Seeing Is Deceiving

So I was just futzing around with the digital camera the other day and for some reason just decided to take pictures of my old stereo cabinet, the one that I've had since the late 80's. Actually there isn't any stereo inside of it, but it does house a portion of my record collection from about A-D or E, I believe. It really has been a hella long time since I went digging around in there. Maybe the slightly more interesting ones will be the future subject of my next snap-happy endeavor. Ho boy, Laurie Anderson through... uh... Devo. Perhaps not.

And I suppose you can tell how old this cabinet is by the coverage of super-rad 1980's-1990's Punk Rock® stickerage I pasted over it throughout those early years. Hey it was a shitty cabinet I got for a sawbuck at a church flea market so you're not gonna hear me gripin'. I'm a little sad that the glass lid fell off into the street and shattered when I was moving it years ago from one apartment to another. The lid stickers were probably the best, including a Dead Milkmen one autographed by a very, very wasted Joe Jack Talcum which read "I will not keep off the grass, love Joe" and a little doodle of a lawn with a sign post stating those words. Indeed.

Sorry about the flash in some photos, but this cabinet is mostly made of glass and I guess I couldn't completely get that glare off, and it wasn't even visible without it. Also, sorry that I am even posting this prosaic goofiness. But I'm bored.


This is the top half of the right side of the cabinet. The Bowling Doughnuts sticker is from my friend Big Kev's old local punk zine, which I used to contribute album reviews and comic strips. The Pee Tanks were a wacky little punk group from DC. Great buncha guys that I think stayed over at my house one night.


This is about midway down. I got that Rage Against The Machine sticker back before I think the band had ever come out with their first album yet. They mailed us a press kit years ago with that in the envelope and I just liked it enough to put it up there.


The bottom right side. Anybody remember The Blue Up? The album Spool Forka Dish was one of my favorite disks from 1995. And I don't know why that Powerman 5000 sticker is there. I never liked them. I think a friend of mine gave it to me and I just slapped it on to cover that little hole of space. That may have been the very last sticker that I ever added to this monstrosity.


This is the top front of the cabinet glass door. Pretty much the first stickers that I started with, being that I had a collection just sitting around collecting its own dust in a drawer. That Frank Zappa one was the first and only one for almost half a year before the rest began to follow.


The bottom half of the front door. Ant Man Bee was a great local funk band in which a buddy of mine used to play keyboards, and that little yellow and black Dial-A-Song is the They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song hotline number that I got from inside one of their CDs. I doubt you can see it, but there is a teeny tiny pinkish sticker at the bottom of the Bad Religion sticker that my best friend designed years ago. It is the famously crude "Pitch In!" drawing on the sides of city trash cans of the little man throwing something away in a wire wastebasket, but instead he is throwing away a swastika and instead of "Pitch In!" it says "Mach Mit" which is German for... gosh, I don't remember. "Join In" or "Do away with" or something like that? A friend of ours who speaks fluent German suggested it. Back when several local punk shows were being overrun with Nazi skins my friends and I printed up tons of those little stickers at Kinko's and papered the town with them. We even covered one whole side of a Nazi chick's car in the middle of the night. One of the local toll booths had one on it for years before it was torn down. Ah, the days of my snot-nosed idealistic youth.


This is the top inside of the glass door. Ha! I remember when I lived at home I put that Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus" sticker on the inside of the door so that my mom wouldn't bitch about seeing the naked lady's butt. Although I made certain to put the one of the naked Frank Zappa sitting on the toilet on the front of the door instead.


And this is the bottom half. Duuude, an original Lolapalooza sticker! Was I cutting edge back then or what?


Now this is the top left hand side of the cabinet. Yes, I have a Suzanne Vega sticker. You may all touch me now.


And finally this is about... well, partway down the side. I didn't get the bottom half of the cabinet because I have a huge teetering stack of books leaning up against it and I was too lazy tom move them away for the rest of the sticker show. Another Bowling Doughnuts sticker, and an Nsect Club one from back in da dizzy. And I want to add how proud I am to own an original Ministry sticker (between Dinosaur and Stranger Than Fiction) back when they were a New Romantic 1980's synth pop band with fake English accents, which was when I was first introduced to them. Considering what they look and sound like these days, they would probably hate to now that this old image of theirs still sees the light of day.