Sniffing & Chunking in Portland, Maine.

Bethany writes;

It is was our Saturday ritual, and it always occurred the week before a gig. Tom's band Luna Madidus is playing next weekend at the Portland club Blue - we were headed down to the city to  poster.  I loaded the 8x10s, thumb tacks, staple gun and a roll of tape into a canvas tote. Tom drained the dregs of the coffee pot into his travel mug and took the helm.

One minor adrenaline rush occurred a few miles into the trip when we realized the dashboard "Gas!!!" light was on.  Neither of us could remember when it had popped on - was it pulling out of the driveway, or yesterday during the 50 mile work commute?  We swung into the first gas station we saw.  While Tom gave the car a much-need drink, I squeegeed a week's worth of insect road kill from the windshield and front headlights.  Washed and fed, the Subaru made good time down the interstate and we pulled into the Portland's Old Port in about 90 minutes.

We traversed the city blocks between Commercial and Congress streets like a pair of blood hounds, sniffing out prime poster locations on  light posts, store windows and community bulletin boards.  There is an unwritten rule about postering. NEVER stick your poster over another poster with an upcoming gig.  Bad mojo will ensue.  However, posters of gigs dead & gone, and ads, even highly-descriptive escort ads, are fair game.

There is a visceral joy in the loud chunking sound a staple gun makes when driving a thick staple into a well-upholstered piece of plywood. I hogged the staple gun, and left Tom the thumb tacks.

Ninety minutes of walking, scouting, sniffing and chunking had me weary and on the raggedy edge of cranky.  We finished our trek outside of Blue where Tom  slid an envelope containing additional posters under the locked club door.

Looking up, Tom spotted it - Enterprise Records. Walking into this small store with cream colored walls, we were greeted by Rita Moreno teasing  her way through the lyrics of "America". 

As if pulled by an invisible bungee, Tom immediately strode to the Jazz bin.  He then became non-vocal, staring and flipping.  Soon, two other men strolled in and also began to wordlessly flip. Standing alone in the Ethnic music section I looked over and noticed that all three had assumed the same position. They each stood squarely in front of their bin, shoulders rolled forward, eyebrows furrowed, fingers rapidly flicking through albums.  Their heads were held slightly down and forward, in the exact position as if each were holding an unseen apple under his chin. 

I rifled through the Ethnic albums but found no Lomax. I turned to peruse the shelves of classical when I saw it. In the library-esque hush of the record store, I shrieked.  Three heads heads jerked up, apples soundlessly thumping to the floor. Grinning,  I held my prize aloft.


Tom was not impressed.  The two guys shot him looks of sympathy as he walked towards me.

"If I wasn't allowed to buy the Nimoy, you do not get the Monkees".
"But I just helped you poster!"
"For that, I buy you lunch.  But not the Monkees".

And he did buy me lunch, at our favorite pizza place by the water in Old Port.  Sitting side by side on tall stools at the bar, we split a large carmelized onion and calamata flat bread while watching the ferries maneuver in and out of the pier.




Records purchased:
Charles Mingus "Live", 1960
Ahmad Jamal "Happy Moods", 1960
The Charles Lloyd Quartet "Journey Within", 1967
The Charles Lloyd Quarter "Love-In", 1967

1 Benadryl. 1 Glass of Red.

Bethany writes;

The Black Fly is the unofficial mascot of the State of Maine.  It should qualify as "official" given that black flies suck and swill the blood from every Mainer during the months of April, May and June.  Tom and I theorize that they are chased out of Maine by the rounds of  illegal fireworks volleyed across the state on July 4th.

Last Friday afternoon I was in the back yard scrabbling about with a bucket and trowel, uprooting the thistle plants which had invaded our yard.  I had sprayed myself heavily with Citronella.  After 7 minutes of  digging, the Citronella had been sweated away.  At the 9 minute mark I was shrouded in a burka of black flies.  The tiny flies were sucking the blood out of me like a cherry Slurpee.

Tom, somehow sensing his wife's imminent ex-sanguination, stuck his head out the deck slider. "Hey, want to go on a trip into Camden?  We need stuff for supper".  I threw down the trowel with disgust and delight - disgust at the legions of thistle marching victoriously across the back yard and delight at the prospect of a trip to Camden.   In our years together, Tom and I have developed a rich language of "couple-speak".  In our marital dialect "trip to Camden" translates into "trip to the rekkid store".

I ran upstairs and, while pulling on fresh jeans and a clean T shirt, saw a sparkler spray of pink welts emerging on my arms and leg.  I popped a Benadryl to head off the rising tide of itchiness.

