As an independent musician it’s true to say I have sold a lot of records over the years, unfortunately most of those have been made by other people. As Tallbird Records approaches its 11th birthday it’s just dawned on me that I have been here for well over half of those eleven years myself, fulfilling the role of the drowsy one behind the till, the token teetotal stoner on staff. Sometimes when it’s quiet in the shop (like most early Wednesday mornings for example) there’s nothing that helps to wake me up more than when a customer blows into the shop like some welcome tumbleweed, to set me a challenge and help me to develop my detective skills.
One of the more straightforward cases that was put to me (or so I thought) came on my very first day alone in the shop. I was asked for a copy of “Doctor Pepper’s Lonely Club”. I suggested the obvious answer and brandished a copy of that most famous Beatles album with the iconic sleeve but this customer was quite insistent that I was wrong, that that was definitely NOT what they were after. I was the new guy after all, and maybe this was a genuine release that I hadn’t heard of before. First detective assignment fail - I never did find a copy of that record.
An even more taxing puzzle was being asked for “Rule the World” by “That Irish Boyband with the one who died, you know - Westlife”. I couldn’t recall anyone ever actually dying in Westlife but after a couple of weeks of back and forth (yes, sometimes customer transactions do drag on this long) I finally figured out what the customer was after - “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay (obviously). I was only able to deduce this when the customer eventually let slip that the song’ s singer used to rule the world rather than currently ruling it (like everyone allegedly wants to in that Tears For Fears song). I honestly felt like Columbo when he cracks a case at the end of an episode.
These (sweet) little mysteries can be fun, and I know I myself have been guilty of setting a few of my own as my mum can confirm, when I sent her into an Our Price back in the late 90s with an instruction to ask for that song that goes “Woo-hoo!” resulting in her having to sing the opening bars to Blur’s “Song 2” to the bemused shop assistant.
It’s always rewarding to solve a music related enquiry when the details are sketchy or even inaccurate, and I really enjoy my role as a sonic sleuth, a Monophonic Morse, a Vinyl Vera if you will. Seeing a customer’s face light up when you find exactly what it is they have been hunting for is always brings a little joy into the working day. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet I think I have come a long way from my first day working in a record shop in Newcastle when a quite inebriated Geordie chap demanded very loudly for
“Boz Scaggs!” and I, hearing “Buzzcocks!” instead, tried to sell him a copy of A Different Kind Of Tension, then Love Bites, then Singles Going Steady, to his increasing annoyance.
Editor’s note – We Are Detective was a Top 10 hit for the Thompson Twins back in 1983. The Thompson Twins were founded in Chesterfield and two of their founder members have become friends of the shop – Pete Dodd, who still lives in town and Tom Bailey lead singer, co-writer of this song and mystery guest performer on keyboards with Pete and Chesterfield’s finest Ichabod Wolf on a recent release under the name of Peter & The Wolf – check it out here
That's all from me for now.
Simon
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