But let’s back up a bit. In the early 1970s I spent a large proportion of my life hanging around in St Albans record shops, either the traditional specialist venues like The Record Room or the new pretender, Cloud 7 or even the less obvious places like Tesco, Boots or a furniture store whose name I’ve forgotten, who all sold chart singles.
Oh, the arrogance of youth! This was a time when I felt entirely at ease in such places and, like the owners, knew most of the stock by sight. As a frequent visitor and dedicated browser, not to mention compulsive buyer, I felt that slight superiority that an expert feels when confronted with an amateur. So when anyone came into the shop with that furtive and marginally panicked look on their face you just knew that some fun would ensue.
These were the people, usually elderly, who didn’t really know what they had come into buy, either because they’d heard something on the wireless and didn’t know what it was, or because they were buying for someone else. In the first instance they would try and describe what it was they were after, usually going to extraordinary lengths to avoid actually having to sing the thing to the bemused shop assistant. Alternatively, if they were buying for someone else (usually much younger), and Christmas was always a good time for this, they would clutch a scrap of paper and whisper the contents to the assistant who would be drowning in a sea of mispronunciation and misunderstanding. Their delivery would be akin to a police officer recalling a slang filled conversation with a villain in a court of law.
All this was huge fun to people like me, safe in the knowledge that I would always, always know what it all meant. Until now.
So there I was, navigating through iTunes to download my daughter’s choice, when suddenly, oh no, I was that someone’s elderly parent in the record store who hasn’t a clue what they are asking for and all those years of arrogance have come back to bite me.
‘No, Daddy. It’s THAT one. Don’t you know?’
Aaaargghhh!
8 comments:
The generation gap seems more apparent these days. Here I was, trying to explain my girlfriend's 17 year old daughter what a turntable is. All I got was a baffled look that was priceless. Now, she's trying to tell me that I could fit my 2000 piece vinyl collection in an i-pod
Hi Drew. I know, vinyl may just as well be wax cylinders as far as the younger generation is concerned. I remember feeling the same way about 78s! It's such a shame that music media today has no touchy-feely element to it.
I came into the world at the tail end of vinyl. But my older siblings were in high school when it was at its peak in the late seventies. The one thing about vinyl that has stuck with me all of these years is the smell. Whenever I smell vinyl records it's like a time machine back to my early childhood.
Hi Perplexio. You've hit the nail on the head. It was the smell of vinyl that got me interested in records when i was very small and everything else led on from there. Very evocative and something else that a download file lacks!
unrelated note... I know you're a fan of early Chicago... Danny Seraphine has recently released his memoirs, Street Player: My Chicago Story. It's focused predominantly on Danny's life and his interactions with the band up to Terry's death. There are a few chapters about the events afterwards (Peter's departure, Danny's firing) but from what I can tell from the "look inside" bits on Amazon.com the lion's share of the book focuses on the period of Chicago's history which interests you most.
Thanks P - I had noticed that it was out and was planning on checking it out. I always rated Danny as a drummer so it should be interesting to get the inside story.
You nailed this. "Someone else's parents" Brilliant!
I knew the game was up when my son's fiance read a fragment of my memoir and said, "You can't write about record players. No one will know what you're talking about."
Luminous - LOL! I mentioned record players in my memoirs once...but I think I got away with it...
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