AAOR by PersonPeople
"Hello
my name is John T. & I'm an alcoholic. I haven't had a drink for thirty-two
years, four months and nine days. It feels like lifetimes ago that I was living
at the bottom of a bottle, but almost like yesterday that I ran the Hot Licks
record shop in Minneapolis. My mentor and friend 'Short' Mort Brudell ran
Harpo's record shop in Bloomington, Michigan and got me the job in November
1976 because I was the only person who knew more about music than he did. And
he thought he knew everything.
The Licks
staff was a real tight knit crew, as was the Harpo's gang. There was a friendly
but competitive streak between the staff of both stores. It could be over
monthly sales, musical knowledge or women, but usually just over who partied
harder; as this was the mid-70s, the bar was already admittedly high. So, for a
few summers starting in 1977, we got both our squads together to find out who
could go stronger for longer. Mort even had a trophy made up for the winner
which was a 12" record melted into some sort of origami sailboat, atop a
cheap gold pedestal that read "STRONG MAN COMPETITION - 1st PLACE". I
have no idea if he made it himself, and if not, where he could have possibly
had it made in Bloomington, but he would never tell.
The photo
you're looking at is from our '79 Booze Crooze'. This was the first year we won
& brought the trophy back to Licks where it was proudly displayed behind
the counter all year and constantly received looks but never any questions. I'm
the guy seated on the bottom right in the blue satin jacket with the big,
beautiful hair. Mort is in the top back left in the glasses and white fly-away
collar. Everyone from Randy Wexler (in the shades leaning on his son Ricky in
the cowboy hat) to the right is Licks and everyone to the left is Harpo's. We'd
meet up in Dead Horse Bay, Wisconsin at Mort's dry dock where we'd stuff his
cruising yacht with as much beer and "hard a" as we could fit.
And the drugs. Oh the drugs. This group didn't stop at
ludes, coke and poppers. No. This was an experimental psychedelic cook-off with
a ton of different homemade recipes. I'm not sure what was more obscure - the
music or the drugs. There was harmaline and mescaline. Ketamine and elemicin.
Even some Kenyan khat and a few ortho-dots. No one was ever quite sure.
Throughout that time, the only thing we did more than drink and drug was DJ and
dance. The only time anyone stayed purposefully sober-ish was to spin some
records. Mort and I would program the sets so they matched whatever trip most
people were on, giving ourselves the longer 'anchor sets' at peak time. And in
those days, most of the music rocked…softly. Soft rock dominated the airwaves
and most of the narratives of our adult lives. We defined it broadly but played
it loosely. We joined a sea of record pools and picked up Tom Lewis' weekly
'Disco Bible', studying beats per minute and practicing slip-cuing and blending
records. DJing as a concept and as a lifestyle was just starting to catch on
(at the time we called it 'selecting'), and we foolishly thought we were part
of the plot. It sounded great to us at the time, but I'm sure it was just
substances over style.
By '81 our
ship had sailed. While high on mescaline, and convinced he was a bad influence
on Ricky, Randy Wexler tried to force his wife Georgie to shoot him. She
wouldn't. So he tried to strangle her with a phone cord to convince her, which
he did. She shot him six times in front of Ricky. He lived but could never walk
again, and she left him. Randy's car was found in a Schnuck's parking lot in
Baraboo, Wisconsin six months later with no sign of him. Georgie ended up in an
institution and at Ricky ran off to the southwest. That really scared a lot of
people straight. Especially me. At the time, Linda (green cardigan in the
middle making funny faces) and I were dating long-distance. She quit Harpo's
and moved to Minneapolis and I quit Licks and started going to meetings.
I never
really had anywhere as strong of a connection with music as I did then. I got
older and we had a few kids. I cut what I had left of that beautiful hair off
and started wearing a suit to work everyday. This photo brings back so many
memories (thanks Tom Smith!): some bad, but most good. I still keep in touch
with a few guys from this picture. Reggie Arew (in the blue baseball cap in
front) and his husband run a pool cleaning business a few towns over, and we
have dinner once a year. His ex Keith Pilbourne (pink jacket in the back)
actually became a pastor in Green Bay. Dennis Donner (top right, moustache,
looking up) went to jail for selling cocaine to an undercover cop in Rockford
and started a halfway house in Rockford, Michigan when he got out. And Mike
Skill (bottom left in the tie) rejoined his band The Romantics on bass before
their biggest album In Heat in 1983. I cherish what I remember of those times
now even though I would never want to relive them.
Many
alcoholics are enthusiasts. They run to extremes. I know I did. But life
mellows you and while my son may never have witnessed my transgressions
firsthand, I've never worried much about him going down that path. But his life
is his own to enjoy. I'm thrilled he's carrying on the music torch while
leaving behind those wilderness years you can never get back. At first, I
wasn't sure if I was comfortable speaking to an audience that I couldn't
actually see. But when he played this mix for me the first time and told me
that I inspired him and his friend to make it, it made me cry, and I thought
maybe these words or this music could actually help some people. I hope it
does.
We
alcoholics are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow
that handicap. But after some trial and error, I've found a design for living
to achieve spiritual progress rather than perfection. Because while you may
need a higher power, your highest power is always YOU. Be considerate of others
but hard on yourself. Keep some life in your years but some years in your life.
And don't abandon hope - the most satisfactory years of your existence lie
ahead. Unlike an alcoholic, a DJ in his cups IS a lovely creature. Thanks for
letting me share."
- as told to PersonPeople 2012
Many thanks to Chris Tarantino who presents a radio show at WFMU, writes for the Village Voice and runs Restless Leg Records in New York and to Jonny Coleman in Los Angeles for this exclusive mix for AOR Disco / Download AAOR and their previous mix for us You'll Never Change The World / Alcoholics Anonymous
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