#723: Nothing is easy....

OK, it's official -- my record-store memoir GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC! is now available at Amazon.com's Kindle Store for $2.99 -- which is as cheap as Amazon would let me go. I definitely think the 190-page e-book is worth it. Just punch in the title or my name -- Tracy Deaton -- and it'll be right there, along with a pretty detailed description (written by me) about what you're in for.
If you've liked any of the late-'70s/early-'80s working-in-a-record-store nostalgia pieces that I've posted here, you'll like GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC!, because there's a ton more behind-the-scenes record-store stories included....
OK, enough sales-pitching for a minute. This adventure in e-publishing hasn't been COMPLETELY smooth: Due to technical difficulties caused by me, the 18-page detailed playlist I wanted tacked onto the end of the book will now have to be published separately. It's already in the works, I'll keep you posted on that, and when it becomes available I plan to offer it for FREE as often as Amazon will permit. If you're a member of AmazonPrime or the Kindle sales-deal programs, you can already get this stuff for free....
Now then, here's why I'm excited: You know I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Yeah, this book is a memoir/autobiography and I'm all through it -- but I think it's a vivid and funny look back at the late-'70s and early '80s, a time when Disco ruled the radio and New Wave was still on the way up and we couldn't GIVE AWAY the first U2 album. There's a lot of music details here, a lot of behind-the-scenes music-industry stories (Want to know why the first Knack album sold a million copies? Want some new theories about why Fleetwood Mac's RUMOURS sold 20 million?), a detailed close-up look at a subculture that has almost died -- your friendly local hometown non-nationwide-chain record store.
Plus you'll get to meet the wild characters I worked with back in those days, you can criticize their (and my) odd musical tastes, and you can meet the friends I hung around with back then -- and the wonderful women who somehow allowed the geeky, nerdy younger me to get close to them.
If you've read the record-store posts I've written here -- or the segments of the book I posted as I wrote it -- you've got a pretty good idea of what you're in for. All I can say is there's a TON MORE of the same kind of thing, including some stories you probably won't believe, and some incidents I hadn't thought of in 35 years. Less than 10 percent of the book has appeared previously in shorter, different form on this blog.
The book's even in Real English.
If I wasn't excited, if I didn't think the book was worth your time, then I wouldn't have written it, and I wouldn't be promoting it shamelessly like I am right now. I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time. Sex and drugs and rock and roll -- it's all in here somewhere.
One more thing -- Memoirs often seem to be about setting things straight, or settling old scores. I just wanted to see how clearly I could remember those Good Old Days, and as I went on with the book, more and more details came back to me as clearly as if they happened last week.
I can understand if some of my old friends might not want to be depicted in precisely this way... But I've got to tell you: I tell WAY more stories that reflect badly on ME than I do about my old friends. I believe in Full Disclosure, and if you read the book, you'll see clearly that back in those days I wasn't always a very nice guy.
But luckily, the statute of limitations has passed for all that stuff. So consider this your warning. And your welcome.
I'd like this to be a "real" book, too -- but I've learned that self-publishing can be expensive, and everybody knows I'm a low-budget guy. So my plan right now is to (hopefully) use the e-book format to eventually fund a "real" book that you can hold in your hands. I prefer those kind. Hey, it took me awhile to get used to the idea of being "published on the Internet," too....
(By the way, if you're ever planning on writing a book, I recommend the Kindle folks -- they have been an absolute breeze to work with -- the only real problems have been the ones I've made for myself.)
My life has been leading up to this. I'm excited about it. Score yourself a copy of GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC! for Kindle and help me secure some retirement funds for my fast-approaching Old Age.
By the way, I've already got my NEXT book planned....

