24 Hours Of Wu-Tang

I’ve been watching everything Wu-Tang for the last 24 hours.

And, I’ve been enjoying the shit out of it. It's wild because I’ve never liked Wu-Tang. As a kid, white kids were the only people I knew who idolized Wu-Tang. They made them out to be these hardcore drug fiends, but these guys were goofy, nerds who had to survive in the hood. Raw? Yeah. Loud? no, shit. But, menaces to society? Not possible. They just loved rhyming together...and records.

Really, the emphasis of records made me think back to working in a record shop. I was living in Portland, ME, when I started to appreciate records, cassettes and music, really. I mean, I grew up a theater kid performing throughout Detroit, but I was taught the art of singing. I was taught how to breathe. I was taught how to perform. I was never taught style. Style had to come from branching out, and unfortunately I didn’t do that until I was in my early 20s.

I used to frequent this one place called Bull Moose, a record store chain throughout New England. The one I went to was the original location -- It’s situated in the basement of this big ass brick building. When I first went, it was musty, dingy and filled with all types of people. The windows were cinder blocks, the walls looked like they were melting and there were bins on bins of records, cassettes and CDs sitting comfortably on the floor. Shit was GRITTY.

One day, I decided I wanted to start performing again, and for that to happen I had to immerse myself in music. So, I walked down the two flights, strolled up to the counter, and asked the white, grundy, punk manager at Bull Moose, “are you hiring?” Two weeks later, I was hired. The months following, I learned as much as I could about record upkeep, underground artists and how music is for real a universal language.