My so-called post-punk life, Part 6

Universal Interior My so called post punk life, Part 6

Universal Records had its share of odd moments. A few of my favorites include:

* Gandalf, the crazy coupon man, saw Jonathan Richman walking by with his guitar and conned him into playing a few songs.

* Marc declaring ELO Week, so we blasted Out Of The Blue for a week straight, which confused our art-punk clientele pretty good. The look on their faces when they came looking for the new Cure single…and then “Blue Skies” roars out of the stereo.

* Gang Of Four did an in-store to publicize the Universal Records-sponsored gig they were doing (at Market Street Cinema!) with Romeo Void and Wall Of Voodoo. It was the first in-store they’d ever done, and they were really shy at first. They didn’t bring any management, just showed up, hung out, drank beer and chatted with whomever for several hours, until one of them said (I think it was Jon), “Is it OK to leave now?”

* Going to a Jars gig in Provo Park. Marc drummed his ass off and looked totally exhausted at the end, so I asked him “Can I get you anything?” “Yeah, you got an extra shirt?” Uh, no.

But now I will tell you the greatest Universal Records story of them all: how Marc Time invented electro. This is 1981, long before Afrika Bambaataa, Mantronix and all that, and I swear this is a true story.

There was this African-American guy named Robin who always hung out in front of the Berkeley Public Library on Shattuck. Somewhere along the line, Robin got it in his head that what he really wanted to do was dance like a robot. For some reason, Robin chose to come to our punky store (why us, of all stores?) to ask the fateful question, “You got anything I can dance like a robot to?” We of course knew just the record for Robin: Kraftwerk’s new record, Computer World.

kraftwerk dummies My so called post punk life, Part 6

When we put it on the PA, Robin’s striking blue eyes lit up even more than usual. Before long, you could see Robin any afternoon in front of the UA7 movie theatre, doing his robot dance. I like to think that he was the start of it all, and before we knew it young African-American men across the country were popping & clicking & acting like robots. I like to imagine that Robin went on to tour the country, spreading the gospel of Kraftwerk and robot-dancing, and then it busted all mainstream, paving the way for Baambataa, Whodini and all that noise. All because of the gang at Universal Records.

[Soundtrack]
Kraftwerk – Pocket Calculator.mp3
Balanescu Quartet – Pocket Calculator.mp3 Robot dancing, 18th century-style

Does anybody out there have any Jars records?

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One Response to “My so-called post-punk life, Part 6”
  1. Marc Time 31 March 2005 at 8:01 pm #

    God!!
    You are remembering things I have totally forgotten about!
    I DID write an article for Decline zine about techno and electronic music but I forgot about some of the characters that we used to chase out of the store( like Eddie and his retard brother who we caught ripping off 45′s).
    Someday I’ll send you some Ron Blankman stories like the time Nervo discovered an old calendar from Ron’s prison days called “The Time I Did”.