Original subtitles

(heavy piano)

(melancholy rock music)

* You've been hiding

* for so long.

* With your windows blacked out

* and your curtains tightly drawn *

* With a sad, endless song

(melancholy rock music)

("If Credit's What Matters I'll Take Credit" by Hot Snakes)

* Wall, up against

* Got no pull

* No pull with you

* Mine, mine alone

* Yeah, I earned it

* Gonna do it right

* Time, time for posture

* Time for placement

* Gonna spread it around

* I know what matters

* Yeah, I'll take it

* Right now

* Wall, up against it

* Got no pull

* No pull with you

* Mine, mine alone

* Yeah, I earned it

* Gonna spread it around

* Time, time for posture

* Time for placement

* Gonna do it right

* I know what matters

* Yeah, I'll take it

* Right now, right now, right now, right now

* right now, right now, right now, right now

* right now, right now

- The closer you sit to the camera--

- [Voiceover] The first album that I ever owned

was or is and will always be

Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band by The Beatles.

- It was Kiss Destroyer, I do believe.

- Revolver by The Beatles.

- Johnny Cash, A Boy Named Sue.

- The first one that was given to me

is The Jackson Five ABC record.

That was actually the first concert I went to too.

- Donald, Disco Duck.

- I'm gonna say it was,

I'm sure it was The Beatles, Help!

- Powerslave by Iron Maiden.

- Walt Disney's A Haunted House.

- The first records I bought

were, like, probably stuff like The Pretty Things

or something like that.

I still love those guys.

What the Rolling Stones wanted to sound like.

- The first record I ever bought

I was five years old

and it's Kiss Alive!.

- [Man] My grandmother bought me

the Powerage ACDC album

when it had just come out

and I played the shit out of that thing.

- The Untitled fourth Led Zeppelin record.

With, like, Rock and Roll, Black Dog,

When the Levi Breaks.

And I just thought that that was so insanely heavy.

I didn't know what I was getting into at the time.

- Led Zeppelin II on vinyl

with the gape fold.

- We're An American Band,

the Grand Funk record.

It was insane 'cause it was this

gold, gape fold thing.

You open it up and all these hippies

are naked with American flags everywhere.

- The first record I bought was

a Village People record. (laughs)

And the first record I owned is by the Sugarhill Gang.

* No basis is reality

- [Man] The first record I bought was

Donovan Sunshine Superman, a seven inch,

and my mom was shopping for art stuff

and I had heard that song a lot on the radio.

- When I was 13 after years of my badgering them

and threatening to buy records

and play them on the living room stereo

they finally got me my own.

I think they had morbid fears

of what was going to happen

when they open the Pandora's Box

and they all came true within,

I don't know, an hour or so.

There was a Creedence Clearwater Revival album

called Pendulum that had just come out

and then Steppenwolf, The Second.

We had to start somewhere.

(rock music)

- [Mike] The first second I bought

was 45 by the Canadian band

Guess Who Called, American Woman.

I didn't really know what it was about.

It was, when it came out

I wasn't a teenager yet.

I was still a grade school guy.

I'd play it over and over and over.

I don't know why that song got me.

Something about the lick.

(rock music)

- [Keith My friend found a 50 dollar bill

in the bottom of the fruit jar

or the fruit bowl on the counter.

I guess his dad's mentality would be,

"My kids don't eat fruit.

"I'll just hide the 50 dollar bill

"here in the bottom of all the fruit

"and it'll be safe."

So, we ended up talking my grandmother into

driving us to the (mumbling) mall.

My friend Chuck Underwood bought two copies.

One for himself and one for me.

And my dad loved this record

because my dad would smoke pot at midnight

and listen to it in the headphones.

- [Man] I was a Kiss kid.

I, that's how I learned to play drums, listening to Kiss.

- A friend of mine turned me on to ACDC

and I knew it drove my mom crazy

because they were (mumbling) hippies

and so they listened to cool music,

Zeppelin and stuff like that,

but ACDC was too much for them.

So, it had definitely drew the line in the sand

as far as that's your music, this is my music.

- It was Jackson Five mania.

They had their own cartoon.

It was my favorite cartoon.

I played the record to death.

It's pretty whipped but I still break it out

every now and again.

- Two Minutes to Midnight was the first song

that, my mom was really cool growing up,

but that song like scared the shit out of her.

Like, she, that was the first song she was like,

"You do not listen to that record.

"You do not listen to that song.

"It's satanic."

And of course, I was hooked from there.

* Now it's signed

* Text classified

* Nations are now corporate colonies

* Robber barons

* In high castles

* Have the nerve to call this trade

* DDT

* Gill net kills

* Fought so hard to stop it all for years

* Sweatshop kids in Nike Town

* Globalize means downsize

* Your rights to theirs

* Tweet tweet tweet tweedle de-dah

* Tweet tweet tweet tweedle de-dah

* A hah hah hah

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* We are being farmed

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* Every time we buy

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* We are the serfs

* New feudalism

* Remember the name

* Forced loans from the world bank

* Soon your country's sank

* No food or medicine

* Just factories, mines, and dams

* Peasant revolts arise

* Little pesky little fires

* We swat 'em down

* Pull off their legs

* One by one

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* We are being farmed

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* Every time we buy

* NAFTA GATT-cha

* We are the serfs

* New feudalism

* Remember the name

* New feudalism

- Okay, everybody take three steps back right now

'cause people are getting squished up here.

Even in the back, one, two, three.

- As a kid we ("Comm to Space")

listened to AM radio. ("Comm to Space")

You get in the car, ("Comm to Space")

you turn the radio on, ("Comm to Space")

you had either, ("Comm to Space")

here in Los Angeles, ("Comm to Space")

you either had KHJ, which was the softer,

nicer sounds or you would have KRLA

which was a little bit grungier,

a little bit dirtier, a little bit more soulful.

