Classic Sounds - February, 1980 / Rolling Stones Week 3/5

Marquette Park was a pretty cool place to grow up for a variety of reasons; shopping, fer instances. It was distinctly the walking city; all along 63d, 59th, 55th, Western and Kedzie were corner shops,taverns, tiendas, used book shops, pizzerias, thrift stores, and lots of places to buy records. I'm old enough to remember the drug stores stocking singles, as well as places like Sears and Woolworths. There were a lot of mom and pop record shops across the neighbourhood- one on 59th just east of Kedzie on the north side of the steet; Yardbirds, on 63rd near Homan, was the shop I saw the Eddie Money LP in; and the Kroozin Music's on Archer and California or 79th East of Pulaski. But the first LP's I bought were from Classic Sounds, 63d and Whipple.

I had a few ways of making cash back then. A local grocery store's - The local grocery store's - owners would give me a pile of newspapers. They had a special coupon section that used to come in Wednesdays or Thursdays papers back then. I would get a huge pile of those sections and then cut out the coupons from each one - so if I got 50 sections, I'd get 50 15 cent soup coupons, 50 30 cent cheese coupons, etc etc etc. I'd bring the pile back to the store when I was done, and bingo = $25 this week, $18 the next, etc etc etc. NIce scam, nice paycheck for an 11-12-13 yo.

The more steady stream of cash came from a paper route I had for many years. Money from them came in the form of "collecting"- I'd walk around to the customers to get what they owed that month.

It was Feb. of '80 when it finally came time to constitute my initial record collection. Now sisters had tonnes of LP's and '45's, but more importantly they had two Stones objects: Sister.2 had "Some Girls", and they collectively had the "Tumbling Dice" (and live)/"Sweet Black Angel" 45. But I needed more. El Greco came up with "Hot Rocks", the stunning to a 13yo collection of what then seemed to be the GREATEST HITS OF ALL MUSIC OF ALL TIME- and most importantly "Get off of my Cloud". But I needed "(Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker", and that meant a trip to classic Sounds.

First was collecting. I went w/ my bandmates in The New Association*: Straw**, JJK, El Greco, and Mick Guinness. I rang the customers door and we settled accounts for the last month or two months or whatever. I remember those jokers were being loud and rude while they waited for me on the sidewalk. But again, it was in a spirit of celebration that cold dark Feb. nite- we wer gonna have some brand new music to play, and we were all excited.

I settled on three records, and fuck were they strange choices:

“Goats Head Soup”= I wanted Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), and this ws the LP that had it. As time went on, this became one of my least favourite of the 55, 236 Stones LP's that were released. However @ the time, doo doo doo was all that mattered.

“Love you Live”=Very very very strange choice, to this day. I dunno. Maybe that it was a double LP and was priced nicely (I suspect). It mita been also that there were a bunch of live songs, and I wanted to hear the alternative versions. Strange choice.

“The Early Beatles”= Always loved the early rather than the late Beats. Got it from growing up- those Beatles cartoons? This LP was had lots of the songs they used to play on that cartoon, so this was a natural choice. Had to have “Twist and Shout”.

Now, yesterdays post was very much into id'g the bowling alley days as an important step in my becoming a rocker. However, I have always dated THIS DAY- the day I fianlly speny $$ on music-- I really id as THE important day in my rockerness. I spent the $$. I made the decision to spend the $$. This really was the before/after day.

It was in this period immediately after buying these records that I really became a music fan. I had my little record collection, and it expanded bit by bit. It was all Stones and Beatles these early days, but soon groups like......heh heh heh laughing @ my training as a youth..... the Who, The Doors, The Kinks, Cream, etc started to be bought. My initiation into an area beyond classic rock would come, but for now....

And I had a litle record player to play it on. My sisters had graduated to a real stereo, and handed me down a portable little grey thing. It had attached speakers that could be detached and didn't sound so bad to this 13 yo. It could play in 16, 33, 45, and 78 speeds, which were useful when trying to understand lyrics in the internet days. It was pretty crappy even by then standards, but it got the job done. The important deal was that I could close my door, break out my LP's, and just go.

The events of Feb. were an important milestone in my life. I wasn't just saying that I like this shit. I was buying it, and looking for more. And back then, it was all Stones. I have no great overarching theory of what happened or why: I assume it was just the hormones and whatever else goes on oin our bodies etc... but I accepted music as one of the things that expresses myself those following weeks and months and years. I dissolved myself into the music, and since my collection was dominated by the one band , I found....I don't know what I found.....wait, I do....I little part of the context that is Life= and I loved what I found. It was me.

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*=The New Association are very important to the general story of music @ that time, but......for another time. Videos of that groups few remaining songs that are still in existence will be made.....but when?? Lansing 5 first.

**=BCD