LP: Tattoo Man
Heading north from Lima, I stopped for a while in the college town of Bowling Green, where I encountered a brief tornado warning that I wasn't sure what to do about, as well as a neat-looking record store that unfortunately didn't stock any used records, only new ones. Later that afternoon I pulled into the northern Ohio city of Toledo, which straddles the Maumee River at the western end of Lake Erie.
[ Toledo, OH — skyline from east bank of Maumee River ]
After driving around for awhile, I came upon the Lorraine Motor Hotel, which was built in 1925 and doesn't have air conditioning or fans, and in the lobby of which I paid the sensible rate of $33 for a room for the night. I got room #509, which I saw as a good sign since it's the area code in my hometown of Yakima, Washington.
Before grabbing some dinner at Tony Packo's Cafe, which features a "Hot Dog Bun Museum" (I ended up seated next to the buns of Larry King and Patti LaBelle)...
...I had time for an hour or two of shopping, so I went to RamaLama Records on West Central Avenue. The store's owner was helpful and nice, even recommending other stores I should visit while in town. I found some neat stuff at RamaLama Records, including this 1978 disco rock LP from Canadian-American singer Denise McCann. The title track features the lyrics "Tattoo Man—get your needle out of my skin," which might be the best sexual euphemism ever set to music. I also admire Denise for not featuring a stereotypical tattoo man on the cover of her record, but choosing a skinny, chain-smoking, tattooless Japanese guy instead. He's much more my type as well. Unfortunately, Denise's record labels kept going out of business just as she was about to release her LPs, so she's not as well known nowadays as she ought to be. You can read all about her life and career on Wikipedia here.
[ RamaLama Records — Toledo, OH ]
1 comment:
One glimpse at that record cover and I KNEW it had to be Canadian. (I'm Canadian). Was reassuring to keep reading and find my instincts were right. I'm glad you're showing these little used record stores love while they still exist -- they're certainly vanishing off the radar here in London.
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