It was kinda like The Beatles at KHJ

and the Rolling Stones at KRLA

and between the two every now and then

one of them would play Summertime Blues

by Blue Cheer.

That was a pretty rocking tune.

That was probably a precursor

to heavy metal and grunge

and punk rock and whatever you wanna call it.

Granted they had hair to the floor

but what does hair have to do with it?

("Wasted Prayers" by Death Eyes)

- [Bryan] As I a kid I can definitely like,

it sort of like I had this little yellow,

like a tote thing that you put 45s on

when there was no sleeves, you'd just stack 'em,

and it was probably something my mother had given me.

Like, here's the records that I have

and the record that I couldn't stop playing

over and over again, I have no idea why,

'cause I don't really love the songs today,

would be Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John

and Burning Love by Elvis.

And I played, it was just play it over, just play it over.

It would just, it just, the needle just kept coming

off and going to the begin.

I'd play it 50 times in a row.

("Black Jet Radio by Black Jet Radio")

- It's a single by the Honeybus

called I Can't Let Maggie Go

and I think why this is even more special to me

is that, yeah, it did come out in America

but it's not an American get

and if you ask most British people

they know it more as a bread commercial

'cause that's what it sorta when on to do

but it was a really big English hit

and it's very string driven

and it's kinda cool because Pete Dello,

who wrote the songs, had this brilliant idea

about doing strings before the whole yellow thing

and he quit the band shortly after this was a hit

and the band continued and made really good records

but he was sort of this genius

that kinda quit early.

- The Beatles with the B-siders age

there was For You Blue.

But it was kind of a weird song.

I think it was George Harrison song

and I liked it a lot.

I remember taking it to show and tell

and nobody in the class or the teacher liked it.

- Well, it's probably still my favorite rock and roll song

is You're Gonna Miss Me by

The 13th Floor Elevators

which I bought the single when it came out

and it's on this record also.

A great record.

- On Top of Spaghetti.

That was one that I used to listen

to this song all the time.

* On top of spaghetti

* On top of spaghetti The song itself wasn't like,

* All covered with cheese I didn't have an

* All covered with cheese emotional response to the

* I lost my poor meatball music but there's this

* I lost my poor meatball just him talking about

* When somebody sneezed a meatball I thought was

* When somebody sneezed so funny and there's a part

* Covered in cheese later on in this song

* All covered

(mixed up "On Top of Spaghetti")

When he gets everyone to sing along with him

* A bush

* A bush

* Under a bush

Okay, so you...

* In the garden He gets everyone to--

* Under a bush

* And under a bush And he has this one line

* And then my poor meatball

* And then my poor meatball And then my poor meatball.

I just thought that was

* And under a bus the funniest thing.

* And under a bus I would just replay that

over and over again.

Just, I mean, I guess years later

it's not quite as funny

but with the right drugs,

I'm sure it would be pretty funny still.

- When everybody was out of the house,

when I had the place to myself,

it was quiet, I would, like,

take out my parent's classical music records

and play them.

They never played them, at all.

I don't know why they even had them around

because they never listened to them.

("Black Jet Radio" by Black Jet Radio)

- [Lucy] I was actually really, really obsessed

with the whole anything, like,

mopey in minor chords,

such as, like, The Left Banke.

Ah, look at that picture sleeve.

I loved Walk Away Renee

and Pretty Ballerina.

Those are some of my favorite things

but anything along those lines

like The Zombies, anything that was, like,

mopey and kind of twee.

I was, that was where I was at

when I was a kid.

- My family would to go garage sales

and stuff like that

and I just wanted monsters, you what I mean?

But if there was also records

I'd look through records.

I'd get sort of, find all of these monster-y

kind of records,,

and this is in the 60's, early 70's.

So, stuff that I just blindly,

not because I was hip or anything,

but just blindly bought because of the monster factor,

you know what I mean?

I'm gonna go with Boston, Don't Look Back

was the song I remember.

Don't Look Back.

- Mr. Roboto, I guess this is called Mr. Roboto.

I remember that and thinking,

"God, music's kinda cool, like, that's weird."

Probably because the robot connection.

I think I was maybe five.

- Okay, before I really got ("The Red Bedroom")

into rock and roll ("The Red Bedroom")

I'd listen to Dr. Demento ("The Red Bedroom")

on the station called ("The Red Bedroom")

94.7KNT on Sundays ("The Red Bedroom")

and I actually have the single here

that I was really, really into.

It was a single by a band called Barnes and Barnes

and it was this single called Fishheads

backed with High School Gym

And this single for those of you

that know about this record

Billy Mumy from Lost in Space

is one of the main vocalists.

Him and his brother or his friend Artie Barnes

put this together back in '78

and I think it's an asinine record.

So, this is really, really rare.

- I was at this show sitting in between bands

that my friend Scott put on

and it was actually Articles of Faith, Wait.

The song Wait.

I was like, "What is this?"

Then suddenly it just kinda has that leading in part,

that intro, and then I was like, "Oh wow,"

and then it just broke into the fast part.

I was like, "Oh my god, this is the greatest song,

"like, I've ever heard."

- Probably Shock Me, Kiss,

because I had Kiss Alive! II on cassette, double cassette.

- But I remember Shock Me being one,

and Rocket Ride, those two songs

when I was a kid,

like, little, little kid,

like, Rocket Ride was my favorite fucking song.

Like, super, to the most,

like anything else just didn't matter.

It was like, "Rocket Ride! Play Rocket Ride!"