A quick stop at the big box grocery store supplied the fodder for supper.  Less than 10 minutes later and Tom was nimbly parallel-parking our hulking Subaru into a tight spot just outside of Camden Merchants' Co-operative.  This is a co-operative store displaying the wares of numerous local antique vendors.  Walking to the back of the store occurs at a slow stroll as your eye is pulled to the racks of faded silk blouses, cases of heavy necklaces and tie clips, sets of no-longer-fine china and  bookcases filled with cracked leather-bound books desiccating in the coastal air.

In the rear of the Co-op is  Spirit of Sound. When you walk through the doorway and into this rekkid room, the chattering sound of antique hunters quickly falls away; silent vinyl seems to absorb the ambient merchantile noise. The small space is crammed with bins of rekkids and album covers jackets emboss the walls.  An undercurrent of Billie Holiday softly cut through the air.

On this Friday afternoon, we were alone in the rekkid room.  I seized the opportunity and squeezed into a dim corner. I  lifted up the back of my T shirt and began to claw at an exquisitely itchy welt on my upper back.   A few moments later Tom abruptly barked with laughter.  I spun around, eyes wide, expecting to see a surveillance camera trained on my exposed back.  Tom was flashing the Vulcan peace-sign, holding the Nimoy record "The Way I Feel".  An intense but brief discussion ensued, resulting in Tom reluctantly refiling that acoustic gem.

Tom's spirits rebounded as the next bin contained an actual gem - the 1959 Mingus album "Nostalgia in Time Square".

In couple-speak, "trip to Camden" is a double entendre.  It means a trip to the rekkid store.  It also means a glass of wine at the local hip watering hole, 40 Paper.  We paid for our album and a few minutes later we were tucked into two high stools at the bar.  Tom sipped a glass of Pinot Nero and I had a Maipe Cabernet Sauvignon.  20 minutes later the mix of Benadryl and Cabernet began to work its alchemy on my brain.  I began to sense that my facial muscles were slowly sliding off my cranial bones.  And I began to giggle. about. absolutely. nothing. Tom looked at me and grinned.  He settled our tab and then ladled me into the passenger seat of the Subaru.  Once home, he fluffed a pillow on the couch and started to saute onions and garlic for the marinara sauce.  I curled up and slipped  into a deep sleep listening to our new Mingus album.  It was an epic nap. 

Photo Credit:  Wikipedia

Like Sonny

"I don't care what you believe in, just believe in it" - Shepherd Book, "Serenity"





Tom writes:

We snagged Sonny Rollins' "The Bridge" from the LP vendor at the Camden Merchants Co-op a few weeks back. The rekkid shop is run by a guy named Byron, who was the fella who bought the now defunct "Wild Rufus" rekkid store from my friend Mike, who plays trumpet in my band (more on this later, it just gets weirder). Sonny Rollins career, fairly or not, is often divided into pre and post "The Bridge". Regardless, it is an important recording for more than musical reasons. For me, like Sonny's playing (and for that matter, the playing of all the other giants whose shoulders we are privileged to stand on), it is a shining example to follow and something of an icon.


"The Bridge" was the first recording Sonny released after taking better than two years off from public performance. According to the album's liners "Sonny stopped appearing in public in order to study, try out ideas, and take the time to think about himself, his music, and the environment in which he played and lived" (George Avakian).

Listening to records before and after, you have to wonder what it was that was bothering him about the space he was in. The are certainly differences before and after, but nothing so striking that you could point to as the GRAND UNIFYING CHANGE. But then, why would you expect a big honking neon sign pointing it out? Musicians who play at this level hear and experience music very differently than the rest of us. What is obvious to them will slip past us unnoticed and unheard. What is so cool about Sonny is that he certainly could have kept going, knowing that this was the case, but chose not to. He instead chose the high road, to follow his conscience and his heart.

I am not Sonny Rollins, not even close, but this rekkid reminded me of a similar period from my own life. It was one of those times where I needed to remind myself that faith was not truly faith unless it was shaken to its core. It is here that you emerge again, or your faith dies, and a piece of you along with it. In either outcome this is what needs to happen to continue to grow. I'm not saying that this is what Sonny was going through, but it is what I was looking at and what this rekkid reminded me off.

In "The Bridge", you hear the quiet mastery of the musicians, and their unadorned confidence. This is not to say that they bragged, but far better, told stories, as only the best do. The conversational interplay between Sonny and Jim Hall is unmatched, except perhaps by Wayne Shorter and Miles and those great quintet rekkids. The rhythm section easily powers the music along(Ben Riley, always a favorite of mine for his work with Monk), and no one seems to have to try very hard. Its all relaxed and easy. Again, this is a different level of playing, a different level of art (unlike some schmucks who grunt and grimace their way through some nonsense to show HOW HARD THEY ARE WORKING thinking it makes up for the fact that they have nothing to say, or worse, that what they are saying is bullshit. Yes, I mean you John Popper) .

