Some Of The First Albums I Ever Bought

Writing about "Quadrophenia" the other day caused me to look up it's release date, which Wikipedia lists as October 26, 1973. Earlier today I was trying to think of the very first albums I ever bought when I started hanging around College Records, and I knew "Quadrophenia" was one of them. I'll backtrack just for a minute to say that I bought a handful of albums as a younger kid, let's say from about age 8 to 12 ( a few Beatle records, some Monkees and Three Dog Night), but at that age my main music purchases were 45rpm singles, which were easier to afford with my allowance. Maybe I'll write a blog about my listening habits in the 1960s, but for now, let's return to the Summer of 1973, when I first started going to College, as it were (wink wink nudge nudge).

My friend Dennis and I became pinball wizards the Summer before, in 1972. There's another Who reference for you, but yeah; all we did in the Summer of '72 was play pinball at the Two Guys department store, located two miles away on Balboa Boulevard. We walked or rode bikes there every day, all Summer long, and we were always barefoot, so by the end of the Summer the soles of our feet were black. And we played pinball all day long, every day.

By the Summer of 1973, we had been kicked out of Two Guys, and also the brick tower dormitory at CSUN that was known as Rincon Hall, where we monopolized the "Fireball" machine for days on end. Thus, we ended up at Thrifty Drug Store, located in the center of Northridge at the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street. Thrifty only had one machine, but it was a good one (can't recall the name but it had a yellow motif). At any rate, by that point Dennis and I had been joined by my brother Chris and our friend David B., known by his middle name Louie in those days. We'd play pinball all day at Thrifty, taking breaks to order triple scoop ice cream cones for 15 cents, five cents a scoop. My favorite flavors were strawberry cheesecake and mint n' chip.

One day we came in to see that the pinball machine was taken. The guy playing it was dressed better than we were, wearing slacks and a button up shirt. He had long hair like we did, but he was taller. That was because he was wearing platform boots, which I'm not sure I'd seen before. Maybe on the feet of someone like David Bowie, but I don't think I saw a lot of rock magazines at that point. Anyhow, the effect of his clothing and especially his platforms made him look cooler and more sophisticated than us. He seemed friendly enough, however, and as we got to talking, he informed us that he worked just across the parking lot at the local record store, College Records (so named because of it's proximity to CSUN). He was fourteen at the time but seemed a year or two older, and he went on to say that he'd been working at College for almost a year. He introduced himself as Pat, and invited us to come over and check out the store. Prior to that, I'd been in the record department of stores like Zody's and Sears. But so far as I can recall, I'd never been inside a store devoted entirely to records, an actual record store. Maybe Wallach's Music City with my Dad when I was four or five, but that sorta doesn't count.

On the inside, College Records was true to it's name. The place was filled with records, there were LPs everywhere you looked - in racks covering the walls and in bins that ran down the center of the small store, which, if I had to guess, was no more than 300 square feet. But there were a million records in there, most of which were by bands I'd never heard of. Mandrill? Can? Camel? Greenslade?

Camel we know about from our last blog, and I own one Can album ("Tago Mago") and a couple by Greenslade (whose awful singer prevents me from liking them).

But getting back to the first albums I ever bought at College Records, I am thinking that one of the very first was "Sweet Freedom" by Uriah Heep. Wiki has the release date for that album as September 1973, which was not long after we met Pat. Heep were one of his favorite bands, so my purchase might have been at his suggestion. I remember hearing the song "Stealin' ", which featured the vocals of David Byron, an incredible singer who died young, and I remember really liking it. I have a distinct memory of being in the bike rack at Holmes Jr. High, getting ready to ride home, and thinking "when I get paid from my paper route I'm gonna by that Uriah Heep album". The price was $2.99, which was reserved for records that were new and "on special". And in fact it may have been the very first album I ever bought at College.

Then "Quadrophenia" came out a month later, and I know I bought that right away. It was a double album with a heavy cover made of thick cardboard. There was a booklet inside with lyrics and pictures. Unlike Uriah Heep, I'd heard of The Who from the '60s, though when I was a kid I got them mixed up with The Guess Who (from Canada). I thought they were one and the same band, and that "The Who" was just a shortened nickname for The Guess Who, like when you call The Rolling Stones "The Stones".

"Quadrophenia" was a game changer for me, because it introduced me to orchestrated rock music, and the concept of A Concept Album.

Prior to that, however, I may have purchased "Mott" by Mott the Hoople, which was a big favorite among all the clerks at College. Wiki says it was released on July 20, 1973, which was right around the time we met Pat at Thrifty. So I may have bought it even before I bought the Uriah Heep. They had a good stereo system at College, with - I think - JBL speakers, and the clerks played music all day long, so if they were playing something I liked, which was almost always the case, I knew I had to have it and made a mental calculation of how far my paper route money would go.

The other thing was that two clerks in particular made suggestions, as to what I should buy. One of them was Pat, and the other was the guy who worked the morning shift, Jon S.

Between the two of them, I probably learned about half the bands I love today. One of the first bands Pat suggested I listen to was Genesis, who had just released "Selling England By The Pound" in August 1973 (Wiki). I had never heard music like that in my life (who had?), and I bought a copy as soon as I could. I made about 30 bucks a month on my paper route, so I could afford up to ten albums at a time (maybe 6 or 7 if you deduct pinball and ice cream cones).

But yeah, "Selling England By The Pound" was one of the very first albums I ever bought at College Records, and it completely changed my idea of what rock music could be.  /////

At any rate, I'm just trying to get my writing chops back, so......sorry if the ebb and flow sucks, or if the syntax is not up to speed. I'm just sifting through some early music memories, when the discovery of a new album by a newly discovered band meant everything to a thirteen year old kid. In those days, for me, I'd learn about a band's latest album from the guys at College, then I'd go back and buy all their previous albums.

But I also had a few ideas of my own, bands that I liked before I "went to College". Not many, but a few, and they were very powerful in my musical upbringing. We'll get to those soon.

That's all for tonight.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)