Dick Storms – PopWars

October 26, 2015April 11, 2019

Be Your Dog

Record Archive cake by "Cake Me Away" for 40th year celebration — Record Archive cake by “Cake Me Away” for 40th year celebration

Record Archive has been celebrating their 40th anniversary all year. As well they should be. Just how could a record store stay in business that long? There was some sort of shindig going on there this weekend and we made a point to stop by. Bands were playing in the back room and everything in the store was forty-percent off.

We don’t really buy records anymore but we had a short stack of albums and a bag of CDs left over from our summer garage sale so we traded them in and wound up with forty-five dollars in store credit.

We wandered around for an hour or so looking at the new vinyl and CDs and t-shirts and the mind-numbing amount of tchotchkes. We ran into acquaintances in every isle. Someone was buying every cd in Rolling Stones’ Top 100 of All Time and a woman shopping next to him was asking him why he didn’t just download the music? The checkout lines were a city block long.

Former employees Karen and Doug and Lenay and Chris and Stan were all there. Bands, made up current employees, took turns on the stage. Jason Smay, JD McPherson’s drummer, was playing with his son on guitar. Deb Jones blew everyone away with her stellar version of “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

We had a beer in the back room and we tried to buy a used designer floor lamp. It was $125 but we couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. We asked the owners, Dick and Alayna, and they couldn’t figure it out either. We shouldn’t have bothered them, it was way too busy.

So we turned our attention to turntables and books and box sets. We picked up some incense and some small pocket pads and cd of Jack Kerouac reading. I ran into my niece, looking at the used clothing, and I told her to pick something out and let us buy it with our credit but we never saw her again.

Somewhere at front end of that forty years Record Archive had a record label as well. Here’s a 1982 45 rpm single from the Archive Records label by the Hi-Techs.

Hi-Techs "Screamin' You Head," A side of Archive Records 45 recorded by Dwight Glodell at CSE Audio 1981. — Hi-Techs “Screamin’ You Head,” A side of Archive Records 45 recorded by Dwight Glodell at CSE Audio 1981.

Like Obsession

A. Botts art at the Record Archive in Rochester, New York

First Friday comes around pretty fast these days. We started at the Bop Shop Atrium and heard a few songs by John and Mary. This was the last of a series called “Fourteen Fridays” there. Peggi and I played quite a few gigs with John back when he was in 10,000 Maniacs and we reconnected after their set. We walked across the street to the Print Club’s show at Rochester Arts & Cultural Council. The definition of a print is pretty wide open these days and it gets a little tedious trying to figure out how the images were made so I skip that part and just take in the imagery. There were some especially nice prints there. My father and I used to be members of that organization.

We headed over to the Record Archive next where a band had just finished. One of the band members, who goes by the name of A. Boggs, was showing his drawings and collages there as well. A. is influenced by Philip Guston and even used a photocopy of a pile of Guston’s feet in a few of his Dylan collages. The detail above is from a piece called “Two Heads Emerging.” A. Boggs work was priced at around $25 each. Since I am obsessed with Guston I got pretty excited at the show.

Art Reminds Us That We are Alive

Dick Storms artwork for Rain at Record Archive

Last night was First Friday again and Dick Storms had an art opening at his store, Record Archive. The whole store has always been like a funky art piece but for this occasion he set aside some wall space on the ramp that leads to the vinyl pit to show his rock artwork for bands in the late sixties and early seventies. Dick did the lightshow for Quicksilver Messenger Service back in the day. The photo above shows Dick’s album cover art for the Rochester band, Rain. It is a three color silkscreen sticker that the band stuck on the lp and on surfaces all over town. Hermie from the Bug Jar was at the opening and he said his sister had one of these records. Dick’s art work is is comfortable like Robert Crumb or late Philip Guston. His daughter, Margaret, helped hang the show. It should be be up for a month or so.

Avalanche Collective from Syracuse at Rochester Contemporary

Over at RoCo we fell for the the three guys from Syracuse, Avalanche Collective, who set up camp in empty urban lots and videotape their adventures. The photo above, of the three of them, was lit by the car batteries in their wagon.

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January 24, 2008August 30, 2019

HiTechs

Martin Edic came out to see Margaret Explosion last night. He had a Polaroid with him from 1980 or so. He was going to scan it and send us a copy but he hadn’t configured the scanner portion of his printer/copier/scanner yet. And he wouldn’t give up the photo. It got us going through some old photos and we came across this one from that same time period. I think this was a signing ceremony for the our band at the time, called the “HiTechs“. We have the candles lit. Dick Storms from Record Archive is shown on the right with a contract in his hands. Peggi is smiling so it must have been going well. Martin, shown behind Peggi, is reading something. He reads anything within reach. Bob is smoking. Those were the days.

Dick released a couple singles of ours on his “Archive Records”. This contract must have been for the second one, “Screamin’ You Head” b/w “A Woman’s Revenge”. “Screamin’ You Head” got some airplay and notoriety when Danceteria DJ Iolo Carew added it to his dance charts for Rockpool. “A Woman’s Revenge” was based on a one of the photo novellas that we used to buy down at Bertha’s on East Main Street in Rochester. Martin was the bass player for HiTechs and Bob was the guitar player in Personal Effects so this must have been right on the cusp of that transformation.

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