Anyone who has worked in a record shop for any length of time will have stories to tell about the customers they encountered. All human life is there, after all. Most people are nice, some are annoying, others are eccentric and a few are just plain weird.
Whether it’s the boring know-all droning on about matrix numbers and the mono versus stereo debate, or the obsessive Beatles fan out to collect every variation of Sgt Pepper released in Sub-Saharan Africa, they can drive you nuts. And not in a good way.
I ran a second-hand record store in Australia for 30 years from 1985 to 2016 and, unsurprisingly, after dealing with the public for so long, I have a wealth of tales to tell.
For example, there was the time a respectable middle-aged lady came in and bought a CD by the 90s punk metal band Ugly Kid Joe. She definitely didn’t look the type, but I thought perhaps she was picking it up as a gift for her son or teenage nephew. Predictably, she came back the very next day to get a refund looking embarrassed and a little irate. It transpired that she thought she was buying a CD by, and I shit you not, the world music/Afrobeat singer Angélique Kidjo. She’d misread the cover. Well, Ugly Kid Joe and Angélique Kidjo, it’s an easy enough mistake to make.
Another time a chap bought an LP by the Doors and before leaving the shop he made a point of mentioning, with obvious nationalistic pride, that the “Light My Fire” hitmakers were a local act, formed in Australia. He even declared that Jim Morrison was born down under. I really should have humoured him and let it go at that point. But I just couldn’t resist picking him up on this ridiculous claim.
When questioned he became quite heated, insisting that, yes, of course the Lizard King hailed from Melbourne and what an idiot I was for not knowing that well-known fact. That’s when the penny dropped, for me at least. Yes, it’s perfectly true, Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne right enough, but Melbourne in bloody Florida, a mere 15,674 kilometers away from the Victoria state capital!
He’d obviously read about Morrison’s birthplace somewhere, but stopped reading after the first line, having gleaned all the information he needed. This was before Google so I couldn’t even show him the damning evidence on my phone. He left the shop looking disgruntled and I often wonder if, 20 years later, he’s still labouring under his bizarre misapprehension.
Best of all was the strange case of Bob Dylan and the lesbians. One day, a pair of butch-looking young ladies came in the shop. I hate to jump to conclusions, but the viciously cropped hair, dungarees and Doc Martens were quite a giveaway. Also, the fact they were kissing and cuddling the entire time was further proof. Nothing wrong with that of course. Live and let live, I say.
We happened to be playing a Dylan album in the shop at the time and right on cue, Bob’s biggest hit “Lay Lady Lay” started up. As it reached the immortal line “Lay across my big brass bed” one of the girls pointed at the loudspeaker on the wall and snorted with derision, loud enough for the entire shop to hear, “Yeah, right. In yer bloody dreams, mate!” she said, and they both howled with laughter at Dylan’s outrageous and unforgivable misogyny.
But they weren’t done yet. The Basement Tapes version of “This Wheel’s On Fire” then began to play and the girls seemed genuinely confused. “This is the Absolutely Fabulous theme, isn’t it?” said one. “But this is rubbish" added her friend. "I much prefer the Ab Fab version from the TV show”. Poor old Bob had been put firmly in his place.
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