RATW 03

This is one of my favorite issues. Not only did I score a coup getting the Mojo Nixon interview, but this issue included the “The Great North American Alternative Record Store Map”! More on both, below. 

A cover image of a known musician that matches the interview! What a concept! A first for RATW.

Mojo Nixon!! Mojo was a big deal back then in the alternative world of rock and roll. His music was considered “a frisky down-home mixture of blues, R&B and rockabilly” (per trouserpress.com, now a website, then an alternative rock reference book that was one of my main resources for coming up with descriptions of the bands and artists in the RATW listings.) 

To be honest, I only know one song of his (“The Amazing Bigfoot Diet” – classic Mojo silliness) but he was fairly ubiquitous at the time, showing up on MTV and being regularly interviewed in prominent music magazines. So how cool that he agreed to be interviewed by my little zine!

I love this map!

Why did I produce such a thing? For the same reason I produced the magazine: because I wanted it for myself! 

When traveling in different towns, I would want to go record shopping, especially at used record stores. Back then, there was no nation-wide guide. The only resource was the local printed yellow pages – which meant one couldn’t do record store research until one got to a town. 

I remember a great trip I took into NYC in 1988 while visiting my friend Elena who was at Sarah Lawrence College. After doing appropriate research in her local yellow pages, I then went into town, hitting up record store after record store and nothing else! I got to see parts of Manhattan I wouldn’t have seen otherwise (mostly around Washington Square). And I found some great rare finds to boot! 

I used the same resource as I did when researching clubs and promotors for RATW: our local library! Home to yellow pages from every major city across the United States. 

For the record store map, picture me at the great big main library in downtown Portland, in one of the side rooms. I’m sitting on the floor surrounded by phone books. I literally went through every single phone book in the United States and Canada, searching for record stores that appeared to be independent and alternative. Where was the internet when I needed it?! 

Back then, the yellow pages were THE way for businesses to be found. Businesses could pay extra to include little ads, so it wasn’t just a boring listing. I could tell by the ad how commercial and mainstream a store was, or how independent and alternative it was. It was all an educated guess! But I think I nailed it. 

I then built my map on my trusty Apple Mac SE using the same program I did for the magazine: “Publish-It”. I chose the “straight line” look for map making (because I didn’t know how to do “Bezier curves” yet), which I think was appropriate for the hard-edged look of alternative rock! I also listed all the addresses and phone numbers in the world’s smallest font that my older eyes are not happy about. 

I included the map in the December issue of RATW, then made it available for sale separately from the magazine in subsequent issues. What a huge endeavor in such small type face! It was amazing how much information I could pack onto those pages. Of all the listings in my town of Portland, only one of the stores still exists and is going strong: Music Millennium!