We all touch other people’s lives. Both for the good and the bad. We all know this whether we consciously think about it or not. After all, people make us angry in traffic or when the person in the drive-thru gets our order wrong, but we don’t catch it until its too late. We definitely notice it in all of these negative situations as well as many others. Too infrequently, but it happens, on the positive side too. Sometimes we refer to it as “paying it forward.” Once in a blue moon someone, again in a drive-thru, will pay the bill of the person behind them in life (this is one of my favorite things too do, as long as it’s not a lot of people). There are many examples of these kinds of displays of kindness But it tends to happen so infrequently, that it catches us by surprise. It is the exception to the norm of rude people.
Somewhere out there, if they are still alive, there is someone who was a huge influence on my musical life. They don’t know they did. They may have had a similar effluence on other people lives, or it may have been just me. And when he/she did it, they were just going about their regular daily jobs and didn’t do anything intentionally. I wish I could thank this person.
In my teen years, there was a record store on West Tennessee Street called Record Bar. Of course, long gone, it was different than the regular record stores in the shopping malls. Being located close to Florida State University, it catered to tastes wider than the regular Top 40 appetite, whether alternative rock or classical music. I loved this store.
I would spend hours just wandering from bend to bend looking at albums, wondering what was behind the beautiful covers. I was rarely in a hurry. They had a couple of listening stations where one could listen to a selection of open albums via headphones. It was great that you could sample music. And usually, they were always playing albums on the store sounds system (you could sometime make requests for that too. I wasn’t unusual, that would just hang out and listen to complete albums they would play that way. I specifically remember discovering Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers that way. The album was “Damn the Torpedoes,” and I was hooked.
But the one particular time that made the biggest impression was in 1982 or 1983, just before I left for Florida Southern College. It was another of those days of casually looking through the bends of albums, not particularly looking for anything, maybe waiting for inspiration. I remember it being the middle of the day and there wasn’t much customer traffic. Some album I don’t remember was playing on the store system. When one particular album finished playing, they put another on. Employees choice. Upon a new album starting, the first song caught my attention. It was different than what played on the radio. Guitars, bass, and drums, but not in the common rock style. Not country, reggae, or punk. The music seems to wash about the room. A wave of music and chords melding with a strong beat of the drums. The vocal line was a little haunting and very melodic. There was a stark difference musically between the verses and the refrain of the song. There was a bridge that was veered even further away, but still kept that same wash of music, different and yet the same. The store was otherwise quiet so I was able to listen as closely as possible. I soaked in the sound as I continued to look through the albums, leisurely.
When the song had faded out I was very satisfied but assumed, as is usually the case, that it was probably the only good song on an otherwise unremarkable album. Then, before the first song has completely failed out, the second one began, overlapping. A single strong electric guitar playing a chord on the downbeats for 4 bars then joined by the lead vocal. Musical it was strikingly different from the previous song. Yet the vocal was very melodic also (Later on I would easily make comparisons to the melodicism of John Lennon and Paul McCartney). The upbeat temp was very engaging and I was very quickly won over by this song also. At this point, I’d like to point out that the lyrics of these two songs were not of the normal “love song” variety. But I couldn’t quite make of what they were about.
So, being more intrigued, I walked up to the counter to see what I was listening to. “English Settlement” by XTC. Nope, never heard of them before. I walked back to the “X” section of the “Rock” bends and found the album. A plain green cover with some sort of horse shape on it that looked like it was a cave drawing from prehistoric days. I turned the album over to find absolutely nothing. So I settled in for the long haul and only moved to ask if they would play the second side too when the time came.
By the end, I was completely blown away. The copy that I had picked up, was purchased and I was very eager to really dive into it when I got home. This was to be one of the most important record purchases of my life. This reinforced my fascination with British post-punk music that began a few years earlier when Skip Parvin introduced me to Elvis Costello. About the same time, WFSU-FM had a program on weekdays from 1pm to 4pm called “Freefall,” focusing on alternative and “College Radio” artists such as R.E.M., the Psychedelic Furs, and Nick Lowe. All of this contrasting to pop radio playing the likes or Dexys Midnight Runners, ABBA, Jefferson Starship, Air Supply, Van Halen, AC/DC, and the like. Sure, they were also playing Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, and some other good stuff. But it was usually the “same old, same old.”
Upon moving to Lakeland for college, I took the time to find stored in the Tampa and St. Pete areas that catered to the same clientele. I’ll save you the other artists that I got into during those next few years, they are in an earlier post here somewhere. One can think of the 80s as a dismal time for rock music. And in many aspects it was. But the good stuff was there, one just had to dig for it. I believe the same can be said of any decade. Show me any decade and I’ll show you some terrible music that made people millions of dollars.
Anyway, I wish I could meet this Record Bar employee, who may have just grabbed this album at random to play. Maybe it was his favorite at the time, who knows. But by this person doing their job and doing it well not only made them a sale, but it influenced my life in a very important way. It reinforced my lifelong journey of digging through all of the pop fluff and crap to find the really good stuff. And, I sincerely hope that at some time in my life, I have done something that made someone else life better. Wither in the short term or the long run.
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