ACME Rock Shop: The hastiest yet most instinctive business decision of my life.
It was late 1979, and at the age of nine, I had already developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Rock & Roll. When I wasn’t busy playing hockey like a normal Canadian kid or taking Hammond Organ lessons (unlike any other normal Canadian kid), all of my free time was spent flipping through stacks of my parents’ classic rock albums, reading Circus Magazine, Creem, Hit Parade, and occasionally braving the dusty shelves of the local library to pull up anything I could find on The Beatles, The Stones, or The Who.
By the age of nine I had certainly earned what could be considered a solid Bachelor’s Degree in rock musicology. I was well versed in all things ranging from AC DC to Zeppelin, but it was an honest mistake on my mother’s part that changed everything. Given that my younger brother Rob and I hadn’t even cracked the double digits yet, and were too young to take public transit, we had become accustomed to sending our busy mother to A&A Records or International Musicland to pick up albums in exchange for allowances and ten-dollar birthday cheques from grannies, aunties, and god parents. …show more content…
But what my mother came home with that day, was something entirely different: a brand new album, Regatta de Blanc, by Britain’s soon to be kings of the “new wave”, The Police. While it wasn’t the album we had been waiting for, something about the cocky three lads on its sleeve intrigued us, so we tore through the cellophane and had it on our Grundig turntable faster than you can say “We Sold Our Souls for Rock &
It was late 1979, and at the age of nine, I had already developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Rock & Roll. When I wasn’t busy playing hockey like a normal Canadian kid or taking Hammond Organ lessons (unlike any other normal Canadian kid), all of my free time was spent flipping through stacks of my parents’ classic rock albums, reading Circus Magazine, Creem, Hit Parade, and occasionally braving the dusty shelves of the local library to pull up anything I could find on The Beatles, The Stones, or The Who.
By the age of nine I had certainly earned what could be considered a solid Bachelor’s Degree in rock musicology. I was well versed in all things ranging from AC DC to Zeppelin, but it was an honest mistake on my mother’s part that changed everything. Given that my younger brother Rob and I hadn’t even cracked the double digits yet, and were too young to take public transit, we had become accustomed to sending our busy mother to A&A Records or International Musicland to pick up albums in exchange for allowances and ten-dollar birthday cheques from grannies, aunties, and god parents. …show more content…
But what my mother came home with that day, was something entirely different: a brand new album, Regatta de Blanc, by Britain’s soon to be kings of the “new wave”, The Police. While it wasn’t the album we had been waiting for, something about the cocky three lads on its sleeve intrigued us, so we tore through the cellophane and had it on our Grundig turntable faster than you can say “We Sold Our Souls for Rock &