Like I'd tell my brother, like,

"Play Rocket Ride! Play Rocket Ride!"

Hence why I wanted to be Ace. (laughs)

("The Red Bedroom" by No Knife)

- [Greg] That was kinda, like, the first Rock

that I got into, it was Kiss.

And first concert that I saw was Kiss on the Dynasty tour.

My mom took me. (laughs)

- There, I got Kiss. (laughs)

And this Rush Element I think was

the first one I got super inspired by

and so that kind of shifted my focus from,

like, so I ended up on bass from drums,

and then ended up, like, really getting

into musicians who are pushing it in some way or another.

- It was like Van Halen.

It was Black Sabbath, Fairies Wear Boots,

and then I heard Slayer, Hell Awaits,

and I remember this guy getting me stoned

and being all, "Slayer tells fucking demon stories, man."

- Records were such a huge thing.

But so is those gigs, those club gigs,

and they were connected.

Some of them like them England bands

we never saw, we only knew 'em by records

because they never toured over there.

Some of the bands in Hollywood

like never heard a record, only saw them do gigs.

It was trippy that the punk thing

had all this thing, all these dimensions.

- No one song changed my life

but right about the time I was hearing that at parties

and things I remember almost passing out.

Like, teetering on the edge at like two in the morning,

three in the morning.

Everyone's leaving the party

and another one of my buddies

who's sister was going to school

up in L.A., it was at his house

and they put this record on.

And I don't know if you've heard this one

but this is, this is kind of mind blowing for me

being just a kid from Chula Vista

and having access to the radio

and not much else.

So, those were definitely not the only ones

but just this record with that cover

and then listening to the lyrics of this album.

It's like, "Oh, okay, now I can see

"what you can kinda do with music."

It's not just about--

("Golden Brown" by Drive like Jehu)

shaking your ass. (laughs) ("Golden Brown")

("Golden Brown" by Drive like Jehu)

- [Jello] As the main spring

all these years for what I do

would be Space Ritual,

the live Hawkwind album

when Lemmy was still in the band

and this was kinda my entry to spacier,

most psychedelicized music

because when I was getting into the MC5

and The Stooges, my friends were forsaking

The Blue Oyster Cult for Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer,

and we're still friends

but we kinda split at that point

but this led me to appreciate more

ethereal music and it didn't have to have

stupid ass elves or a singer that sounded

like classically trained Donny Osmond or whatever.

This was good stuff and the packaging was be

really nice on this thing.

Long before crass we had the Hawkwind album.

I made these sleeves out of wrapping paper

when I was in high school 'cause I liked the record so much

but anyway, there would be no Holiday in Cambodia

without Hawkwind.

- Fight Back by Discharge

and Nervous Breakdown.

- Melvins Gluey Porch Treatments.

- It would have to be

the Thrilling, Chilling Sounds

of the Haunted House.

- Brown Reason to Live, the Butthole Surfers.

- Bl'ast!, Corrosion of Conformity, Animosity.

- The first Black Sabbath. ("Rhead of the Coos")

- Something line Volume 4 ("Rhead of the Coos")

and The Ramones' Road to Ruin. ("Rhead of the Coos")

- So, Black Sabbath records. ("Rhead of the Coos")

Although I confuse the bass for the guitar a lot

in that kind of music.

- Wire, pop group.

- Billy Holiday and that was because I'm a woman.

- These two records you could find 'em

just fucking in my hand for a solid decade.

- [Man] The first Drive like Jehu album

is, like, kind of like the holy grail.

- [Man] I was living down in Hermosa beach,

we had a jukebox at the local hamburger stand

and you put a diamond and you get three songs,

and Purple Haze was always my first choice.

- [Steve] The Mothers, Freak Out, okay, yeah.

That was me

and my friends, 1966.

That was something

we listened to a lot.

It just blew us all away.

You can do that and put it on a record?

It was like, okay.

- These guys, I got this record.

And this blew me away

and this made it.

I still play this record.

I got this one

and this one,

and the first one but it's down on the end there,

and the other group

I got around the same or these guys,

bought this record and these guys

also blew me away.

- Physical Graffiti ("So Serious")

by Led Zeppelin. ("So Serious")

Got this for the record club ("So Serious")

back in the late 70s also. ("So Serious")

And another band that I really like

which I have a really cool bootleg of is Cheap Trick.

When I got into them I Want You to Want Me

was a huge hit back in '79.

Bought this in '80 at a store called Moby Disk Records

and as you can tell it's signed

and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick wrote bad mix.

- So, I grew up in the 70s as a kid.

So, they had, my siblings had this 45

Angie, The Rolling Stones, and shit.

So, it was Rolling Stones then for me

and all of a suddeny there's Deep Purple

and Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin,

and all these greats, and I was still like,

"Woah, man."

They've leave 'em them, they would all leave,

and then I'd be left alone with these records,

and fucking go listen to this shit by myself,

and just kinda trip up on acid with 'em.

- I discovered The Move really earlier one

'cause my sisters they liked them sort

of in the latter period

but then I went back and bought all their other records

and they're one of my absolute favorites.

Amazing songwriting and lyrics,

and everything, and little did I know

Jeff Lynne would go on to be a superstar

but I probably discovered them,

like, '68, '69,

and then that cemented me

being into totally obscure records

where it just completely separated me from my parents.

I'd be like, "Do you guys love The Move?"

And they'd be like, "I don't know

"what you're talking about."

- The Residents Duck Stab record

and it was the first night I ever took LSD,

and I heard The Residents and saw Pink Floyd, The Wall,

the same night for the first time,

which is two totally different records

but seeing the movie, Pink Floyd The Wall on acid

and hearing Duck Stab all in the same night

was something that really, honestly changed me into, like,

you can play any kind of music.

