Shop Life / Hostage for a Year
If you have been to a hi-fi trade shows and hung out long enough in the Zu room, it’s likely you’ve heard me tell a story or two about stuff that happens at the shop—stories that really should have a wider audience. The top two story-level personalities here are Harvey and James, mainly because they are both so cuss-cussing opinionated about music. They have certainly earned the right as their combined musical knowledge is stupidly massive and they both have a very sensitive and refined appreciation of what constitutes good music and art.
James, he can listen to an album once and totally get it. Harvey, if he digs a new album it will sit on repeat for days. If James has to listen to any album or song more than a few times in a year he gets annoyed, no kidding. Yesterday I was first in the shop, I put on Splinter by Gery Numan, first three cuts are seriously great, most of the album really, especially at concert levels. James loves Gary Numan too, but we had heard this album. So when he gets in, and without even a glance, puts something new on. This is common behavior for James: mid-song, silence, new material, expects everyone to continue working without comment, if they don’t like what’s playing they can don their cans or stuff their earphones in.
Harvey on the other hand actually cares a bit about people (sometimes). He’ll wait for the playing album to end, but he’s right there the moment it does, queueing up something way outside mainstream. His cuts aren’t exclusively noise or metal, sometimes they’re modern avant-garde jazz kinda stuff, but they are nearly always challenging. He also has a soft spot for works that are also beautiful sounding, so long as they are also truly sad. We listened to Purple Mountains more than a handful of times when it was released, in the shop, to the obvious protests of James, not the first play of course, James loves Berman, but for reasons above…. Purple Mountains hasn’t gotten any play since August 7th (David Berman; January 4, 1967 – August 7, 2019).
Two years ago those two held the rest of us hostage—for the whole year. They listened to every new album released through the major channels. No, I’m not making this up, and it was on the big rig here at the shop, form which their is only one escape, professional in-ears plus industrial earmuffs. After a year of subjecting the rest of us—arguing with either of these two is a huge pain in the ass—they then put their top 100 albums of the year down—for each other to criticize and no one else! Sure, they have stupidly massive knowledge of music, but at what cost. My takeaway? 95% of what is released is, and continues to be, forgettable at best—and that Harvey and James are nutso.
