The Record Store Years 4) Time To Get a 'Real' Job

A memoir of 25 years (1975-2000) spent working in the world of records & music in Seattle, with occasional side trips into writings on Led Zeppelin and other adventures from my musical life.

My first year in Seattle was spent working as a VISTA volunteer, which included a stint running the fourth annual Northwest Regional Folklife Festival. By the late summer of 1975, my one-year VISTA gig was complete and I had pretty much decided that I would not be returning to New York or the east coast. I loved Seattle and it was where I wanted to make my home, and so it was time to get a ‘real’ job.

Above: My bedroom window at the U-District rooming house summer 1975. Poster from my Folklife Fest gig, Zep promo item begged off a record store in Poughkeepsie, NY and carefully transported to Seattle.

Though I was still paying lip service to the idea of going to the UW or some other institution of higher learning to placate my academia-minded father, the higher learning I envisioned for my future was all at The College of Musical Knowledge, and to that end I filled out job applications at ALL of the U-District record stores. I wasn’t thinking of it from the standpoint of launching a career or even getting a “retail” job, it was just the most direct, immediate way available for me to be around music all the time.

When I went into Cellophane Square to apply, the person I spoke to was the store manager Roy. Roy was bearded, had fairly long hair and was obviously a hip guy – he was only a few years older than I but came across as sort of an avuncular authority figure. Someone you could hang out and talk music with, but obviously the boss and a figure to be respected.

When I told Roy I would love to work there, the first thing he did was take me out to the store racks, where he started randomly pulling out LPs and asking me to tell him what I knew about them. I passed this initial test with flying colors – I could, and did, tell him something about every record he pulled out. If you ask me to geek out I will happily oblige to this day, to the effect of, “. . . oh, that’s the Yardbird’s first US album, it’s got Jeff Beck on the cover but Clapton plays on most of it. . . “, “. . . oh, that’s called Derek & The Dominos but it’s really Eric Clapton, and Duane Allman is all over it and it was produced by Tom Dowd who engineered the great Atlantic Aretha albums. . .” , etc.

I think Roy also asked me to name a few members of various bands whose records he pulled out of the racks and again, I didn’t miss a beat – “well, that Mott album has Mick Ralphs on it but he left to form Bad Company and they got a guy called Ariel Bender to replace him, whose real name is Luther Grosvenor and used to be in a band called Spooky Tooth. . . “

I was cocky and I knew my shit – I think Roy quickly realized that in fact I knew more than he did, at least about rock. I was weaker in soul, jazz and country, but not completely ignorant by any means – I’d been listening to the radio since I was 7 years old and had been immersed in folk and bluegrass just a few months prior as director of the Folklife Festival – and I was more than ready to soak up everything I could like a giant sponge.

Roy gave me a blank job application and a written ‘music knowledge test’ (more on that later) which I filled out and left with him, and I walked out of the store feeling pretty good about the encounter. And sure enough, a day or two later I got a call to come back for a more formal interview with the owners, Jim, Pat and Steve.

Jim and Pat were a married couple and Steve (as I later found out) was Jim’s best friend from youth. They had all come to Seattle from the Midwest and started the record store on a shoestring budget in 1972. The setting for my interview was the tiny, claustrophobic office in the ‘loft’ of the 42^nd Street store, accessed by a narrow and primitive staircase in the back room.

I was nervous before the interview but very excited about doing it, and I remember dressing as well as I could at the time with my limited wardrobe, tucking my t-shirt in to my only pair of jeans without holes in the knees. I felt at a bit of a disadvantage going in as I was very young and had no previous experience to speak of (not to mention I had hair down to my elbows) however I was also pretty confident that I could present myself as so expert in my knowledge and so deserving of the job that they would have no choice but to hire me.

It was a three-on-one interview, with Steve asking most of the questions. Steve had long brown hair and seemed the hippest, Jim was young but prematurely gray which gave him an air of slightly paternal, elegant hipness – think young Albert Grossman – and Pat was pretty and blonde, and the most openly friendly of the three. They asked me the usual interview questions about where I came from and how I got here and what my work experience was like. I earnestly described to them how serious I was about music and records and spoke in detail about my voluminous collection of clippings from rock & roll magazines, arranged in folders alphabetically by artist that also included ticket stubs from all the shows I’d seen.

I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure that I let phrases like “dream job” and “would work for nothing” slip out during the interview, even though I tried to be calm and come across as mature and professional. In hindsight I think it must have been pretty obvious to them that I wanted to work there more than just about anything else in the world. It was where I needed to be.

We spoke for about 20 minutes, maybe a half hour, and I left feeling pretty good about it, though a little less so than after my previous encounter with Roy. Thirty-five or so years later, Roy told me that when he discussed the potential hires with Jim, Pat and Steve that week, the owners were uncertain about me and he had to go to bat to talk them into hiring me, which of course they did very shortly after the interview. So thanks, Roy!

NEXT: Before The Record Store, Directing The Folklife Festival

Below: Rock & roll expert, age 17, and vintage Cellophane Square biz card.