Page 31 - the NOISE February 2016

and artists and guys on unicycles and stuff. I worked the Coffee Plantation’s outside patio till 2AM and observed all the craziness. It was a blast and it was ours.
Then the New Times wrote about it and it wasn’t a local scene anymore. The skinheads began showing up and screwing with people (I pictured them all getting out of the same car, like clowns) and the whole thing went to hell. A few weeks after my girlfriend and I moved away there was a riot in the Long Wong’s/Jack in the Box parking lot and the party got shut down for good.
I lived in California for a year then relocated to Flagstaff. By the time I revisited Tempe, the whole town had changed. No more block party. Mill Avenue’s sidewalks had been torn up and redone to look like downtown Phoenix. They had cops stationed on the median taking down license plates and issuing tickets for cruising. Long Wong’s and the Sun Club were history. Construction had begun on the monstrosity at Mill & University. Tempe became part of the maw of the Greater Phoenix Area.
To my relief, Eastside remained unchanged. Besides the Sun Club, it was the only location I ever gave a damn about down there. Even after Clayton sold it to his cohorts and the place expanded then shrunk, it remained a hole in the wall. Like a record store should be.
One of the hallmarks of a great independent record store is the high aura of snark among its employees. Not just the my-job-is-cooler-than-yours snark (that’s a given), but the ability and desire to broadcast your personal opinions to all within listening range regardless of social niceties. And to deliver this in one’s best I-am-right-and-you- know-it tone and not care if people think you’re an assh*le. Of course any loudmouth at the corner pub can do the same, but the proprietors can always throw you out. When that loudmouth is behind the bar it’s a different story.
It takes a special kind to openly insult your own customers’ taste in art and commerce and keep them coming back for more. Okay, it is a lot of fun and you wouldn’t believe the garbage some people buy (and yes, we are laughing at you as soon as you walk out the door). The “I don’t give a sh*t” level is tremendous. You’re running a business, for God’s sake. Picture a manager at McDonald’s saying,“Youreallywantafishsandwich,huh?
by tony ballz
Yech, I wouldn’t feed that crap to my dog.” Eastside had snark to spare.
Bob was ringing me up one time and he
picked up the Melvins 7” in my stack and said, “Ugh, put it back. You don’t want this.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, do you actually like the Melvins?” “Yeah.”
“Well, never mind then. Enjoy.”
Eastside Records shut its doors in 2010, a victim of the Internet age and steadily declining sales. It had become a labor of love for its current owners to keep open. They needed to get on with their lives. And so did we.
During my (unbeknownst) last visit, I was looking at a post-”Wooly Bully” LP by Sam the Sham I had never seen. I asked Mike,
“Hey, what does this sound like?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I
realized how stupid they were. Mike snorted derisively and said, “What does it sound like? It’s f*ckin’ Sam The Sham, whaddya think it sounds like? It sounds like Hawkwind.”
This man is one of the store’s owners. I’m going to miss that place.
Postscript, January 2016: After a sojourn to California for a few years, Mike Pawlicki brought The Ghost of Eastside Records back to Tempe. They currently exist as a collective with two other vinyl dealers on Mill and Priest, just a couple doors down from the Yucca Tap Room and about one mile south of their previous location.
Last month, I entered Eastside Records for the first time in over five years. Sure enough, Mike was behind the counter. I walked up to him.
“Hey. Remember me?”
He looked at my face, then smiled.
“Yeah. Of course I do. Flagstaff, right?” Son of a b*tch.
While I was in there, Mike related a story
to his friend that was so horrifying, I had my doubts as to its authenticity. Midway through the grisly tale, he said to his buddy,
“This is just between you and me, now.”
From the depths of the M section, I spoke
up, “Yep, you guys and the rest of the store!” Welcome back, Eastside.
| tony ballz has an impressive selection of lPs. music@thenoise.us
thankS, david
by tony ballz
T
Stardust and then killing him off. Thanks for being openly bisexual before it was socially acceptable. Thanks for saving Mott the Hoople’s career. Iggy’s too. Thanks for doing all those mountains of cocaine in the 1970s and cranking out those amazing records. Thanks for appearing on the Dick Cavett Show looking like a reanimated corpse.
Thanks for The Man Who Fell To Earth. Thanks for releasing an LP as incredible as Station To Station and later claiming you had no memory of creating it. Thanks for attempting to stay relevant even if it meant working with Trent Reznor. Thanks for that fantastic Saturday Night Live appearance in 1979. Thanks for being the best Pontius Pilate ever. Thanks for Labyrinth. Thanks for that bizarre Christmas duet with Bing Crosby. Thanks for the “Ashes to Ashes” video, which freaked me out as at age 11 and still does today.
Thanks for collaborating with musicians as interesting as Mick Ronson and Tony Visconti, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, Carlos Alomar, George Murray, Dennis Davis, Earl Slick, David Sanborn, Luther Vandross, Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Klaus Nomi, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Queen, Nile Rodgers, Pat Metheny, TV On The Radio and the Arcade Fire.
And thanks for “Suffragette City,” “Width of a Circle,” “Changes,” “Hang on to Yourself,” “Panic In Detroit,” “Drive In Saturday,” “Sound and Vision,” “It’s No Game,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Look Back In Anger,” “Move On,” “Heroes,” “Cat People,” “Ashes To Ashes,” “Young Americans,” “Golden Years,” “DJ,” “V-2 Schneider,” “TVC 15,” “Queen
Bitch,”“The Man Who Sold The World,”“Space Oddity,”“Fascination,” “1984,” “Diamond Dogs,” “Cracked Actor,” “Boys Keep Swinging,” “Be My Wife,” “All The Young Dudes,” “Fame,” “Andy Warhol,” “God
Knows I’m Good,”“Black Country Rock,”“Fashion,”“Scary Monsters,” “Velvet Goldmine,” “Rebel Rebel,” “John I’m Only Dancing,” “Oh You Pretty Things,” “Five Years,” “Memory of a Free Festival,” “Rock and
Roll Suicide,” “Up The Hill Backwards,” “Starman” and “Jean Genie.” Someone else can thank you for all the music you made after 1982. We loved you, David. You always looked cool, even in a dress.
Goodbye.
| tony ballz hates saying goodbyes, especially to david bowie. music@thenoise.us
the the
thtehneoniosies.eu.sus• • NONIOSIESEartasr&tsn&ewnesws• • ffebruary22001166 • 313
hanks, David.
Thanks for all the great music. Thanks for creating Ziggy