By Douglas Evan Weiss
It is one of those weekend days when all that makes sense here at the shop is playing records and drinking coffee. A privileged luxury, I know.
Started with Thelonious Monk and have moved onto Ellington and Coltrane. 180 grams of sheer beauty. Rolls over the shoulders and down the chest. Closes the eyes and. cancels the worries. Outside the sign reads “Holy Roller Novacaine Marbella.” This morning while sweeping up it was the classic first album by Kings of Leon. A fine way to open the shop on a hot Saturday in the jungle.
It ain’t Brooklyn. It ain’t Crooklyn. I don’t know any horn players in the neighborhood — but there must be one somewhere. This morning the waves were smaller but didn’t paddle out. Wonder what the conditions are at Impossibles today. Pedro’s bday party is this weekend. These drums and horns sound perfect.
On the Acoustic Sounds website Let it Be is on sale. But figure if you’re gonna ship one record then might as well ship a couple of records and save the courier money. Still under one kilo. Batched love. Either Miles doing Porgy and Bess or Thelonious alone in San Francisco. Hard decisions. The legendary Canonball album Something Else with all the heavy hits is also tempting. Credit card bills or new records……. My brother in law would be appalled. I wonder if I need more coffee?
Don’t give them the satisfaction so I won’t write about it. But I know and that is why all of this is here and we coming. So tempting to just buy all the records……
In the back there is a new 7’10 on the rack, coming along slowly. Turn the rails and attend to the details. She sits like an incomplete rocket — quiet and stable and listless, waiting to be turned loose. Sophisticate yet savage. Just sit here and listen to records and drink coffee. Maybe less dust today. Maybe this is enough creation on a hot Saturday in the jungle. Tonight will be large containers of resin and cut shards of fiberglass cloth and tiny droplets of catalyst and blue tint and The Kings loud from a dusty JBL Clip 3 speaker and the AC on high and the rubber boots cut down the back and the tape precious and the floor sticky and the cheap scissors sharp. Tonight will be another pencil mark on the long concrete wall of forever. Outside are trees and rocks and more dust, but in here Tracey Chapman is now playing and we rest calmly amongst the turmoil and the hate and opinions.
Lots of opinions…..
“Why don’t you just learn to surf…..”
My brother in law gave me vinyl cleaning tools and it has really helped. The first Chapman album is a classic. A CLASSIC. Humans can make amazing things. She changed the game. Late 80’s, single black woman drops a folksy social album during the time of Ray Gun and Bush. Fucking guts. That be guts. All the opinions in these privileged white bubbles isolated by jungles and WiFi and phones and screens and volume — as if all you require is a lot of volume — I’m also part of the problem. Everybody got dirt on their lapels.
Of course nobody gets out alive.
Last week this album was dusty and skipped and practically unlistenable. This hot Saturday is different. The speakers are up on small cork squares and the turntable is wired through a DAC into a gifted black Sony amplifier. It is going to be a long Green Season. A long Wet Season. Plenty of time for prose and records. Act accordingly. Shop accordingly….. Credit card bills or records? Modern questions to a timeless dilemma. My cousins are advocates for joy. That would mean more records…..
Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess. Live at the Blackhawk Dinner. Sketches of Spain
John Coltrane: Favorite Things. Giant Steps.
Thelonius Monk: Alone in San Francisco.
Art Blakey: Moanin
Cannonball Aderly: Something Else
Tracey Chapman: Crossroads
Miles & Monk at Newport
Kings Of Leon: Youth and Manhood
Ugh so much. The joy of living. Perhaps simply scour the Acoustic Sounds website and be picky yet passionate. All purchases over $100 get free shipping….that is how they get me. The covers and the size and the memories and the healing. Feels like a fine day for drinking coffee and listening to records here at the shop. The WIIM is busted but these records sound exquisite in the hard mid day heat. Choices….. Sanctimony and choices and risk. Quiet in the mid day heat thumbing through vinyl and handling surfboards and feeding the dog and accepting a small town life and all the opinions and all the dust. The door is closed and air is on. The amplifier is still working. We shall be deeply thankful for these jungle victories on a small molasses covered road in Central America. On Orchard Street they have been drinking since 11am (or last night). Marty Keen is in the back cutting fabric. Scar is pummeling dough. Dimes Square is high on spring. The vintage addicts are out in droves fingering the metal racks lifted out the back of a red Corolla parked in front of an LES mural celebrating the local Girls Club. All the faces. All the accents. All the boots.
The new Kamasi Washington
The new Doechi?
Otis Redding: The Dock Of The Bay
Stax Number Ones
Anything by Dire Straits
Gill Scott Herring…..
From this seat the surfboards sit perched in a perfect row along the back wall in all their glorious color and various shapes and sizes. “Surfboards are dumb” Jeff Alexander told me recently. I didn’t argue. “I’m good at doing dumb things” I told my coffee guests earlier today. A hot Saturday. The surfboards sit like mighty sentries lining the roads to Carthage in full armor and protruding muscles prepared to take off high and drop low and pull back up and punch straight down a blue line past the stars of Jupiter and between the legs of Giselle and up the aisles of Prada and long down the rivers of Mississippi and Euphrates. Walked across glass and rode a Scooter all the back down to the Bukit with a 10 foot piece of foam riding bitch. These tariffs might hurt and this sun might be hot and this amplifier might be faulty. But just now while putting on Dark Side of the Moon some kid popped in and bought zinc sunscreen and from this dented imperfect tiny perch we are here to serve.
Getz & Gilberto on orange vinyl by Acoustic Sounds for $29.95……..
Uh oh.
