Difficult Music

Becoming Les Battersby
One of the highlights of the weekend was when the belter led me down to the basement of my local Salvation Army Thrift Store. I felt like a young monk being shown the Secrets of the Brotherhood. A torch, some cobwebs, bats, and mossy earthen walls would have completed the picture. Instead there was only a sign warning us that any abusive behaviour or language was grounds for immediate ejection from the premises. And instead of ancient scrolls and consecrated skeletal remains there was a massive tray of assorted cutlery, husks of obsolete computers, barrels full of golf clubs…the detritus of western civilization!

There were also records! We had no time to rifle through even a small portion of them, but I still managed to make a score: Quo by Status Quo. From 1974, the year rock attained perfection. I paid 54 cents for it, went home and rocked out.

I was mildly creeped out by the Sally Ann’s basement, and the sheer volume of junk down there. It looked like evidence of forced relocation, like the piles of shoes, clothing and jewellery heaped up in WW II concentration camps. Maybe the SA can twist The Bay’s slogan to its own purposes: Shopping Is Morbid. Works for me.