("So Serious" by Porcupine)

- [Man] Kiss was, again, it was kinda like

I said earlier, kinda like the Jackson Five.

They were...

They were superheros.

It was a comic book.

It wasn't until later that I got into Alice Cooper

and then I realized, "Oh, things can be theatrical

"but they can still, like, totally kick ass."

- Yank Crime by Drive Like Jehu

it was definitely a huge, huge one.

Like, really changed how I looked at music

and Clikitat Ikatowi's Orchestrated and Conducted By,

that was a big one.

- Motley Crue's Shout At The Devil was a big one.

That one came out and had the pentagram.

It was black and my mom hated it.

- Septic Death at as my kinda being a skater

and seeing, like, in thrasher, the artwork,

all the puss-head puss-zones.

That pretty much got me going

and seeing, like, Caballero with a Misfits

crimson skull t-shirt or whatever it's called.

That made me go, like, "Oh, I want."

"That's me."

Because I just started and it's just like a skater kid.

This one definitely was, like,

the most aggressive, most pissed.

I like the voice and just I (mumbling)

just like a Septic Death.

They were my favorite band.

- I think I got into a punk rock show in Austin

and they had been playing The Buzzcocks

and so I went into the local record store and said,

"Hey, do you have anything by The Buzzcocks?"

And the guy got really excited and he said, "Yeah!"

But they were out and he said,

"Well, if you like The Buzzcocks, you'll like this."

And he got me The Incredible Shrinking Dickies.

It threw me out.

- But it was The Ramones that really, like

more than any of the English punk stuff,

The Ramones just totally blew doors,

especially the live record, the double live Ramones record

was just so intense.

- [Clay] My head was sort of exploding.

The first record that really made me think,

"Oh, I can play that,"

was a Government Issue The Fun Just Never Ends.

It was so slowed down and so crunchy,

it just, like, spoke to me.

I just knew I could play like that

and I loved it.

It was like it was made specifically for me.

("Body Bag Blues" by White Mule)

- For sure I'm gonna go with this Conflict

Increase the Pressure record.

I mean this just, I mean it changed my life, man.

The lyrics, I love the vocals,

the guitar sound, the drumming's amazing.

Anytime I was trying a new bass player out

for any of my bands

I would always give him this record going, "I want this.

"I want this bass down."

And I mean the lyrics, they always put in

just everything they stood for, man.

They were true anarchists.

They were so militant with the masks

and just going against the system.

That just and I'm still really kinda that way

but they'd always put in pamphlets and brochures

and all their lyric sheets.

They put in things promoting animal rights

with addresses of different animal liberation fronts.

- [Man] Polvo's Today's Active Lifestyles

that was a big one.

That's when I first started smoking pot.

Woah, and Unwould Caterpillar seven inch

and then everything from Unwound.

Unwound and Carp were the reason

I started playing guitar in bands

and, like, doing anything, really.

- I've probably listened to this album

more than any other record in my collection.

And The Haunted House, The Very Long Fuse, Dogs,

Your Pet Cat, Screams and Groans,

Chinese Water Torture.

Pretty strange and pretty weird little record

to start out with.

- What really defined me I think musically

and as far as being a record collector

was The Sex Pistols and figuring out,

like, punk, I guess,

and basically I somehow discovered

Nevermind The Bollocks and there was this guy

in my elementary school.

This guy in my school is like,

"Ah, I really wanna hear that Sex Pistols album.

"I kept hearing how good it was.

"I also have this Suicidal Tendencies album.

"We should swap for, like, a week."

And we both swapped and we both were like,

"I don't really wanna give this back,"

and like, so two records really were,

like, the start of it.

I was like, "Dude, I'm, here it is.

"Like, the rest of my life's ruined.

"I love this, like, insane music."

* Cowboy lawman found a cell

* Tore into it as night fell

* Bankers kids are

* Getting bingo'd

* Smells like midnight's

* Cooked up a storm in here

* Leave loose those lips

* At home or at the

* Rubble that's left

* When you return

* Have an armed guard posted at your flag

* Stroll through town with

* A gun stuffed in your pants

* Bankers kids are

* Getting bingo'd

* Smells like midnight's

* Cooked up a storm in here

* Leave those loose lips

* At home or at the

* Rubble that's left

* When you return

* Criminal lawman found a cell

* Tore into it, made life hell

* Bombs bursting, houses burning

* Diplomacy's tyrant treats

- I'm not a record collector.

I think that you can tell that.

I'm not a record collector.

I am not a listener.

And it possibly is because I've been a player

all along that there's a more direct

musical connection in terms of who I am

with myself as player.

People often ask me who my influences are in playing

and I say "The people I play with." (laughs)

The guitar players, the other bass players,

the people because my whole life

that's been my musical connection,

more than this.

("Heart Attack American" by The Bronx)

- [Man] Thrifty which is now CVS

would carry cutouts

but the amazing thing would be, like,

you'd go in there and find, like,

mind-benders records on British Fontana

for, or the first Idle Race album.

All these records for, like, $1.99.

So, they were record stores in their own way

because you knew every once in a while

they did this weird stock in.

- [Mike] Thrify's, there wasn't

that many pure record stores.

In fact, record stores is also where you

could get, like guitars and stuff.

Yeah, it was really trippy in those days.

- [Voiceover] Sears and Roebucks

next to the hardware section

sandwiched in somewhere between the washers and dryers.

- Back then there wasn't really chains.

Yeah, there wasn't.

