my collapsing heart

A couple years prior to Covid-FU I was looking for ways to spike sales at El Recordo' Sto'. It was summer and as usual sales had dried up. Da Judge always wanted to do 10 or 15% off sales but I told him that was ridiculous. They barely covered the tax on a $24 album. Ain’t nobody kicking doors down to get a 15% discount anywhere. I needed a way to get people into the store, buying beer and records. About that time a small album flat arrived advertising A new collaboration LP from Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga (Tony Gaga?) We hung it in the usual places for a couple weeks and then I had a grand idea. I cut Tony’s face out of the flat and taped it to a shelf in the bathroom. This began the summer of the Floating Head of Tony Bennett(TM) Every couple days I would move the head to a new spot. A lot of times it was arbitrarily stuck between some records, other times taped to the furniture. Once I even taped him to the underside of a cymbal sitting on the stage. If you found Tony’s floating head you won a free LP mystery bag. The bags were another way to move dead merchandise. Four $1LPs and one decent one in a paper bag. I retail them for $5 assuring people at least something in it is listenable. We gave away a lot of bags as Tony’s head roamed around the store. He drove sales up quite a lot during that time.

The downside of this ground-breaking ides was I now had an album flat with a big hole in it. This called for another genius stroke!! Take a photo with TFHTB then tag us on the social medias for a 25% discount or a free beer. We had a lot of fun with those two pieces and it definitely helped our sales. But then Covid-FU came along and everything went higgledy-piggledy. I have a long wondered what happened to those pieces.

We went to the store the other day to have a beer with Eddie The Painting Guy . There is a pile of old beaten up album flats in a newly created 'free' bin. Buried, the very bottom piece in the pile was the Tony Bennett cut out. (The fate of his head still remains a mystery) We had a great laugh and invited some of the customers to get their photo taken. These days as I grow a few years older every minute I am growing more and more nostalgic. It reminded us of better times at the record store. We’re down to just the one location now and who knows how long that’ll last.

But for a while ,,, we had a blast.

peanuts and crackerjacks

Soon, my friend....soon.

Soon, we BASEBALL!