Me and Kev Cane went to the New York/Philly area looking for records
in the summer of 1989, we'd had a good trip in terms of records (found
loads of goodies) and in terms of having a good laugh (we were in our
twentys at the time and would have done anything for a giggle)
We had done a lot of travelling in a hire car and our last couple of
days were car-free staying at a YMCA in Manhattan, for our last day we
had an appointment to see Lou Silvani (Times Square records, which is
run out of his house in The Bronx).
Lou agreed to see us even though he had put off an arranged game of
golf as he probably thought we had thousands of dollars to spend!
The night before really was a wild night in Manhattan involving, Irish
bars, an indian restaurant and a couple of madonna lookalikes (another
story) didn't get to bed till 5 a.m ( we were due at Lou's at 9!!)
We woke the next morning worse for wear but got to the subway station
on 34th to make our way to the Bronx with hangovers from hell and
about $1000 each in cash in our pockets! also bearing in mind that
NYC was still the most violent city on the planet in the 80's.
To cut a long story short we got off the train at the wrong stop (10
stops too early) and realised it after about a nanosecond!! The street
where we ended up didn't look particularly friendly and we both
thought we were about to die, then, by an unbelievable stroke of
luck a phone booth appeared and I quickly got the piece of paper out
of my pocket with Lou's number on it and in typical british comedy
farce, a wad of dollars dropped on the floor!!! We both stopped
breathing at this point and somehow I managed to casually picked up
the dosh and rang Lou! Lou asked us to pick out a landmark and came
screeching round the corner in about 5 minutes to save our lives in
his oldsmobile!!
To this day that 5 minutes seemed to last two and a half hours. Lou
said that it wasn't a particularly nice area and we would probably
have been mugged for $1, never mind $1000 each!!!!!
Once we got to Lou's place (the basement of his house is actually a
record warehouse with racks of 45s everywhere) we started looking
through piles of 45's we were looking for 3 or 4 hours and basically
found nowt, we were starting to get pissed off and very hot (August in
NY is 100+) Lou was starting to get a bit restless by now cos neither
of us had picked any records out and he'd put off a golf game to make
a few dollars off us. We searched for another hour or so and picked
out about twenty-odd 45s each and a dozen copies of Marva Lee on Atco!
The total came to less than $200, Lou was not a happy bunny!!
Before we went I needed to use the toilet badly (the previous nights
Guiness-fest and dodgy vindaloo was now about to get its revenge!!)
The toilet that Lou directed me to was actually right next to his
small desk a few feet away!! I went in and was there for about an
hour!! Kev said that the sounds and smells emanating from the small
cubicle together with the oppresive heat were horrific!! When I came
out the stench was overpowering and I could see Kev giggling as Lou
was holding his nostrils together saying stuff like "jeez" and "what
the fcuk". We quickly settled-up and did one!
The sight of Lou waving us off with his fingers pinching his nose
spraying air freshener around will stay with me forever, great days.
Gaz