There was Wallich's Music City that I used to go to

and incredibly I'd find weird, strange, psychedelic records

I wanted like Red Crayola

and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

And actually, in a Tower Records,

I still can't quite figure this out,

Tower Records in West Covina

I got a copy of the original Manson Lie record.

That's a repo one there.

The other one's in the box

but it's like I find out of those at a Tower Records.

It's like, "How the hell this can end up here?"

- First record I tried to buy

was I wanted to buy The Partridge Family first record

because they were my,

it was, like, my favorite TV show in fourth grade,

and so I was gonna go buy it.

This kid brought it in to school,

the record in fourth grade,

and I was like, "Wow.

"Where'd you get that?"

He, like, looked at me like an idiot,

like, "At a record store."

- [Lucy] So, when I was a kid

my parents used to shop at White Front

which was sort of like,

it was like a early version of Target,

and you'd get your prescriptions there

and your stereo stuff.

So, they had just a few bins of records

but they were all incredible,

and they had cutouts.

I found this on red vinyl.

I don't know how old, I don't know what year this came out

but I was probably 12 or 13.

I found the New York Dolls there,

Jobriath records.

I mean, I don't know who was buying their records

or their cutouts but at least,

and my parents would be like.

I remember when I showed them the Dolls record.

Like, "This," (sighs)

"No more, we're gonna take you shopping somewhere else,"

and then I actually started goin'--

And then you started buying your records

at head shops like Led Zeppelin stuff

then there was, like, the smoke store

where you got your records where my mom wouldn't be judging.

Boys wearing make up, and lipstick, and stuff like that, so.

- I remember The Last, right? ("The Warfaring Stranger")

I seem them play. ("The Warfaring Stranger")

The guy's gotta tune ("The Warfaring Stranger")

his brother's bass, right? ("The Warfaring Stranger")

Runs up the stairs his brother's bass, right?

without unpluggin' the amp,

pulls it up the stairs,

and then I go across the street

and there's the little 45 on bump.

She Don't Know Why I'm Here.

And that was really a mindblow.

* Stranger traveling

- There was a store called Maze Music Mart

in Panorama City and I have a lot of records

that just have, I don't have it, but let's pretend,

MMM posted in the corner on the back.

And you go in there the guy was willing to order,

like, a Yardbirds single that wasn't selling kind of thing.

So, I know I would go in there and look through his stuff

and I would find things.

- They had no good record stores in San Pedro.

And I went to a big major record store, Wherehouse,

that was near wher I used to race my slot cars

and that's where I bought the Black Sabbath record

and it's like, I didn't know anything about Black Sabbath

but there it was on sale

and I mean, "Oh, that looks crazy,"

and then I just bought it,

and took it home.

And it's funny how you just take a dive with a record.

The same thing with the Led Zeppelin record.

It was in a stereo store

and my dad was shopping for stereo equipment

and I bought that Led Zeppelin II

and you take it home and it's like,

"Woah!"

Both of those bands were so different

than what came before.

- [Man] Eventually we would have little indie record stores

and I lived in Hermosa beach so we had,

I grew up on Pier Avenue

and my dad had a fishing tackle store on Pier Avenue

and two shops east of my dad's store

was a big indie record store called Rock and Gravel,

and that would be the first time

that I heard Black Sabbath.

The first time I heard Deep Purple.

The first time I heard Grand Funk.

(plane flying overhead)

- My dad was an Air Force pilot

when we were stationed in England

and so the record store there,

I lived on base, it was just the Air Force record store.

That's where I bought revolver.

- I don't go to record stores. ("Single Car Accident")

I don't like record stores. ("Single Car Accident")

I never did, ("Single Car Accident")

never liked record stores. ("Single Car Accident")

It's a funny thing. ("Single Car Accident")

We would go on tour

and they would always want to go to fucking record store

in some fucking town and I'm like.

I mean, five minutes in a record store and I'm done.

Because I'm, but I'm like that about shopping in general.

I mean, they act like girls shopping in record stores

is kinda stupid.

It's like, if you know what you want,

it's like you go, you get what you want,

and you leave, right?

- I was lucky.

I worked in a record store

but I would also go to record swap meets

of the, it used to be in Capital records

but I was too young to go to there

so I'd go to Pasadena's city swap meet,

the city college swap meet in Pasadena

every first Sunday and buy amazing bootlegs,

vinyl bootlegs at the time

because back then CDs didn't really exist.

- [Steve] Well, there was, like, Rather Ripped in Berkley

which was an old record store.

Fairly famous, long gone now.

- Well, when I was young there was this store

and it was not near my parents house

and I had to ride my bike, oh god,

like, probably, like 45 minutes

or at least all the way out in Queens

and it was owned by someone who I became friends with,

actually, and there was a band called The Brats in the 70s,

and they played with Kiss and The New York Dolls

and in the very, very early glitter-rock days

and the singer of The Brats

had a store called The Music Box.

- [Steve] Towards the end of the 70s

there was the flea market in Alameda.

I would get together with a couple of friends,

Tin Yohannan, who started Maximum Rocknroll,

and Al Ennis, and we would go to these flea markets

and look for cool stuff.

- And then right around the corner three blocks north

was another little record store called The Record Hole

and that became one of my favorite places

to hang out because all they played

was either heavy rock or prog rock.

I learned about Manfred Mann's Earth Band

and King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant,

a bunch of Italian bands, Le Orme, PFM, Yes,

of course, Yes.

All of these bands are great bands

for what they do.

Now, maybe they're not your cup of tea

but that's neither here nor here.

- [Man] Local to me was a licorice pizza

which had a punk rock section.

Like, The Cars, and Devo,

and all the punk stuff of the day,

and then Tower Records had a punk section

about this big and they also had an Import section.

