Page 30 - the NOISE February 2016

eaStSide recordS
Tony BallZ is on a brief sabbatical while he makes
a long-overdue attempt to get his personal life together. In the interim please enjoy some blasts from the past, including this hopelessly outdated, previously unpublished piece from 2010.
Technology marches on.
Slowly, ploddingly, without conscience.
The little market around the corner from your parents’ house is long gone. The nice old man who sold you cigarettes when you were in high school kicked the bucket years ago. His kids have better things to do than run a lousy store and now it’s a Circle K where you can’t buy a goddamned lighter without two forms of ID and a note from your mom.
When I first came to Tempe in the spring of 1989, Eastside Records was there. I was visiting my high school sweetheart and arrived a bit ill-prepared. Spring in Chicago is an uneasy mix of face chafing wind and miserable pounding rain, and the thought of packing shorts or sandals never crossed my mind. Spring in the Valley means 95°, and I spent the majority of that week pouring sweat.
I asked around about shows and was informed that most bands played in downtown Phoenix, a half hour drive from Tempe. I inquired about the bus and people looked at me funny.
“Bus?”
It was unbelievable. A scant few days ago I was in a major
metropolis with buses and trains that ran all night, all over the place. Rarely did it take more than 60 minutes to get home, no matter where I was or how late the hour. And you mean to tell me there’s loud rock and roll 30 minutes away and I can’t get there because public transportation doesn’t exist in this burg?
I was flabbergasted. It made me rethink my entire concept of living in a city. The realization hit me that people in Arizona drove everywhere, just like Los Angeles. How in the hell did they go out and get drunk? It was a real eye-opener.
On my last day, I cracked. There was a whole afternoon to kill and I had to do something cool. I had gotten the address of Eastside Records and decided to check it out.
I walked in the door. Behind the counter was an older, greyer, fatter, hairier, greasier, snider version of myself. He could have been the lazy pothead slob older brother I never had, the one with the centerfolds taped to his bedroom wall and the bitchin’ record collection that I would inherit when he went to jail or OD’ed or got married.
We nodded at each other and I dove into the stacks. I ran across at least a dozen LPs I had never seen before, not just West Coast stuff either. I was impressed. The place definitely wasn’t trendy, it was for serious geeks. Nothing priced too outrageously either. A hole in the wall, like a record store should be.
The guy’s name was Clayton, and he was Eastside’s owner. He turned out to be less snide than the jerkoffs I dealt with on a weekly basis back home. He was blasting a promo of Faith
ththee
320 • february 2016 •• NOIISEaarrtsts&nneewss •• tthenoiise..us
Story by Sarah gianelli
No More’s The Real Thing, which hadn’t been released yet, and it was rocking my world. I offered to buy it off him twice, but he wouldn’t budge.
I purchased the yellow Bad Brains cassette on ROIR. As I was paying, the last Faith No More song came roaring out, and it was “War Pigs.” I let out a whoop and stayed in the store till it was over, air-guitaring the riffs while Clayton laughed. I went home to Chicago feeling like I’d accomplished something.
One day a few months later I was at work delivering pizzas. I was just about to leave with a fresh pie when a car pulled into the parking lot we shared with the blues joint next door. Two guys got out. I stared as they went into the bar. One of them looked incredibly familiar. I knew I had a conversation with him somewhere. I made my delivery and came back. I was sitting at the register staring into space when it hit me. I walked into the bar and stood in front of their table.
“You own a record store in Tempe, Arizona. We talked about Faith No More.”
It was indeed Clayton, and he was as shocked as I.
He and his companion were on vacation and wanted to go to a blues club. Out of the dozens to choose from in the sprawling Gotham that is Chicago, they had randomly picked the one located directly next door to where I worked. It was a weird coincidence.
At the end of the following summer, I moved to Tempe. After getting situated, I went straight to Eastside. Sure enough, Clayton was behind the counter. I walked up to him.
“Hey. Remember me?”
He looked at my face, then smiled.
“Yeah. Of course I do. Chicago, right?”
I only lived in Tempe a year, but what a year. I found the
shows: Social Distortion, Jane’s Addiction (twice), Neil Young, The Grateful Dead (twice), Dinosaur Jr., Santana (twice), Mojo Nixon, Soul Asylum, and the Dead Milkmen. I discovered a fantastic Tempe dive called the Sun Club, where I saw the Meat Puppets, fIREHOSE, Lungfish, L7 and Tad all play on a three-foot high stage (not at the same time).
I joined a punk band. We recorded a 6-song demo and opened for the Butthole Surfers, Monsula, Big Drill Car, Chemical People and ALL. We lived spitting distance from the Sun Club and played there a bunch before it got torn down. We found kindred local weirdoes Saliva Tree, Disturbed Businessmen and G-Whiz. We hung out with Greg Sage from The Wipers. I met people who are still good friends 25 years later. I was homeless twice. I ate mushrooms and sat on A Mountain (Tempe Butte). I collided with several amazing women, one of which stuck around for a while. I found priceless treasures in the racks of Eastside and Stinkweeds for dirt cheap. I perspired a lot.
Tempe used to have a different vibe than Phoenix. The trendy downtowners never came there, and why should they? There was none of that P.F. Chang’s bullsh*t on the corner of Mill & University, just a great big field. On Friday and Saturday nights, the city would close off Mill for a few blocks north of University and have a big party with street musicians