first records and stuff

     The first record I ever bought, ie. paid my own money for, was the 45 RPM single of "For All We Know" by the Carpenters. Obviously I was not a seasoned rocker at that time. Which is something I'm certainly not embarrassed about right now. That was a great song. Most likely I got it because I liked the oboe in the introduction. I don't think I was even ten years old at the time and it's very likely I had no idea what an oboe even was. But I really liked whatever it was that made that sound. Nowadays my favorite part of the song is the gorgeous multi-tracked harmony parts. 

     I bought that record at a store called Drury's 5 & 10 ("five and dime"). It was as close to a department store as my small town could boast. They had a decent selection of toys, which was all I cared about before getting into music. I loved the little plastic soldiers. Drury's had a record section up towards the cash register and even though the selection was extremely limited I still could find something there every once in awhile. They sold me a few records that were warped though, and I didn't much care to buy from them.

     The main places I liked to buy records were at Clarks (which later became Cooks) in Shawnee and Gibson's in Seminole. I was a bit leary of Gibson's merchandise because they too had sold me warped records. But they had a good selection. Gibson's is where I bought my very first copy of Creem magazine. It had Lou Reed on the cover. As for Cooks, they were like a slightly larger version of Drury's. Me and my brother used to walk around speaking gobbledigook trying to make people in the next aisles think we were foreigners. Their record collection was great, too. I can still vividly remember buying my first David Bowie album there. I'd read all about him in Rock Scene magazine but wasn't so sure if his style was something I'd enjoy (to the extent that a pre-pubescent boy can truly appreciate an artist's style). But all they had was a two record repackaging of his late '60s material called "Images". It had awesome cover art with all of the songs represented in separate panes of a comic book. I actually liked the album very much and to this day I will insist that some of those old songs are just as good if not better than more recognizable ones from his more famous days.

     I bought a lot of records at those stores but the first LP I ever purchased was a year or so before and was at Drury's. Now this one I am kind of ashamed to admit, even though the kitsch factor is high..."The Partridge Family Album". Ugh! Yes, I watched The Partridge Family every week. It came on right after The Brady Bunch which I liked but not as much as The Partridge Family. I was still young enough to think that they were an actual band and not just actors. It was perfectly conceivable to me that the mother of a large family would be in a musical group with the her kids and drive them to shows in a school bus, or that a kid who couldn't be older than 10 himself could play the drums in said band. So yeah, I liked the "band" and I liked the album. My favorite song was "I Can Feel Your Heartbeat", with that weird spacey sound during the intro. That sucker ROCKED!!!

     One day we were going somewhere with our parents listening to the AM radio in the back seat when we heard an ambulance passing by. But when we looked out the window there was no ambulance. Eventually it was revealed that there was no ambulance at all, just a sound effect used during sections of a song by Bloodrock called "D.O.A." Of course that just blew me away. I had to have that record. I got the single which was backed by a song called "Children's Heritage". I thought it was as good as the A-side in it's way but "D.O.A." really appealed to a morbid taste I'd nurtured since first reading Famous Monsters magazine. What a creepy song. I won't listen to it anymore. Whenever I listen to "Bloodrock 2", the album it's featured on, I will always skip by it even though there's only one song left. But back then, hoo boy, it was every bit as cool as Alice Cooper (although I'm not sure if I was into Alice Cooper by that time). Later I bought the LP, really liked it and would wind  up buying all of their albums. I was conflicted about listening to them, though. I don't know if I can explain...there was some puritan side of me that felt the subject matter and the music of these Bloodrock albums were somehow "wrong". Hell, they may have been for all I know, but I would listen to them a lot and then for a long time I would be hesitant, for weeks at a time not playing them. How silly.

     That Partridge Family record and "Bloodrock 2" are the only albums I can remember buying from Drury's. Like I said, it probably had something to do with all the warped records they tried to unload. Plus for some reason they never seemed to have any Beatles or Rolling Stones albums. What was that all about???