“When I was a teenager, my parents, probably with good reason, gave me the earliest curfew possible. I would get dropped off by my mom in our mini van outside of the various “venues” where rock shows were happening, and she probably went to McDonald’s and came back to get me. This is my memory.”
“Growing up in Rapid City, SD, there was a lack of big city or even small city culture, but somehow we managed to keep a punk scene going for decades, along with one lone record store. Ernie November sits on a wide, busy street connecting the two sides of town divided by a giant hill with Dinosaur statues on it. It is a small, box-shaped store with 5 parking spaces on the side, and, like the Planned Parenthood that sits a few doors down, one never sees anyone coming or going through the doors. Yet it mysteriously remains open.
One night of the summer, Ernie’s would hold a big midnight sale, and everyone who was anyone planned on going. Because I was 15 and not allowed to stay out late, the only way for me to attend this event was to sneak out of my basement window. I felt like a fugitive, running down the city blocks swiftly while the cicadas blared and the warm wind hummed. Coming upon the store, I saw kids in hoodies and hats and baggy jeans with chains standing around the outside, smoking cigs and looking tough. I was petrified.
I entered the store, which was full of teenagers and young adults and the smell of patchouli incense, thinking “Where did all these people come from?” I rummaged through stacks of 7″s because they were all I could afford and picked out records based on the artwork. Of course, I was too scared of seeming uncool to ask anyone about anything, and asking to listen to something on the store record player with headphones was out of the question.
Looking back on that night, I don’t remember what I bought exactly, but I remember the hippie fragrance that stuck to whatever you purchased and remained there for years.
There was something magical and seedy about that store, which in my mind was the only link between my small world in Rapid City and the bigger world outside—the world where kids roamed the streets at midnight to buy records, secret meetings in orange light, counting change on the glass which held small bongs, cigarette cases, and beaded bracelets—the usual fare for a Saturday night in the middle of a hot summer.
Crawling back through my window into my bedroom that night, the records were the relics—the evidence—that I had indeed done something very “cool” and that something was about to open my world up wide with a tiny needle.”
—Haley Bonar
Haley Bonar’s Last War arrives in stores May 20th via Graveface Records. Pre-order it here. On vinyl.