#720: Book update

The Record Store Book is basically done. I'm at 61,000 words for the memoir itself -- and a detailed playlist/discography of all the good and bad music we played in the store back in the day bumps it up to 65,000 words, which seems like a good place to stop.
I'm thinking I must be pretty close to finished, because scenes have stopped popping into my head at 2 a.m. and demanding to be written-up.
Except for a couple of minor little music-research details that I have to nail down, I guess I'm done. Have re-read and proofread the book over the last week-plus and I think it's not bad. Some of it's pretty vivid, parts of it are funny, and I think in places it even does what I want it to do.
So, what next?
I'm thinking I might go the Kindle route to get the book Out There, since I've recently learned that self-publishing can be EXPENSIVE. And everybody knows I'm on a Low Budget (Kinks)....
However, I also know you can get lots of books for free on Kindle, so I remain confused about how much I should charge for this masterpiece. Guess that'll come down to How Much Balls I think I've got.... However, I plan to research this further almost immediately.
I'll keep you posted. Am also open to advice about all this stuff. In the current market, I have major doubts about whether a book about working in an old record store has a large enough potential audience to be accepted by an established publisher....
Even if the book DOES have everything a potential best-seller needs -- sex, drugs, rock and roll, it's all in there. A close-up look at a whole subculture that's nearly vanished....
...Uh, sorry, just trying to crank up the hype machine a little, since I guess I'm about to become my own promotional company as well....

Am continuing to use Stevie Wonder, Junior Walker, Booker T and the MG's, The Temptations, The Spinners and Parliament as motivational music at work, and they have all helped get me through the rough spots. Have listened to nothing much New lately apart from songs I'd never heard before played on the syndicated music-news-and-views radio-show SOUND OPINIONS.
Mercifully, this past week at work was easier than the previous week. An update on current work conditions will be posted at THE GAS NAZI! eventually....
It is cold, overcast and gray here, daily high temps around 50. I can tell Winter is coming because I feel like I'm shutting down -- feel like I have half the energy I did a few weeks ago. Pretty much normal for me, this time of year. Hope you are NOT the same....
More soon....

#715: Improper toilet training

From The Book:

At this point, I'd like to make a few True Confessions about my music-listening habits:
* I'm a creature of habit. I tend to play one side of an album, get totally addicted to it, and never flip it over to see if there's any Good Stuff on the other side. This can go on for YEARS. Sometimes I discover there IS good stuff buried on the other side -- 30 years later....
* I'm picky. I keep the songs I love, that I can't live without, and pretty much ignore the rest. As Chuck Berry allegedly once said, "Nothing but the best, and later for the garbage." Maybe other listeners do this too, but I never hear them brag about it.
* I'm easily bored. I have a short attention span, and it gets shorter as I get older. Bore me for five minutes and I'm done. See above.
* It can take me years to catch on to some obvious things. It took me two years to admit that The Cars might have some talent -- and that was just because my co-worker Loren kept playing their first album over and over in the store.... Don't know what I was thinking, or why I couldn't hear. It took me almost a decade to decide Madonna was an Artist. I'm still not sure about Prince....
* I can condemn artists to Musical Hell for minor infractions, or for major assaults against good taste, and never listen to them again.
* I LOVE to make sweeping judgements about stuff I've never heard. Just ASK ME about any heavy metal band. Rap? I'm your man.
* I have this theory that every artist has one song they were put here to perform. Or, ALMOST every artist. Even Whitney Houston has one great song, possibly two. Even The Band has one great song, and I think almost all of their stuff SUCKS. (See previous item.) Even John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, Joan Baez, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, name your poison.... There are VERY few artists that are COMPLETELY unlistenable. But then, what are we supposed to do with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? Or Engelbert Humperdinck? Debbie Boone?

...The Book is now just over 52,000 words, and I am seriously running out of material. A long, detailed Playlist from the period pushes it to 56,000 words. But I'd like about 10,000 more words of actual STORY. So I guess I'm gonna have to Make Something Up. I could use another sub-plot. Or more sex to go with the drugs and rock and roll. Or something.
Still, not bad for a month's work. I'm to the point now where I'm gonna have to go back through and read the whole thing again and see if it makes sense, or if any more useable memories are jarred loose. I'll keep you posted....