So, that's where you could start,

you get, pick up stuff from England,

and what, most of the stuff I didn't really even like,

but they just had kinda--

It was literally judging records by their cover.

This looked cool, so I buy it.

That looks cool, I'll try this out.

- There was a place in ("Dark Brown and Gold")

Chula Vista called ("Dark Brown and Gold")

Licorice Pizza ("Dark Brown and Gold")

and that, they used ("Dark Brown and Gold")

to have Licorice Pizza, vinyl,

so, they had all kinds of vinyl

and we get those there

but mostly it was Off The Record when I was growing up.

And that was in San Diego at a record shop

out on Holcomb Boulevard, the old Off The Record,

and I used to buy a lot of stuff there.

Like I bought this exact record there,

Celtic Frost, Into The Pandemonium.

Went through a little metal phase

where I still appreciate some metal

and some slayer or some this or that.

Dinosaur Jr. is great.

This is a great record.

I bought this there at Off The Record

or Lou's Records.

I went to a lot of Lou's.

- [Man] Lou's Records is pretty far away

and that wasn't until I was a bit older

and was driving where I could cruise up there

with regularity that, yeah,

so it's those places,

and there was a couple of weird places

in PB that were kinda--

Werewolf Records, like they were around

for many two or three years

and I bought a bunch of really cool records there.

- Off The Record when they were on Holcomb Boulevard

right near San Diego state.

That was just mind-blowing.

Cliff Cunningham was there.

It was a weird experience.

I just remember, one thing I remember being,

I remember being there,

and I was a young kid at that time,

and this skinhead guy comes in

and he had that Dead Kennedys Nazi fucks,

Nazi punks fuck off, with the arm band.

I don't know if you remember that

and the skinhead guy comes in there

and breaks it right in front of Cliff's face

and pays him for it, "I don't want that shit in this store."

- Off The Record out by college.

That was a great place

because the people who worked there were really cool.

You would go in there and they obviously know you're a kid

and didn't have a lot of money,

and they would watch you probably out of the corner

of their eye, just kind of lost,

and they go, "Hey, what do you like?"

And you tell them and, "Get this record."

A couple times I got steered the wrong way

but more times than not, though,

they did their best to kinda connect people with good music.

- [Mario] I grew up in Vista, California,

so it's about, maybe, 40 minutes north of here,

a little inland.

Nothing great about that city at all.

My family's from there,

grew up skateboarding there and stuff

but there was a record store there

obscurely titled Vista Records and Tapes. (laughs)

And it was a great record store actually

and it was in the same shopping center

that my grandparents would go grocery shopping at.

So, everyday after school or whenever I was over there

which was a lot, I'd finagle my grandpa

to give me a ride to Vista Records and Tapes

and I think he wanted to just get out of the house

for, like, an hour or so,

and not have, he could just hang in his truck,

but the guy would just hang in his truck for, like,

two hours while I would just scour through records

and look at magazines just for me

to come out of the record store

and, like, knock on his window and be like,

"You think you could loan me, like, five dollars

"to, like, get this album or buy this magazine?"

Like, and so sure enough he'd, like,

"Okay, are you gonna make it up

"doing this or doing some chores and stuff?"

And just the best thing ever.

It was always, like, once a week.

I was good for, like, a new LP or something.

So, thanks grandpa. (laughs)

So awesome.

("Monster Capitol" by Molly McGuire)

- [Bryan] Yeah, Vinyl Fetish was

a very influential record store.

It was owned by hardcore music guys.

Like, Henry and Joseph owned it originally

and they went on to become very infuential

L.A. DJs and then they sold the store

to Michael Stewart who was the owner

of the Scream Club which was a very influential club.

So, they were all connected with, like,

with older Hollywood nightclub DJs

and promoters and so they came at it from huge music fans.

You'd walk into Vinyl Fetish

and there would be a piece of glass over the counter

and underneath the glass was Polaroids

of The Misfits, and Susie, and all just in the shot.

Take a Polaroid and stick it under the glass.

So, when you walk in you immediately are like,

"I'm in someplace special,"

and there was no filler records.

It was truly indie rock, and instrumental,

pivotal, vinyl only.

Like, they weren't even selling CDs at the time,

and even if they were available.

They'd be catching me listening to the Cult or something

and go, "Okay, listen to this,"

and then turn me onto stuff that I missed when I was a kid

like Stooges.

They introduced me to that stuff

'cause my parents were a little lighter than that.

So, it was like, "Come on, kid, get with it."

("Monster Capitol" by Molly McGuire)

- And yeah, there's actually a real,

there's a store in Seattle where I grew up

that if it wasn't for that store

I would not be here because they were instrumental

in turning me on to underground music,

regardless of what kind of style of music,

well, punk, hardcore, post-punk, metal.

I mean, everything.

It's this store and it was called Fallout Records.

And it was Seattle and I remember the first

time I went there I had been reading

Maximum Rocknroll a lot

but I didn't have any real records.

I could, like, name just a few.

I had like a handful of things,

but I went in this store and I was like,

"Oh my gosh, all the stuff that I'd been hearing about."

Like 7 Seconds, Commited For Lie seven inch,

Septic Death twelve inch,

and DRI Violent Pacification seven inch.

Things like that.

It's just like, "Oh my gosh."

And I'm just freaking out

and I just kept on going

and I was just addicted.

I kept on going all day.

It's, probably once a week,

and just doing chores, getting my allowance,

and going to the stores,

and spending it on music,

and after a while they got to know me

and as soon as I walk in the door

they'd be like, "Oh hey, we got this, this, this, and this.

"Check it out."

And it followed me through, like,

different phases musically that I was.

