Our Pal Lux Record Shopping Runs Into Martha Reeves!

Our friend Lux, who we recently interviewed was record shopping at Mill Valley Music when he ran into Martha Reeves who was there doing the same thing. The Motown fan and Ms. Reeves hit it off big time!

Streaming will never produce an experience like this.

COMMENTS
Hosta3's picture

I listened with interest and granted with some jealousy of your Apple studio visit. Well, the original Motown studio on W. Grand Blvd in Detroit is occasionally open to the public, just in case your back in Michigan.

BTW, I appreciated your vinyl presentation at Larrry's Audio Night this past fall in Ann Arbor.

Michael Fremer's picture
By Searching here under "Reviews" "The Beatles"
OldschoolE's picture

There is nothing better than running into an artist while shopping for records. I'm so glad Lux ran into Martha Reeves while both shopping for records. This is the absolute best thing about vinyl!
I too experienced similar back in the late 80s. I ran into The Alarm while shopping in a tiny record store one day (most soft-spoken guys ever met). They dropped in just to drop off some promo stuff for their concert at a big amphitheater and for their new LP. They ended up staying a few minutes chatting with folks (including yours truly) at the front counter.

PranaMan's picture

Nice! Have you seen this documentary about Village Music? It was done by David Grisman's son and daughter, Monroe and Gillian. A performance by Dan Hicks leads off the sound track with Daria singing backup. A little later on, they can be seen performing. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2133367/

lpaddict2's picture

Great kid, with a fantastic hobby, I've enjoyed for 40+yrs, also a relative thru marriage, great parents who allowed him to experience some of life's greatest joy's, I've been a follower of you Michael from your start, also have a almost complete collection of Tracking Angle, missing 1 release, was a subscriber, 1st post, had to comment on your Lux interview, he's a very very sharp kid

john ryan horse's picture

When I worked at the Cambridge Tower around the turn of the century Peter Wolf was almost a regular, buying jazz and early r & r, and I got several J.Geils albums signed. Also ran into Bernard Fowler (Stones, Bill Laswell, Nickelbag) there when the RS were in town. It's very weird seeing someone like Wolf browsing quite anonymously (unrecognized or unmolested) in a town where he was a superstar. "Nowhere to run to, baby / Nowhere to hide..."

Eskisi's picture

I guess it makes more sense to run into musicians while shopping for vinyl but I ran into Travis frontman Fran Healy looking for ham at the local deli recently. We discussed the benefits of applewood smoked versus Madrange, prosciutto cotto and bone-in ham. He was more appreciative of meeting a fellow connoisseur of jambon than that I was familiar with most their songs. Vinyl did not come up.

Michael Fremer's picture
Way under appreciated group.... Funny though, when I'm at a record store and run into musicians we don't talk about smoked ham!
Eskisi's picture

Yes musically Travis is very underappreciated but I was also underwhelmed by his scant knowledge of ham. May be it comes from being Scottish -- they actually eat haggis and they are tight. Probably think spam makes an adequate substitute for ham when money is tight.

worldofsteve's picture

This makes me very happy, as Nick Hornby said "you know what's playing in a download store when you log in in ? Nothing." It's the physicality of the whole thing. Cheers Mikey for your passion and flying the flag for the black stuff.

762rob's picture

I lived in Marin County and worked in Mill Valley for many years. Hardly a week went by when I wasn't in Village Music. Next to me there one day was BB King browsing Lp's - what a kind gentleman he was.
John still operates a mini version of Village Music at El Paseo in Mill Valley on Saturday afternoons. His record store is legend, and he is a very special man, I just saw him this past October.

john ryan horse's picture

When I was growing up, my discovery of music was solitary. Parents had no interest in any kind of music, and kids at my working class school were into Zeppelin, Top 40, maybe the Stones. After the Monkees and top 40 I was itchy to discover more. Hit Parader had an article about the "underground" FM rock 'n' roll stations, and I found WBCN at age 11. Much of what I heard quite astonished me and without any frame of reference I had to read more, leading to exploration of blues. Janis Joplin mentioned Bessie Smith in an interview so I bought "World's Greatest Blues Singer" and was surprised at how different it sounded from Joplin. No guitars or drums? ...Spring 1970, I remember some of the stuff I heard on BCN that was like discovering Martian music: Coltrane, James Brown, doo-wop, Beefheart, Howlin Wolf, Steppenwolf...The first Velvets song I heard was 'Sister Ray' and it literally scared me - Maureen seemed to be banging trash cans ineptly, and when Lou sings "Too busy sucking on the ding-dong', well, I couldn't believe it, that an adult would sing that and a record company would issue it! Thkis all read not to "I love this!" but "What does it mean, & how is it good?" and a lot of reading and solitary research. When I bought "Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka" it sounded like a shrieking, cataclysmic event, riot in a canyon (or Jihad) - the one record that upset the neighbors' backyard barbecue enough to warrant a complaint.
If I was part of a music-loving family or had peers with similar interests things would have been quite different. But I NEEDED it, and the magazines and books, the delicious sense of intense curiosity. I'm astonished a lot less these days, but I still need it. I fear the pervasive presence of self curated satellite radio and streaming, the instant availability of whatever one "likes", dampens the mystery and the thrilling solitary adventure I experienced

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