I'm addicted to the Good Stuff on THE VERY BEST OF BOOKER T. AND THE MG'S. Ever since hearing "Time is Tight" on the radio awhile back, I couldn't get the music out of my head, so I caved-in and bought the CD cheap. And actually got all the way through it.
And the best stuff on it's really great -- "Time is Tight," "Hang 'Em High" (which I hadn't heard in YEARS), "Green Onions," "Hip Hug-Her" (which I swear I've heard before, though Ghod knows where), "Mo' Onions," "Melting Pot," etc. Really great '60s R&B grooves.
However. When they were less inspired, Booker T and friends sound like fairly bad '60s-movie background music. The worst of it sounds like that cheezy organ music from NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. You can really do without their versions of Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" and The Rascals' "Groovin'." In fact, the only version of "Mrs. Robinson" you ever really need to hear is Frank Sinatra's....
Coming soon: Junior Walker and the All-Stars' ESSENTIAL -- if only so I can hear "Take Me Girl, I'm Ready" for the first time since 1972....

Also played some of Carlene Carter's LITTLE LOVE LETTERS, after a previously-ordered cheap copy apparently got lost in the mail.
This is an Olde Favorite -- still love the fresh, happy, brash sound of "Every Little Thing," "Sweet Meant to Be" and "Heart is Right," and the goofiness of the two "Little Love Letters." All these make me bounce around the room every time. I might even play the whole thing through and find something new I didn't hear the first time around. And everyone knows I'm a sucker for women country singers....
Kevin Ayers' BEST OF may have gotten lost in the mail, or may just be taking its time coming in from England....

Haven't heard or read anything else new and shocking lately, what with writing my ass off when I can, working when I don't want to, and cheering for the Seahawks when they deserve it. Fall has officially started here, with occasional torrential downpours the past couple of days, overnight lows down into the low 50s, and snow in the mountains. And to think it was in the 80s just a week ago....
Gotta go research 1980-81 music for The Book and see how much I've forgotten -- back soon with more....

#712: "Strike One"

From The Book:

Toward the end it all just seemed like drudgery and paychecks bouncing. Cleaning up after everyone else and telling customers "I'm sorry, we're out of that," and either getting paid two weeks late or never getting paid at all.
I started getting pretty grumpy at work. Even at what had once been My Dream Job.
So I started telling customers how I felt.
When customers came in asking whether The Cars' then-new album PANORAMA was any good, I told them the truth.
I told them it sucked.
"You CAN'T say THAT!" my Manager Robyn said when she found out. "We won't SELL any! Just tell people if they liked the last one they'll probably like this one! NOBODY CARES about your opinion!"
"But Robyn, you KNOW it sucks!"
"STOP SAYING THAT!"
"Wall of Voodoo ALWAYS tells people EXACTLY what he thinks," I explained, falling back on the in-store behavior seen since day one on the part of the company's resident heavy-metal expert. "If something sucks, he TELLS people that!"
"NOBODY CARES about the crap HE likes!" Robyn said. "And besides, The Wall doesn't work here!"
That was probably the first official step on my downhill slide toward quitting the record store. And probably the first time I ever really pissed-off Robyn, who had once been my hero -- who I would never have gotten the job without....

#711: "But what's she REALLY like?"

From The Book:

It's a normal morning at the record store. Gary my Manager's on the phone from the new Capitol Blvd. store, wondering how much Current Hit Product he can "borrow" from our other stores for Capitol's Official Grand Opening, which is set for this weekend.
Robyn, my former Assistant Manager and now Manager of her own store at Fairview and Five Mile, is in the store picking up mail and new albums to go out to her store.
"Ask Sheena how she sits on Tom Petty," Gary says over the phone, wondering if he can grab some copies of Petty's recently-released hit DAMN THE TORPEDOES album to build-up the stock at Capitol.
I turn to Robyn. "Gary wants to know how you sit on Tom Petty...?" I ask.
There is a pause. Robyn grins. She's not-too-secretly in lust with Tom Petty.
"Well," she says, "usually like THIS!"
And she spreads her legs and kneels, as if to straddle Tom Petty if he were lying on the floor beneath her.
I back away, laughing and waving my hands in surrender ... and accidentally hang up on Gary....