I was lucky enough to see Sonny a few years back in Boston. His playing was fluid, effortless, insightful, and mellifluous. He had with him Bob Cranshaw, who also played on "The Bridge". They both exuded quiet confidence, but also a certain humiltiy. There was the sense, as there is on "The Bridge", that their search is far from over. It is about living in the moment with the knowledge that the moment is not a place of abiding but a step forward (wherever that might be).  The big lesson from Sonny in this record is simply the question "Who are you and where are you going?"

The Record Connection, Waterville, Maine

Tom writes:

We decided to learn more about the state of vinyl in the state of Maine, and made a pilgrimage to the city of Waterville where we found The Record Connection.  The store is a used book and record shop, located a few miles off I95, and a good 50 miles or so from where we live, but, as we discovered, well worth the trip.  It does not hurt that there is a fine brew pub at about the midway point where Bethany loves getting her ass kicked in Rummy.

Digging through the stacks, we quickly uncovered 7 nice finds, at least half of which are not, and will not, be released on CD, which is one of the really great things about getting vinyl. There is a whole garden of music out there that would otherwise be inaccessible because some record company nimrod didn't think it would sell. He/she/it should probably talk to Bob, the owner of Record Connection, (in the photo to your left) for some insight into the market and possibly a good plastic surgeon to remove his/her/its head from his/her/its ass. But I digress......

Two rekkids in this recent haul were by pianist/composer Ahmad Jamal, one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated artists alive today(Ahmad is pushing 81 and still on the road).  Those who know him, or at least of him, associate the tune "Poinciana" with him. It is not one of his compositions, but it might as well be, since he is one of these musicians who can own a tune, regardless of the performance practices of other artists (even the composers) . Not to say that he is disrespectful, far from it. He brings the music into himself and breathes a piece of his life back out, like the way plants take in CO2 and give back oxygen (one other artist who is very, very good at this is Richie Havens) .

One rekkid that we got, "Poinciana", illustrates not only this highly original approach, but also Ahmad's equally impressive command of texture and shape. Listening to a performance of Ahmad Jamal is not like listening to a grand soliloquy like Charlie Parker, or like a revival sermon like Monk. It is more like listening to a great-Uncle tell you stories of his childhood, punctuated by belly laughs, sighs, groans, and overflowing with the joy of having just barely missed that homerun and not quite getting the homecoming queen.

Ahmad's phrases flow along, and occasionally burst into blossoms of sound and color, yet never overwhelming or overstating. In no tune is this more clear than in his performance of "Autumn Leaves", from the "Poinciana" album. He so carefully uses texture to create shapes within the structure of the tune, and is very conscious of meaning and context.  Ideas develop and return, as in the best "composed" music (I know a few composers, myself among them, who would give their eye-teeth to write with that kind of acuity, much less improvise).

For me, the blossoms that fly from Ahmad's hands are the same blossoms that we found in the stacks at Record Connection, which in turn is yet another blossom we found on a side street in Waterville.

It's only temporary.

Bethany writes:

February 14, 1997  - I made a pass at Tom.
2 weeks, 3 dates later - we moved in together.
4 years, 6 months later - we were wed.



Instead of having children, we bought a dinette set.  It was a pretty crappy dinette set, made of "solid wood" (aka plywood).  It wobbled and took mean pinches at plumpy hips if you settled back into the chairs too deeply.

"It will do.  It's only temporary", we rationalized as we shoved the cheap furniture into the back of the Subaru.

10 years later and the last of the "Only Temporary" dinette chairs just collapsed (thankfully under Tom's bum and not mine - my ego would have never survived the crush).  We headed out today to buy a replacement set of "Only Temporary" dinette chairs.  As a couple, we will happily spend great chunks of money on organic food, fine wine, and music but we DETEST spending money on furniture and clothing.  Come to our house for meals and music, but bring a blindfold. Or a sharp stick.

2:37 pm and 5 new chairs were being shoved in the back of the Subaru.  We were both equally irritated and equally ready to spend some tit-for-tat money. Tom steered with one knee while punching in the address to a rekkid store in Waterville Maine.  45 minutes later we pulled into The Record Connection. We could not miss the parking lot - the corner of the building was painted with an LP.

Bob, the owner of the store, greeted us when we walked in. Confronted with his relaxed demeanor and calm smile, our shoulders unfurled from their ear-level hover.  He eyeballed us and directed us to the back room.  "You will probably be in there awhile", he chuckled.  He was right.

The back room of The Record Connection is a vinylophiles' dream.   Bin-upon-bin of meticulously categorized and carefully tended LPs, with each album jacket nestled in a thick, protective plastic sleeve.  The store was a unique sensory amalgam of Middle School library hush, the dry-leaf decay of old books and the sharp scent of clean vinyl.



