Icebox Records

Today is Tues­day, which means I’m going over to Pure Pop Records to see what the new releases are.  It’s a habit I’ve had since 1987, when I was antic­i­pat­ing Mot­ley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” to come out.  There’s a cou­ple stu­pid rules I set for myself with this shit:

1. vinyl first, if pos­si­ble, unless the vinyl is ridicu­lously expen­sive (I felt like a real chump pay­ing $24 for that last Boards of Canada LP)
2. must buy the record upon first sight, mean­ing have the money for the record and be able to pur­chase it the very first time you see it avail­able in the store.  If you see it else­where first and don’t buy it, the record and your devo­tion to it are tainted.

Buy­ing records on the exact dates they come out also helps me remem­ber dates and times when things in my life and the world in gen­eral occurred.  For instance:

GBV’s “Alien Lanes” and Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” came out around the time of the Okla­homa City bomb­ing.  I was work­ing at the Peking Duck House with Kochalka and play­ing bass in The Fags.  Spring, 1995

Breed­ers’ “Last Splash” came out when I was in-between apart­ments, depressed about pos­si­bly hav­ing to live with my mother again, depressed at her choice of new live-in boyfriend, depressed that my friends were doing heroin, happy that I was work­ing at a movie the­ater, happy there was a new Breed­ers CD since the Pix­ies had bro­ken up 7 months ear­lier. Sep­tem­ber, 1993

Sonic Youth, “Exper­i­men­tal Jet Set, Trash and No Star”…got the vinyl a week before the offi­cial release date.  Super-hot sunny day, liv­ing with a cou­ple of bur­geon­ing junkies I had recently met, record col­lec­tion grow­ing, get­ting into Half Japan­ese, Bore­doms, Daniel John­ston, etc.  Mildly dis­ap­pointed with the new Sonic LP.  Later that night our build­ing burned to the ground. May, 1994

Sonic Youth, “Dirty”, Hel­met, “Meantime”…fun, good summer…first “Real World” all over MTV as well as Pearl Jam and Nir­vana.  High school was over and this would be the last sum­mer liv­ing at home with par­ents.  A few weeks ear­lier I had gone to NYC for the first time, to see Sonic Youth pre­view their new album at a free July 4 con­cert in Cen­tral Park with Sun-Ra.  I was in the front row (inci­den­tally, Mr. Eric was also at this show, didn’t know him then) and caught a banana Thurston threw into the crowd.  In my rock-star wor­ship mode I stuck the banana in my pocket.  After the show we saw actress Julie Hagerty on the street.  A week later the show was on MTV news (SY get­ting pro­moted cuz these were Nir­vana days) and you could see my lit­tle brown head bob­bing to “100%”.  A few more weeks after that I lost my vir­gin­ity.  July, 1992

Pave­ment, “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”…making a pathetic Valentine’s day card/mix tape for this girl I was in love with.  Pretty stu­pid.  Yeah, I’m one of those mix­tape guys.  I was liv­ing with a cou­ple of morons I knew from high school…one tried to beat me up because he thought I was fuck­ing his ex-girlfriend (my best friend was) and the other ripped me off for months rent and many util­ity bills.  A few months later we’d be evicted.  I was get­ting into CCR around this time.  Feb­ru­ary, 1994

See how it works?  I could go on for­ever.  But I won’t.