Einstein's Box of Tapes
Just before Theory Shop/Einstein's Kitsch Inn closed I wandered in to chat with Tammy Faircloth about what she was planning to do.
"Get a job, I guess," was her depressing answer.
This woman was responsible for introducing me to the counter-culture. I bought my first Mudhoney and Pixies cassettes from her. The first time I ever heard a Primus song was at Einstein A-Go-Go, her club at the beach. The best live shows I ever saw in my high school and college years, I saw there. Nirvana, Mercury Rev, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk. The best local shows - Lysergic Garage Party, Dampading, Gizzard. It was a place that I thought would last forever. Both the record stores and the club were the lone bastion of cool things happening in Jacksonville.
My assumption was that this cutting-edge placement in Jacksonville culture would eventually evolve into Einstein's being Jacksonville's CBGBs or Criminal Records. I figured once all of us grew up and got money, we'd send the next generations there to rebel against us. The Faircloths would be living fat and happy in retirement with a slough of punks to run their registers and new kids buying cool new shit like hair dye and CDs and band Ts would keep it alive forever and ever amen.
That didn't happen.
I went to see Tammy and she was sorting through the last couple of things that had not sold yet. There was a crate of cassette tapes in there with a sign that read: 10 Tapes for $1.
Allow me to digress for a moment.
My wife and I recently purchased a new car. We spent a long time shopping for just the right Volvo wagon. It sounds really soccer mom, but we have no interest in an SUV and we have two kids that play music, do gymnastics, play basketball, and Tae Kwon Do, so we needed a big vehicle and Volvo's get the best gas mileage. We ended up getting a 2001 from CarMax (of all places, the Blockbuster video of car buying) and they had it brought down from North Carolina. Why the hell am I telling you all of this? Well it just so happens that, much to our surprise because it had not even dawned on us that it would be a possibility, the steroeo did not have a CD player. Our last car was a 1995 Volvo and it had the factory CD player in it still. This 2001 Volvo had AM/FM Stereo Cassette.
I didn't even own any tapes anymore. I take that back. I have one Robert Johnson tape, a mix tape of bootlegged Bob Marley that one of my wife's hippie friends gave her, and an old, stretched-out Nirvana Nevermind tape (which I actually purchased at Theory Shop back in 1993). But even after only owning the car for a week, I was totally sick of these tapes. In fact, the Robert Johnson tape was the only one I played and those eight songs got really tired.
Anyway - Tammy had a crate of tapes and I started looking through them, since I suddenly have a use for cassette tapes. There weren't many I'd heard of. This crate had obviously been searched through by hundreds of people after my last visit to it (for that Nirvana tape in 1993) and then probably sat dormant for ten years after people stopped buying tapes, and then was searched through again a few dozen times during this whole "Going out of Business" nightmare, so all the real gems had been seen by thousands of eyeballs already. As I plucked through the tapes, discovering various local recordings by bands that have long since disappeared, I realized there was a wealth of undiscovered music in this crate representing several time capsules. Generations of bands in Jacksonville's music scene that would never be heard. Never be documented. Never be remembered.
"I'll give you both of those crates of tapes for $5," Tammy said like a vendor at the Flea Market. What had this Bush economy reduced her to?
"Sold."
My wife was going to kill me for bringing home two dusty crates of music that she has no desire to hear, but to me, it was important. Someone has to listen to these and report on them. For the good of all of mankind! This was Jacksonville's origins, Einstein's A-Go-Go and Theory Shop. This was once the future of Jacksonville, and now, this old crate, this is Jacksonville's history. As much as the great fire, as much as the movie-making years, as much as Isaiah Hart giving Hemming Plaza to the city, this is Jacksonville's creative core dating back fifteen years. The invisible, underground Jacksonville that will remain invisible if someone doesn't do something about it. So my wife would just have to understand.
Some of the tapes I look forward to reviewing in the next couple of posts:
Dampading - Perhaps the most avant-garde rock band of the late nineties. They were far ahead of their time then and since Dave This died, there will never be a reunion.
Galt - This is Isaiah Brock from The Cadets in a band in the late 90s that is named after an Ayn Rand character. Yikes!
Bowie, Sight & Sound III - This is the Thin White Bowie album. It's as "experimental" as the man himself.
Hank Marlee - I wonder if I should have just left some of these tapes with Tammy. Not EVERYTHING has to be remembered.
Mudoney, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - It was inside of a Piece of Cake tape cover. There was also a Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew tape with no cover.
Neil Young, Harvest - I can't believe no one took this.
Cowboy Junkies, Black Eyed Man - This follows under the Scholastic Rock category. There are some albums you have to listen to, no matter how much you hate them, because they are referenced so much. For some people, Lou Reed is scholastic, for others, Peter Gabriel, but you still have to know these musicians to have a well-rounded musical perspective. Otherwise you become one of those dudes that just listens to radio rock all of the time and thinks he "is really into music."
The Pogues, Yeah Yeah Yeah - I would normally not call The Pogues scholastic, but this album definitely is.
Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde - Are you serious? There should not be an un-owned copy of this album in the world. This is how low tape cassettes have sunk.
REM, Automatic for the People and Green - Get ready, 1994, because I'll be flashing back.
MC Hammer, Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em - Oh snap! What would my counter-culture experience have been if not juxtaposed by MC Hammer. I woish I could tell what kid turned this tape in and what tape they left with in return. Hell that might have been me with Pixies Doolittle.
MK Ultra, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - John Vanderslice's first band? As a Jacksonville Native I wonder if he gave thoes to them personally while visiting family.
Human Radio (1990) - Probably their first terrifying forray into the major label market.
Screaming Trees (1990) - I think Lanagan gave this tape to Tammy personally back inthe Einstein's days. I wish he had signed it.
Steel Toad, Lick the Toad - There is much to discover in this crate.
Plus more than 135 more tapes. I will be exploring as many of them as I can stand in this blog for the next several years, so check back often and feel free to comment. I take criticism well.