We bought 7 albums (this go-'round):
 
1 - "Clifford Brown & Max Roach"
2 - Ahmad Jamal, "Poinciana"
3 - Ahmad Jamal, "chamber music of the new jazz"
4 - Pat Metheny Group, "American Garage"
5 - Taylor & Lofton, "Low Down Piano"
6 - Bud Powell, "Inner Fires"
7 - Bach Brandenburg Concerti, Yehudi Menuhin

Bull Moose, Brunswick Maine

Bethany writes:

Saturday afternoon and we were in Brunswick Maine, buying supplies for the beehives.  This Spring has been slow and reluctant, the weather largely cool with skies gray and rainy.  The temperature was dropping and the skies were once again clouding as we stepped into Bull Moose.

The store has the feel of a basement head shop with its dim lighting and postered walls.  The light from the sidewalk windows seems to drop away within two steps of the threshold.  Upon entering, the eye is immediately pulled left and down.  The left wall holds the New Release display and features a line of records phalanxed along the baseboard of the wall.  The glossy albums encased in a sheen of taut shrink wrap blink back a dull reflection of the day's fading light.  The display makes two statements:

#1 - this store is hip.
#2 - this store sells rekkids.

In the center of the store is a island of album bins set at waist height with sections partitioned off  for Electronica, Pop, Folk, Metal.  A very small section is labeled Jazz.  I spotted it first and dug in.  Tom hovered behind my left shoulder and, as I flipped through, began the process of vetoing.  "No, we have that, that one too, yup and that one".

The section of jazz vinyl was a bust today.  I sighed with disappointment but no one heard - Tom had already shot off to the Jazz CD section.

I was about to move on to the used DVDs in a quest for more Futurama when I nearly tripped over a bin on the floor.  More rekkids, but these were in the Discount bin. Being a tight-fisted yankee, I promptly squatted down and began to flip.

Portis head/Third and Mingus Ah Um!

I have come to the conclusion that some of the best finds in life can only be discovered while squatting - quarters in a carpet, brown toads in a brook, bees guarding a hive entrance, and primo rekkids.

I. hated. it.

Bethany writes:

The acoustic revolt was slow to start.  Over the last year, when listening to a CD or music files on Itunes,  I became increasingly irritated and acoustically fidgety. It was as if I were listening to music with plugs of Kleenex shoved in my ears.

I. hated. it.

Vaguely, in the far recesses of my 46 year old brain, I recalled recorded music once sounding differently.

One Friday night, after a bottle of  red wine had been slowly ex-sanguinated, I made a request of Tom.
"Honey, I want a turntable".
"Why, you never listen to music. Not really."
"I know, but I want one.  I think if we had one, I might."

The next day, the my wine-bogged brain had forgotten the request, but my sharp-eared husband had not. On my 47th birthday, I untied the red bow on my Audio-Technica turntable.

This blog will map our quest for vinyl.  It will also follow my rediscovery of music. I do not yet understand why the pressed recording pleases and the digitized aggravates, but pretty sure I will figure it out.

Camden Merchants Co-op, Camden,Maine

Tom writes:

The engaging thing about shopping for vinyl is in the exploration. Whether it is finding a rare LP, a new store, or wandering around the town where the store is located, this search and discovery is the best part of getting vinyl, and the most welcome side-effect for me in this age of instant gratification via online merchants, downloads, and whatnot.

Back in the early 1990s,  I was a newly graduated composer slinging coleslaw at a traditional deli in my hometown in New Jersey by day, and studying improvisation and haunting clubs in Manhattan by night. Even with Tower Records both uptown and downtown, my favorite place to check out new rekkids was a place called "Crazy Rhythms' in Montclair, NJ.  I would spend many hours riffling through the bins looking for all the music I had been learning about from my teacher and the downtown jazz scene in NYC(second to Crazy Rhythms was a place in the  Village called "Lunch for Your Ears").  Having studied exclusively classical music, this was a rebirth or sorts, with a whole world opening up in front of me, literally at my fingertips as I flipped through this treasure trove of music looking for my latest fix. Mingus! Bird! Oh shit! Here's a Monk big band record! Gimmie! (this same year, the owner of the store gave me a calender and thanked me for being such a good customer all year...the way I saw it, I owed him)

Today really put me back in that place.  I found myself pulling out recordings that I had neglected previously (Sonny Rollins "The Bridge"), or that I wanted but had gone out of print (World Saxophone Quartet "Dances and Ballads), or that were old pieces of my history (Jethro Tull "Living in the Past").  I realized that I had not considered a lot of these in my shopping excursions on Amazon, and that the novelty of the vinyl had sent me in another, and altogether welcome direction. Just like in 1990, a world opens up in front of me. So you can go home again. How about that.