#710: "The Voice"

From The Book:

Even in the middle of the stress and financial ruin that marked my last few months with the record store, there were still some good moments.
One was learning that a voluptuous, earthy female voice had started answering the phone at the alarm company all our stores used.
It wasn't so much WHAT she said as the WAY she said it. I'd call up the alarm company just before locking up the store, give the gorgeous voice my name and alarm-code number, and she'd laugh and say "Whatever you say, honey! Have a great night!" And I'd be out the door and on my way home.
And then it escalated.
Again, it wasn't so much what she said.... It was her sultry voice that grabbed me, her throaty, knowing laugh. That warm, buttery voice was like being smothered in kisses, like being surrounded by warm lips. I could cuddle inside that voice forever.
I started looking forward to closing, so I could toss the meagre amount of cash we'd made that day into the bank bag, reach for the phone, and hear that voice purring into my ear -- even if it was just for 30 seconds. I'd pass on my name and my alarm code, and she'd sigh and say "Have a great night, sweetheart!" And that would make my night.
She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, because as we got used to each other she stepped it up: The hints and innuendoes were becoming more and more obvious. That voice was laughing lightly, teasing, inviting, welcoming.
Maybe she was just bored with her job and wanted to liven it up. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing, and wanted to see how far she could push it.
I already had a fantasy going and I'd never even met this woman. I didn't even know her name.
Already I was thinking of asking her name, asking what she looked like, asking whether she'd ever consider going out with some geeky guy she'd never met....
I couldn't just let it lie there.
One night at closing I was suddenly circling around the ceiling after just talking with her on the phone for 30 seconds. I was giddy with it.
"GOD, you've got a GORGEOUS voice," I said. "You give GREAT phone."
She laughed, delighted. "So do YOU, sweetie! Sweet dreams!"
I walked on air out to the car.
After that I couldn't let it go. The next time I worked, I called Brad at the Overland store. Even though he was married, Brad always seemed to have the latest information on any attractive women who shopped regularly at our stores. He was our go-to guy when it came to hot-women rumors.
I asked if he'd ever talked to the woman with the voluptuous voice.
"Oh sure," he said casually. "I've met her. Her name's Ann."
"You're making it up!"
"No, man, really."
"Is she as gorgeous as she SOUNDS?"
"Oh, man, she's a freakin' knockout!"
Brad described in detail a heavenly vision with long dark hair and a huge chest. She sounded like Just My Type. Somehow I held it together.
"Does she talk to ALL the guys this way?" I asked, cringing.
"Oh yeah," Brad said, confirming my worst fear. "We've all talked to her. We've all got crushes on her."
I felt momentarily deflated, but Brad was saving the best for last.
"She thinks YOU'RE crazy," he said, "and she wants to come out to Fairview and meet you!"
"Brad, you're F'ing MAKING IT UP!"
"Man, I PROMISE I'm NOT."
"Then why didn't you TELL ME?!"
The next time I closed, I invited Ann to come out to the store anytime. She sounded delighted and asked what time would be good for me.
"ANY time, really!" I said, a bit too eager. "We never have any customers anyway...."
And she laughed, and I was circling around the ceiling again.
I was thrilled about this, the first positive response I'd had from a woman in months, and I told everyone that the woman with the gorgeous voice at the alarm company wanted to meet me and thought I was crazy.
"I'll agree with THAT," said Robyn my Manager.
But I never got to meet the woman with the voluptuous voice. For some reason, Ann stopped answering the phone. And the next step in my ongoing drama with the record store kicked in way too fast....