The band formerly known as Disneyland After Dark. |
Their inventory ranged from $1.99 cassettes to the Kiss Pinball Machine. They had the Journey Escape video game (a working copy of it), and the Object from the cover of Led Zeppelin's finest album, Presence. The friendly guys who work there (Jeff, Shock, Roman, hope you are reading this) would talk music with me for hours, and I learned a lot hanging out there.
I also got to meet Mike Monroe from Hanoi Rocks who was in there shopping through old T Rex vinyl in full makeup and eyeliner. He was a very nice guy, especially since I didn't "make" him until after he'd left and Shock came up behind me and rumbled "Hey Paulie, dat was Mike Monroe."
Anyway I bought a lot of great stuff there over the years, including my first two Marillion albums: (Clutching at Straws and Seasons End--I bought Season's End first but wore out Clutching first.)
Over at Revolver, they didn't have as much cool bric-a-brac but they sold promos. A LOT of promos. I got my (early) copies of Savatage's Streets, AC/DC's The Razor's Edge and albums by "lost" bands like Badlands, Mind Funk and Boom Crash Opera.
So the reason for today's trip down Nostalgia Lane is to talk about....D.A.D.
This little-known Danish quartet (the initials stood for Disneyland After Dark) put out at least one great album: No Fuel Left For the Pilgrims. The two Binzer brothers and bassist Stig had a unique sound, with twangy Western guitars, roaring, anthemic choruses and a bassist who did all his work on a two-stringed instrument! But they also had great songs including "Sleeping My Day Away", "Jihad" and my personal favorite, "ZCMI." This was metal from the canyons of America's West. And the best part was, they were from....
Denmark
Told you they were weird. Anyway here's a video. Enjoy, lil dogies.
I LOVED "It's Only Rock and Roll" as a store and was sad when it went away. As a Metal youth I spent SO MUCH money in the place but I don't recall ever meeting any notable music personality. My luck was always to hear "oh do you know who just left" or "was just here the other day"....sigh. That was OK though, I was fine with my musical heroes being on the albums I was looking through.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct about their selling promotional copies. This was very commonplace back in the day. If memory serves me well, I also purchased a couple of "bootleg" albums there and I did okay in my selections while some friends did not fare the same. When the boots and promos all became CD's, almost all of the establishments that let us access them were shut down.
The closest thing to this type of store nowadays is Rock Fantasy up in Middletown, NY and Vintage Vinyl in NJ. A visit to either place will find you dropping at least $100 bucks. That being said I have some traveling to do and see what's happening at these shops. Great article Paul.