Louder than Bombs

I'm in Reckless on a Saturday afternoon. The hipsters are browsing, or pretending to, but really they're just listening to their iPods, no longer needing any physical musical receptacles, downloading everything they listen to directly from the internet. The clerks are pretending to log new records but are really just updating their blogs where they deride the hipsters for abandoning the analogue soul of real music. There's no need to catalogue the records anyway, only the staff will buy them. The store's PA pumps out some mid-70s French prog, the notes reaching upward to infinity like a stairway to heaven. Although it seems the chord progressions will never end, they eventually do, leaving only the sound of the needle scraping the inner groove.

A particularly weak-looking clerk in a plaid shirt with snaps slips from his stool and weakly lifts the slab of musty wax from the table. He brings out another album and cues it up, the first track, side A. The other clerks slowly turn their heads on their thin, pale, tattooed necks, recognize the album label, and listlessly return to their terminals. The PA hisses and then an bright strummed acoustic guitar breaks through the tomb like atmosphere.

First one then another shopper's ears prick up. Their eyes clear; they raise atrophied limbs to their heads and remove the shiny white buds. I tense up, a little shocked by the uniformity of their response. Then the inevitable happens.

"When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers, and how you built a tower tumbling through the trees/and holy rattle snakes fell all round your feeeeeeet..." Everyone enters precisely on cue, and as if by some kind of group telepathic communion, we're singing as one, without restraint or shame. I'm taken aback to find that I too have joined in the choir, without even knowing it. The clerks share confused looks as late morning shafts of the sun weakly fall among the dust motes that swirl through the air, tumbling upwards and down, obeying seemingly inconsequential destinies.

***

Later, I return to the store. Most of the customers began to shuffle off after the clerks pulled the record, a little embarrased and confused. After the Jesus Christ song, it was almost too much, the clerks were getting distracted, emotional. They wouldn't admit it though.

I knew there was supposed to be an in-store that afternoon. I couldn't read the flyer, it was badly photocopied and featured crude renderings of jungle animals slaking their terrible hunger on the entrails of white businessmen.

Everything is set up, two mics and a boom box sitting on a tall stool. M.I.A. walks casually out from the back of the store and grabs a mic. "Wha's up beeeetches?" She cranks the boom box, instantly blowing the woofers. It spits sick, crunchy beats out of its torn cones.

She lifts the microphone to her mouth and the PA is spitting deadly syllables at us with all the force of a .30-06 rifle, shredding bodies and overturning displays. I scramble over a heap of bodies and broken records towards the exit. It's too late, locked in.

Well, I guess you eventually get to like something like that. I do. I can hear helicopters loaded down with relief supplies overhead, looking for somewhere to put down. Just then, a sharp dressed middle aged man appears, hair perfectly coiffed in a pompador, button down shirt opened to reveal a little greying chest hair. Stephen Morrissey, I presume.

"Hello, it's me," he says, bringing the other mic delicately up with a manicured hand. He tells us that he's changed his mind about immigrants, that it's the duty of every one to make them feel welcomed in their new homes. "After all, I'm sort of an immigrant myself, thanks for having me." Maya looks bored, waiting for him to finish.

"You know we all have our little secrets..." He's done. She hits the play button on the boom box, unleashing battered beats. She heads right into Bingo, flexing her legs in that universal way long legged girls do on hot days, gathered around a boom box on the street. When the chorus rolls around Morrissey locks right in on her note and nails it, their voices are high and sailing together. "Cuz bingo, now I'm hittin the six..." He brings his left arm up in a sweeping motion, knocking an entire row of heavy metal cassettes off the shelf, Slayer and Judas Priest falling together in a pile of cracked plastic.