gloria

I don't remember what year it was, but I was in our living room when my older brother came out of our late father's den and told me to come back with him to the den and watch something. We kept a small television in there and it was showing a band's video. I still have a firm idea of my first impression from watching it that day. The band was playing on some sort of barge set upon a river in what looked like an industrial city. The lead singer was very earnest, the lead guitar player seemed very secure, the bass player looked kind of mean and tough, and they had some young kid playing drums. It was U2 and the song was 'Gloria.'

Up to that time, I hadn't really gotten into music and was only familiar with what I heard on the radio that was popular. It took a while longer until the Pretenders that one of my older sisters was into and U2 began to grab a hold of me. It wasn't until my second year of college that I started buying albums, including U2's October to complement the Boy and War albums that one of my roommates already had. The college radio station, KCPR, had recently started a new format and started calling themselves The Sound Alternative, so I heard songs by bands such as Los Lobos, R.E.M., and Lloyd Cole & the Commotions. Besides his U2 albums, my roommate Kevin's record collection included bands such as X, the Bangles (he had their first EP, before Michael Steele was a member), and the English Beat.

I loved looking around the local record store Boo Boo Records on Monterey Street (the records! the posters!). Cheap Thrills was another music store that was a part of my usual walking route through San Luis Obispo. My two roommates and I lived near the Mission, so it was a short distance to all the cool shops in town. I wonder what Boo Boo Records is like now?