the first Cars album the first time we played it in the store I worked at in Boulder in 1978...one of my coworkers insisted he was Elliot Easton's bestest bud from Boston, so when the album arrived, he immediately threw it on, and whoa...a few months later, the Cars opened a triple bill with REO Speedwagon and Joe Cocker, and I was backstage in rockritic mode, and sure enough, the guy marched up to me arm-in-arm with Elliot and the rest of the band, and I watched Cocker's set (which was awesome) from the side of the stage with 'em.

Almost as much fun as when I cleared the store with Devo's debut, leading the manager to not only ban that record from the in-store PA, but ban ME from ever selecting albums...

I also used to buy Class of '77 import singles at one of Boulder's used-disc emporiums from this crazy dude named Eric Gardner, who moved to San Francisco and re-emerged two years later as Jello Biafra.

More recently, I have begun to train my screenagers (9 and 11) by taking them to their local indie store (Exile on Main Street, Hamden, CT) and letting them run amok and pick out whatever they want. 50 Cent and Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" were the most recent selections.

Convincing a coworker that the compilations were filed under V for "Various"

non-record store folks who bring in boxes of musty lps and the people shopping that watch them like hawks.