Weirdo Records- Niche Markets Never Die

Cambridge- Don’t be frightened by volumes of old records and cds, vintage toys, and posters of Japanese Beatlesque bands in this used record store; hard-to-find avant and experimental music is Weirdo Records owner, Angela Sawyer’s specialty. “If you’re curious and want to check out some weird stuff,” says Sawyer while updating her online record website, “You know that several people [record aesthetes] have spent a long time separating the wheat from the chaff.”

Like many record clerks, Sawyer is extensively knowledgeable. She had worked at local record shops for fifteen years when she decided to dabble with selling records online. Sawyer’s online business began in 2006. “It was just for fun, it was just two steps over from a my space page, no big deal,” said Sawyer. In nine months sales from her website were skyrocketing and her career working at a record store become a secondary income.

“The economy started to go to crap,” said Sawyer, “People were like you got that other thing and your not here any ways so …I got let go.”

In February, as her independent retailer business grew, Sawyer decided to launch a hole-in-the wall specialty record shop in Central Square. “So far business has been great,” said Sawyer, her clientele is mostly 25-60 year old male music seekers, “It’s been so busy that I can barely keep up with it.”

Sawyer is more than happy to recommend some great music to you. She is currently listening to world psychedelia from the sixties s and experimental noise. “For some people music is more important than food and they show it buy eating ramen all the time and spending all their money on it,” Sawyer said, “I listen to music when I’m awake.”

According to Almighty Institute of Music, a market firm, 3,100 record stores have closed since 2003. Sawyer isn’t concerned about music piracy, record stores going under, or the fall of the music industry. “If you look for music on the internet it’s almost impossible because there’s too much,” said Sawyer, she continued, “The way people’s heads work is not like a computer. There’s no place contemporary culture for aesthetics except in a record stores.”

As retail record stores plummet because of the recession, the niche market for record shops can perhaps remain strong due to the loyal market base.

“If the economy is the size of Central Square and the music industry is the size of this room. My store is the size of a microscopic spec on my fingernail. So even if it is sinking there is a lot of room for me to move around, said Sawyer.”

Volunteerism

Volunteer effort can produce important results. The problem is volunteering has declined in the US. "In these times citizen service becomes even more vital to the health of our nation's communities," said the Washington Post. There is growing recognition of the importance of volunteering from spending time reading to children, donating blood, or working at a soup kitchen can have a huge impact. According to the Washington Post, "If large numbers of Americans swapped one hour of TV a week for service, volunteer rates would skyrocket and communities would improve their social and economic well-being."

Personally, the rewards of volunteering have been significant. I spend my Saturdays volunteering at 826 in Roxbury. I learn to work with children who are less privileged than I was growing up. Volunteering has also given me a higher sense of community. I feel more at home in Boston knowing that I am working to improve the condition of my city.












Clip of Dave Eggers, founder of 826 National:

My cousin made it in the NYTimes.

Archive-Interview with Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2007

Brian Chase drummer (right)
I had the good fortune of interviewing one of my favorite bands a couple of years ago. Their new album is out! It's all I've been listening to lately.

MP: Where are you right now?

BC: I’m wondering through the hidden back rooms of the Orpheum Theatre right now. Kind of creepy, the rooms looks like no one has used them in awhile.

MP: Show Your Bones has been out for 11 days are you pleased with how well its doing?

BC: Of course, definitely, we only release something that we felt we can stand behind 100 percent. We’re surprised that big magazines like Time and The New Yorker, wrote about us. I think I feel more comfortable with our band in those magazines. I like how we came across. They understood her [Karen O’s] approach, which not too many people understand.

MP: Where did the album's name come from?

BC: We were actually struggling to come up with a record title for a long while. Karen was hanging out with her friend’s son whose nine and he came up with it. He had a way of describing a scenario when a cartoon character puts his finger in a light socket. Instead of getting electrocuted he called it showing your bones. We thought that would be perfect for the name of the record.

MP: Your record is created with a lot of versatile sounds, each song is different from the next. It seems like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have gone through a lot personal growth do you feel that way?

BC: A lot of stuff has happened to us. There has been some significant changes in our lives. From before Fever to Tell until now. I think Show Your Bones definitely reflects more introspection through everything that has happened to us. That’s the reason for the dramatic and epic feeling from the record.

MP: Each song sounds like it has its own story.

BC: It does sound like each song is a story, or its own little movie. The songs are really different and the lyrics serve a very specific theme. I think this is one of the biggest accomplishments of this record.

MP: How was working Squeak E. Clean (Sam Spiegel)?

BC: Overall it was great working with him. There were some clashes in the beginning. Clean had to learn our aesthetic and how we worked. Definitely, it was a learning process for both sides. He had some tricks up his sleeves when it came to recording. We all got to be really close friends with him and in the end we had a really good record.

MP: What were the challenges you faced in recording this album?

BC: Mostly what to add and take away when writing the songs. Most of the songs were written in the studio and its like being in a black hole, you don’t know what’s going to be good and what’s going to sound bad. It can be a frustrating journey all along.

