After my first year of college I took my first road trip without my parents or sister – it was a short one (Malone to Utica) and it was just me and my life-long swimming hole friend Gary. Once we got there, we found a college dorm with a couple of couches we could sleep on in the lounge and then went out on the town. Gary had one place that he absolutely HAD to show me, and that was a strip bar called (this is for real) the Hotsy Totsy Club.
Up until the night I walked into that bar, my only experience with that sort of thing was decidedly 2D, and as it turns out I was ill-prepared for actually seeing these girls in person and in motion. Gary and I were at a front table to the left of the stage, but we could’ve sat anywhere – there were only two other people in the place. When one of the dancers came out and started twirling her tassels (first to the left, then to the right and then in opposite directions) to Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round In Circles” I knew it was time to leave before any other songs got associated with images I didn’t particularly want to remember. Gary must’ve seen the look on my face, and was kind enough to take me to a more familiar setting – a club where girls with their clothes on generally say no.
The next day we went to a record store and I bought Big Star’s “#1 Record” and George Harrison’s “Living In The Material World” – one on the basis of a review in Rolling Stone magazine and the other because, well… it was by a Beatle. I listened to them both as soon as I got home. I put on Big Star first, because I always like to save what I think will be the best for last, and was just blown away – it was poppy, but strange, messy and unpredictable. It shimmered, tried its best to be happy (and failed) and forced me to listen again. George Harrison didn’t have a chance after that, and the dull post-Spector thud that would become his signature sound just couldn’t cut through the crystal impression that Big Star had left on me.
First impressions are important. First road trip? Not bad, but I’ve never really looked forward to one since. First visit to a strip club? Awful, and although my moral sense isn’t exactly pristine I’ve never gone into a place like that again. “Will It Go Round In Circles” and tassels will forever be linked in my mind, and whenever I think I want to hear “Give Me Love” I’ll wind up playing “Ballad of El Goodo” instead.
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You know now *I’ll* never be able to hear that song without thinking of the tassles, too! (And great story…)