Dichroics play the Christian Nightmares’ showcase at Johnny Brenda’s this Saturday, 1/28 with Circle of Buzzards and DJ Los spinning nothing but vinyl throughout the night!
“The first record I owned was a 45 of Hall and Oats “Private Eyes.” I was eight years old and didn’t know anything about music. I picked it out because I’d heard it on the radio in our station wagon. For more than two years that was the only record I owned.
I quickly got bored with listening to it and soon began manipulating it on the little plastic record player I had, slowing it down to 33rpm’s at the hand clap on the chorus, shooting rubber bands at the record arm from across the room while it played, and scribbling all over the cover with crayons.
When I was ten my brother and I both got BB guns for Christmas. I shot holes in Hall and Oats for target practice in the backyard and eventually destroyed the record by throwing it up in the air until it shattered on our driveway.
My parents were definitely not “cool hippies” and they didn’t really listen to music or own many records. My exposure to music came from outside our home. The main source of that discovery growing up was the local record store. The suburb of Kansas City where I grew up was really conservative and pretty non-descript, the polar opposite of cool. There was luckily an outpost for records there though, the aptly named Exile Records and Tapes.
I would ride my skateboard there with a plastic bag full of change to buy records. I was now around twelve years old and still didn’t have much of a clue about anything musically. I would base my purchases on what was cheap, what band had the most “punk” sounding name, and how cool the cover art looked. Sometimes this method worked for me and sometimes it would turn out to be a total head melting train-wreck.
I deliberated for weeks before buying the Flipper live double record, Public Flipper Limited used for $8.50. It had the coolest cover that opened up to be a big board game with a cartoon drawing of their tour route around the country, really appealing.
Dichroics – t-Party Time Traveler
When I got that thing home I was like, “what the fuck is this?” I was kind of scared of it, the things the crowd yelled between the songs and just how “broken” the music sounded. I literally thought it was broken when the second song, “Hard Cold World” started and was so slow, like it was recorded wrong or something. I sped it up to 45rpm’s trying to “fix” it.
My under-educated consumer mishaps would continue with Scratch Acid, Crass, The Crucifucks, Big Black, etc…All of these records were way beyond my powers of perception at the time and I hated them. Exile had a no returns, no exchanges policy for used records so I just hid them in my closet.
I really did hide them for fear of my parents finding them and knowing if they did it would be worse than finding porn in my room. After a few years those records came out of the closet. Listening to them again with fresh ears and an expanded mind was really “hearing” them for the first time. That Flipper record is jazz to me now.”
—Darin Mickey
Dichroics Bandcamp