When, 'cause first I was, first the '85 to '88 or so

everything was I wanted things as fast as possible

and the faster the better

and then I got kinda got more into, like,

Discord, and Touch and Go, and things like that

as I got older, things, I checked out these different things

and they were right there like feeding me along the way.

Like, "Oh, you're into this now?

"Check this out."

And really, like, kinda nurturing my taste

in music, in underground music.

- No doubt whatsoever it was Moby Discs in Sherman Oaks

which is famous because it's where

they filmed in the scene in Spinal Tap

where Artie Fufkin has it in store

and asked everybody to kick his ass.

- [Man] There was a record store in Whittier,

where I grew up which is 30 minutes from here,

called Lovells, L-O-V-E-L-L-S,

and I got a job there when I was a kid.

Like, I just, so I shopped there all the time

then I got a job there

and then I was, like, immediately promoted

to the import indie buyer.

So, I was ordering, like, all of my,

like, everything 'cause I was just getting into music.

Like, I was always into music but this was when

I was starting to nerd out about it really bad

so then I was just ordering all these import

and indie and, like, that's,

I started, like, ordering direct from labels and shit too,

and that's, a lot of that stuff's

still in my record collection

except for like I said,

all the real good stuff ex-girlfriends have stolen.

(record rips)

- [Voiceover] We interrupt to bring you

- [Voiceover] Black Power Records with Pat Thomas.

- I moved to Oakland around 2000

and I've always had an interest in, like,

counter culture when I was a teenager.

I traded letters with Alan Ginsberg,

and Abbie Hoffman of the Chicago Wait.

So, I moved to Oakland,

I thought, "I wanna check out some Black Panthers,"

and I just started meeting some of these guys.

Bobby Seale, David Hillard, and Elaine Brown,

and I realized that there were records

that went along with the movement

and after about five years

and about 10,000 dollars on Ebay

I had, like, 200 albums,

and then I turned it into a book.

Reverend Franklin is Aretha Franklin's dad

and he was a very famous preacher

and he put out about 75 albums.

Mostly very religious

but here's one called the Meaning of Black Power.

Melvin Van Peebles got into it

and he was saying Free Huey, free Huey Newton.

This album, this is Kail and The Blue Guerrilla

and there's some great stuff on the back of this thing.

"The irony is that a true black artist

"must first be a true black christian

"and then he realized what Christ meant when he said

"And no one come on to me

"but Father but me."

"Kain saw the Blue Guerrilla in foothills of Missouri"

and he talks about how this might be God.

God is the Blue Guerrilla.

This also has Nile Rodgers of Chic

when he was about 17 years old

and he was a Black Panther.

This is probably my favorite.

This is Elaine Brown of the Black Panther party

and she's doing sort a Edith Piaf, John Cale,

sort of European classical piano thing.

Very, very interesting.

This is a record that was put out by Motown of all people

and this is interviews with black soldiers in Vietnam,

and they're kinda talking about

and wondering why are they in Vietnam

fighting against the yellow man

when nobody respects the black man in the United States.

Angela Davis, Free Angela.

The Rolling Stones wrote a song about her

called Sweet Black Angel.

Huey Newton of the Black Panther party,

Listen Whitey.

This is an album that some people say

got Martin Luther King assassinated

because he started opposing the Vietnam war

and supposedly J. Edgar Hoover and LBJ

thought now that he's battling the war

we're gonna have some bigger issues.

This is another Motown recording.

Motown started a label called Black Forum

and basically they released eight militant black records

under this forum label between 1970 and '73.

This is another Motown one on the Black Forum label.

It's Nation Time by poet Amiri Baraka.

Bobby Seale, Black Panther,

also in the Chicago eight trial,

Gagged and Chained.

This is an album called

Ain't No Ambulances For No Nigguhs Tonight

and supposedly during the Watts Riots

in 1965 a black guy called up an ambulance

and said, "I need an ambulance service,"

and this is what he was told on the other line.

("Trower" by Goatsnake)

- [Jello] Why on Earth would I want an

Up with People record about the most

white bread, obnoxiously, middle of the road

phenomenon of the 60s or 70s?

And that wicked music teacher

I had in elementary school

forced us to sing the uplift people thing.

* Up, up with people

* You need 'em wherever you go

Yeah, that's taking a big stand in the 60s, ain't it?

Well, the reason is because this super squeaky clean

looking woman on the cover singing along with Up with People

is none other than Glenn Close,

the future fatal attraction

got her start in show biz with Up with fucking People.

I never woulda guessed.

- [Man] The last record I purchased was The Seeds record

that I was talking about.

Which is very unmemorable

and went into the stack of records

to be traded in for credit.

- I think the last record I purchased

was the Find Your Flow.

- Actually, you're probably gonna laugh.

The last record that I bought

was Kendrick Lamar, m.A.A.d city.

- One of the last records I purchased

that is really rare

is the soundtrack to Lucifer Rising

that Jimmy Page, he was working on this

with that filmmaker.

I'm trying to remember his name right now

and in the 70s and it never came out,

and so what happened was he put this on his website

last year and he limited it

to 418 copies signed.

I have copy 59 with Jimmy Page's autograph.

So, this is one of the last things

I purchased on the internet.

- [Mike] A lady called Sawako

and her album called Nu. It.

N-U period I-T and it's trippy.

It's like...

She just turned on the microphone

and recorded what was going down. (laughs)

That plane going over, yeah, it's trippy.

- The last record I purchased was actually

a special edition Masters of Reality, Black Sabbath.

- It was an old Tuxedomoon record.

It was, I wanted the song Jinx

and I got that at Amoeba.

- I only bought the new Lana Del Ray

and people are like, "You bought Lana Del Ray?"

Yes, I did.

