Artist: Joe Dassin
LP: 7" single
Today I went rollerskating for the first time in decades—maybe even since Survivor was still at the top of the charts. My friend Charlie invited me to join him and his twin boys, Ollie and Gabe, at Lynnwood Bowl and Skate. We were all pretty wobbly when we first took our skates out on the floor, and to be honest we were pretty wobbly when we left too, but we were all doing a lot better than when we arrived. The main thing is we had a good time and nobody died or had to be taken to the hospital.
I was really excited when I heard "Xanadu" come blazing through the roller rink's 1980s sound-system, though I'm sure I was one of only a handful of skaters who understood the thrilling significance of having that particular song being played while we zoomed through beams of colored light, circulating around the giant oval-shaped wooden floor with plastic wheels stuck to the bottoms of our shoes. Then they played "Beat It," which was pretty neat too! And then a little later they played "Xanadu" again...and then they played "Beat It." My final estimate for the total number of individual songs the Lynnwood Bowl and Skate DJs had available to work with is 14.
I promised myself I wasn't going to buy any more records for the rest of this month (not in Seattle, anyhow), but my car ended up taking me to Golden Oldies after skating—just to see if they'd gotten any new Prince singles in or if they had any LeVert 45s that I needed for my collection. They hadn't and they didn't, but while I was there, the owner sauntered over to inform me that I only needed to spend $10 more before I'd have won another "gorp" prize, which means I'd get $100 credit to use at the store! Well, they closed in only 45 minutes anyhow, so I figured I might as well stay and thumb through a few bins, just to pass the time.
This Joe Dassin single that went to the top of the French pop charts in 1975 is one of the things I turned up. Joe, born in New York City in 1938, is the son of Jules Dassin, the American filmmaker who made gritty 1940s noir films like BRUTE FORCE and THIEVES' HIGHWAY before being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. No longer able to make films in the USA, Jules then went to Europe where people are generally a lot more reasonable. There he set to work making a number of brilliant movies—like TOPKAPI, NEVER ON SUNDAY and RIFIFI—that were 10 times more daring and exciting than anything the production-code-hampered studios in Hollywood would ever have been able to get off the ground. Anyway, Jules' son Joe Dassin appeared in a few of his father's movies before becoming a major pop star all across Europe...but not in the USA, of course.
I was really excited when I heard "Xanadu" come blazing through the roller rink's 1980s sound-system, though I'm sure I was one of only a handful of skaters who understood the thrilling significance of having that particular song being played while we zoomed through beams of colored light, circulating around the giant oval-shaped wooden floor with plastic wheels stuck to the bottoms of our shoes. Then they played "Beat It," which was pretty neat too! And then a little later they played "Xanadu" again...and then they played "Beat It." My final estimate for the total number of individual songs the Lynnwood Bowl and Skate DJs had available to work with is 14.
I promised myself I wasn't going to buy any more records for the rest of this month (not in Seattle, anyhow), but my car ended up taking me to Golden Oldies after skating—just to see if they'd gotten any new Prince singles in or if they had any LeVert 45s that I needed for my collection. They hadn't and they didn't, but while I was there, the owner sauntered over to inform me that I only needed to spend $10 more before I'd have won another "gorp" prize, which means I'd get $100 credit to use at the store! Well, they closed in only 45 minutes anyhow, so I figured I might as well stay and thumb through a few bins, just to pass the time.
This Joe Dassin single that went to the top of the French pop charts in 1975 is one of the things I turned up. Joe, born in New York City in 1938, is the son of Jules Dassin, the American filmmaker who made gritty 1940s noir films like BRUTE FORCE and THIEVES' HIGHWAY before being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. No longer able to make films in the USA, Jules then went to Europe where people are generally a lot more reasonable. There he set to work making a number of brilliant movies—like TOPKAPI, NEVER ON SUNDAY and RIFIFI—that were 10 times more daring and exciting than anything the production-code-hampered studios in Hollywood would ever have been able to get off the ground. Anyway, Jules' son Joe Dassin appeared in a few of his father's movies before becoming a major pop star all across Europe...but not in the USA, of course.
[ Joe Dassin: November 5, 1938 — August 20, 1980 ]
1 comment:
I love reading about how your adventures take you to record stores!
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