MP: Some of the songs have stories that tell of a sad journey or a lost love? Whose heartbreak inspired this album?

BC: Heartbreak all around. We are big romantic saps. We all feel pain… from the heart.
verbarating

MP: I enjoyed Patrick Daughter’s production of Gold Lion, but wouldn’t it make more sense if Karen’s new boyfriend, Spike Jonze produced the album?

BC: Patrick is a close friend of ours and he has done our videos before, we just decided to go with him.

MP: Is there going to be any more music videos coming out that you can tell us about?

BC: We are thinking of Turns Of You or Cheated Hearts, but it should come out in mid-May.

MP: It’s been three years since Fever to Tell in the life of a band this is a really long time to put out an album? What took you guys so long?

BC: After Fever to Tell we toured, it took about two years. We were on the road. Our band can’t write a record on the road. We had written a bunch of songs after Fever to Tell but we decided to record those for Show Your Bones. Actually, Honeybear is the only one that falls in that category.

MP: Do you think the next Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ album is going to take as long to come out?

BC: I wouldn’t be surprised if it took another few years for the next album, but who knows.

MP: The tour just began.

BC: It began a few weeks ago in D.C.

MP: How’s it been so far?

BC: It’s been a blast playing with new material, rediscovering our material live, it’s been fun.

MP: Any stories you would like to mention?

BC: No it’s too early for any crazy things to happen yet.

MP: Fever To Tell won best album of the year do you think Show Your Bones is going to win that high of an acclaim?

BC: (giggles) We will see how it goes. This is out of our control, not for us to decide. Though, it is off to a great start.


MP: So your playing in Boston tonight not too far away from your hometown in New York, what makes playing in Boston special?

BC: The dirty water of the Charles River I look forward to every time.

Click here .

New Jersey Rockhoppers Defeat The Brooklyn Aces

New Jersey Rockhoppers are taking part in the final playoff of the Eastern Professional Hockey League Championship Series with a 4-3 overtime win against the Brooklyn Aces held at the Aviator Arena. Matt Puntureri scored the winning goal against the Aces on Saturday night.

The Aces started off strong with a 0-1 lead scored by Dan Carney. This dynamic quickly changed when in the first period; Pat Serpico opened the scoring and tied the game with his quick work, hitting the puck fiercely into the net. “Pat Serpico had it huge. The second goal gave us all the momentum to grab the lead. His goal was fantastic. That would have been the game changer for me.” said Brian Gratz, head coach of the Rockhoppers.

Nick Niedert, Rockhopper goalie, stopped 15 out of 16 of the shots, even though they had the added advantage of having retired Canadian professional hockey player, Ron Duguay from the New York Rangers playing along with the Aces. Duguay has come out of retirement to promote the Madison Square Garden charitable organization by playing a game for both the Aces and tomorrow for the Rockhoppers. "Ron Duguay is a great guy. The boys wanted to show a level of respect,” said Gratz. Duguay played the entire game without wearing a helmet.

Serpico thrived with more unbalanced scoring after he made another solid goal passing by the Aces’ goalie Miro Recicar.

A dog pile of both teams occurred after a fight broke out amongst the players. After minutes the referees broke up the fight when two players went down on the ice to battle it out. “Tempers were flaring right at the end of the game,” said Coach Gratz. This caused four penalties, in which two were cancelled out since both teams were penalized. From the Rockhoppers, both Matt Puntureri and Dustin Henning were sent to the penalty box. Quickly after the last minute of regulation, CJ Tozzo used a screen to put the Aces back at an equal score with the Rockhoppers. Puntureri was also able to return to the rink from the penalty box.

“Obviously, we were trying to protect our goaltender; he’s the backbone of our team. One thing led to another we were trying to pull the other team off our goaltender,” said Gratz, he continued, “I don’t think the referrer made the right decision, it should have been even up all the way around. This left us in a bad spot. They ended up scoring a power play goal out of it, which was disappointing. At the same time it shows character of the team that they are willing to stand up and fight for one another.”

With only thirty seconds left on the clock for overtime, Puntureri faked out the Aces and shot the winning goal. “It was quite a lucky play. The defense made an awful play and the goalie did as well. Luckily, I found a hole and swept it in there putting us in the play-offs”, said Puntureri.


The Aces had already secured a place in the play-offs. “Well obviously we didn’t get the turn out we wanted,” said Chris Holmes of the Aces, he continued, “We didn’t want to lose the last game this season, but we will see these guys next week. We hope to take a two for one and win the Eastern Professional Hockey Series.”

Brooklyn Aces and New Jersey Rockhoppers are scheduled to play again next Thursday for the Eastern Professional Hockey League Championship Series.


Ron Daguay known for his hockey hair and for this (sexy?) sasson jeans ad:

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." Albert Einstein

The weather is rapidly getting warmer in Boston. I'm going bike shopping.
Quad bikes is a nonprofit bicycle shop that fixes up hundreds of abandoned bikes found on campuses and resells them for cheap to the Boston community. Quad bikes says their mission is to encourage people in the area to understand, use, and appreciate bicycles through bicycle repair.