- The Singers, Born to Lose,

and Midnight Prowl.

- I know what it was,

it wa the soundtrack for Lawless.

It was a Nick Cave.

Nick Cave wrote the movie

and he did the soundtrack

and was the last record I bought.

- Trash Talk's new record

and I bought I Hate Guys' new record.

- An Echo in the Bunnymen single on Ebay.

(laughs)

- Cheap Trick, Dream Police. (laughs) Used.

- The newest Caravel's record and Hartley Art.

- Mott the Hoople.

- I purchased two live Bob Seger records.

- A live David Allen Coe record.

That is just super rad.

I mean, it's actually a lot heavier

than a lot of his other records are

and it's just insane.

Like, that's guy's gnarly.

- I was really excited about this

one particular record I got

and it's by this band called Gloom.

It's like this really obscure, rare,

hard to find, like, super chaotic,

noisy, punk, hardcore record.

- Lost band from friends called Soggy

and it's, like, very proto-punk, metal stuff.

Perfect hybrid of chugga chugga metal

but, like, very Stooges.

- It might have been,

as I did think about this,

it might's been Fugazi, The Argument.

Because I was enjoying Repeater so much

because everybody's like Repeater's the classic

when I went to go buy, which I love,

but then I looked and I actually,

I Googled, and I actually saw

best Fugazi records in order

and they had The Argument up high

so I went for that

and I totally dig it.

- Like, I think I bought this last

and it was just a Sex Pistols reissue

of some of their, like, weird tapes,

and outtakes, and stuff,

and I kinda just reverted back to something in me

where I was like, "Oh yeah, a Sex Pistols record

"would be to have,"

because I haven't ever owned a Sex Pistols record,

which is odd.

* Bunker to Bunker

* Have all the rations you need?

* What's the judge say?

* Armed to the teeth

* Get a good sleep on the eve

* Of your doomsday

* Hunt all your days

* Gather your nights

* Swallow the pill

* Oh, it tastes so bad!

* Won't be at all like the life you had

* Wonder the sky

* Where will it fall?

* Shouting it out til your face turns blue

* You better know where you're running to

* Bunker to Bunker

* Have all the rations you need?

* What's the judge say?

* Armed to the teeth

* Get a good night sleep on the eve

* Of your doomsday

* Hunt all your days

* Gather your nights

* Swallow the pill

* Oh, it tastes so bad!

* Won't be at all like the life you had

* Wonder the sky

* Where will it fall?

* Shouting it out til your face turns blue

* You better know here you're running to

- I think part of the magic

that vinyl records and blundering into cool music

you never know existed holds for me

is that I'm still a fan

and keep in mind, fan comes from the world fanatic.

I love to keep exploring

and even though I've got way too many records,

I never buy one unless I intend

to listen to it when I get home.

Well, I don't always have time to listen to them all, now,

but that's the idea.

I don't buy it to scam or speculate.

I buy it to listen.

Listen to it and there, that way I never

run out of cool music to listen to.

I have no patience for these people who say,

"Oh, well, Olson died with Darby Crash died."

Or "Yeah, there's no good bands anymore."

Wrong.

Good sounds are where you find it.

So, start looking, okay?

Don't be afraid to blunder ("Tomorrow" by Bl'ast!)

into something cool. ("Tomorrow" by Bl'ast!)

You never know what it might ("Tomorrow" by Bl'ast!)

do to your life ("Tomorrow" by Bl'ast!)

or even your own music ("Tomorrow" by Bl'ast!)

where your band may finally start sounding different

from all the other bands.

- This one, this is, like, the absolute worst

question you can ask a record collector.

This is, oh my god, honestly if I had to pick five records

only, there was a gun to my head?

- Oh man, I don't know.

The gun's to my head, it's so tough.

I don't know.

I could just pick five and it would make--

I don't have an answer because you know what?

Put the gun, pull the trigger, pull the trigger.

I can't pick five!

- Man, if only people with guns putting them

to other people's heads only wanted just that,

the world would be a better place, wouldn't it?

I don't know.

I couldn't tell you even one favorite

let alone five.

- I don't know, man.

I don't know if I can answer this.

- I don't know.

- That's a, yeah, that's a good question.

That's a hard question.

I'd probably lie to that person

and give him ten of my least favorite records.

- Shit, you're a dick, dude.

Totally, someone should kick you in the balls for that.

- Oh, what I would say is "Shoot me."

(laughs) Just go ahead and pull the trigger.

- There you go.

- 'Cause, yeah, no. (laughs)

- I don't know, I'm sure I'm forgetting (mumbling)

I'm drawing a blank.

- That's the thing.

It's, that's what's great about music

is that you don't have to define it in those terms.

We don't live on a dessert island.

We don't have to just have five. (laughs)

- I didn't set out to possess piles

and piles of records.

I just wanted to access to a whole fallout shelter

of good songs that I liked

to protect me from crappy radio.

("American Heart Attack" by The Bronx)

* I'm done telling you that I'm in love

* What I have will never be enough

* Come on baby go live life on your own

* Everything inside is breaking down

* And you don't want to be hanging around

* I don't think I wanna leave myself alone

* I'm done having to apologize

* I'm done living inside your eyes

* When the lights go out what's left to know

* Nothing ever makes sense to me

* A broken branch of the family tree

* Kill the lights now baby watch me explode

* There is no revolution

* And I'm done doing things I don't want to do

* There is no restitution

* And I'm done, yeah

* I'm done living in this decline

* I'm done watching you redesign

* Come on baby let's go walk out the door

* I'm done showing up to fucking work

* Taking orders rom a fucking bitch

* I'm in the chair now go ahead and flip the switch

* Hey