Bomb

  When one does a record show, you have to pay in advance for the number of tables you will need to sell your stuff. There were no refunds, if a seller didn't show up.  At the first show I did, I paid for just one table, and I found that one was not enough space.  Two tables were much better.  Some promoters wanted you to buy a space. which was actually better, because you bring in your own tables and other display materials.  At a couple of shows, I brought a combination TV/VCR to play my tapes on which helped pass the time, and it was an attention grabber.  People liked coming to my space, and they ended up buying something.

 One show I did was in Greenville, SC.  It was in an old mall that only had a couple of stores in it.  The night before the show, it snowed in Greenville.  I called the promoter to see if the show was still on, and she said it was.  Since I had paid for two tables, I had to go.  No refunds.  My friends Del and Chris went with me.  I had my usual stuff in the trunk of my car which helped with traction on the icy roads.  After living in Texas, where we got snow a lot in the winter, I knew how to drive in that stuff.

 By the time we got there that morning, the snow had mostly turned into icy slush.  We got off of the interstate, and it was a short drive to the mall.  They had started late to allow for a little thaw.  Our tables were near the entrance to J. B. White's, which was the only department store in the mall.  It was a good location.  As we placed the boxes on the tables, we found that the tables were not sturdy enough to hold the weight of the boxes or record albums.  It sagged in the middle.  So, we put the album boxes on the ends of the tables, and the videotapes in the middle.  

 During the show, there were two guys selling at a couple of tables across from us.  All of a sudden, everyone heard a big bang that sounded like a bomb going off inside the mall.  Between the hearts pounding in peoples' chests and the diving under tables thinking shots fired, we saw what had happened.  Their tables broke, and all of their records were strewn out onto the floor.  After everyone gathered their wits, we all helped them pick up their records.  Some were broken.  The promoter said that it was the mall's fault for having substandard tables.  It was.  The show closed early because of the weather.  I didn't sell much that day, but it was good to know that no one had a heart attack when the "bomb" went off.

Asheville

  After leaving the record show in Spartanburg, my next stop was the Red Roof Inn near Asheville, NC.  I was staying there before our next record show.  Anyone who has driven along I-26 toward Asheville knows that there is a very steep hill on that highway.  I had a bunch of records in my trunk and videotapes on my backseat, so there was a lot of weight on the back part of my car.  When I saw that steep grade ahead of me, I tried to take a running jump at that hill.  I was going 70mph in my little Nissan, when I got to the hill.  I cut off my AC to get more power.  I was even leaning forward to try to get some more momentum.  By the time I got to the top of that hill, my car was creeping along at 35mph.  I was just praying I wouldn't blow out my motor.  I made it over the incline and headed to Asheville.

 On the day of the record show, my friends Chris and Del were supposed to help me.  Unfortunately, they got stuck in a tunnel for hours with a car wreck ahead of them.  They never came until right at the end of the show.  One thing I would do would be to travel around to antique and record stores and find things I could sell for more.  A place I found in Augusta, GA had a lot of music memorabilia.  I found some concert posters for The Beatles and Elvis Presley.  They were $5 each.  At the time, I didn't know they were reproductions, so I had them at the record shows selling them for $20 each.  I had sold the Elvis posters in Spartanburg but still had the Beatles for Asheville.  A guy came up to the table and asked if the posters were real.  He was a high school student.  I told him they were, and he bought one.  I found out later that the date of the Shea Stadium concert was wrong on the poster, and it was fake.  I would like to personally apologize now to whoever bought it that it was fake.  

 There were also some big-time Beatle collectors from Black Mountain, NC who were at the show.  They told me that their collection was in a vault up in the mountains, and no one could see it.  That kind of goes against my thinking.  I used to have a pretty big collection of Beatles stuff.  I displayed it for all to see and for me to enjoy.  For them to put it in a vault sort of takes away from the joy of collecting.  

 When the record show was over, I headed back home.  I still had some records and tapes to leave with.  When I got to the I-26 hill going down, I just took my foot off of the brake and sped down the mountain.  The weight in the back of my car allowed me to not fly down the mountain, but it was fun doing 70mph in my little Nissan.  You meet all kinds of people at record shows.  Some want to bargain with you on price.  One trick for buyers:  if you get there right before closing, you get the best deals.  Most sellers will allow bargaining with the buyers, because they don't want to haul their stuff home with them.  The downside to this is that if you are looking for something in particular, it might be gone by the time you get there.  And, don't ask sellers to hold items for you, unless you offer your first-born male child as collateral.  Finder's keepers, loser's weepers. 

BMG

  When I was doing record shows, I had a variety of items to sell.  Mostly, I sold records and videotapes.  As I wrote about earlier, I used to deal in bootleg material.  I used to sell bootleg video and audio tapes.  They were concerts not available in stores.  The quality was questionable, but people wanted to spend money for these things.  There was a guy in Atlanta that sold videotapes for $20, so I undercut him and sold mine for $10.  We had a lot of the same stuff.  

 Across the room from me in Spartanburg was a guy named Randy who sold bootleg cd's.  He was asking top dollar for his stuff.  The promoter came up to us about halfway through the show and said that BMG was coming to the show to look for bootlegs.  BMG had a plant in Spartanburg, and our bootlegs were breaking the law.  I just put my videotapes under the table.  A tablecloth went to the floor.  Randy gathered up all of his product and quickly loaded them into his car.  He was pulling out of the parking lot, as BMG came in.  No bootlegs were found, so they left.  

 A few years later, Randy got caught with his bootlegs at a record store in Columbia.  He went to federal prison for a while.  One had to know how to advertise them.  They were either "imports" or "promos".  Keep them on the down low.  After Randy went away, those of us stopped selling them at record shows.  It was just too dangerous.  I ended up selling my collection on eBay as blank tapes with stuff on them.  I hope they liked the blanks.

Spartanburg

  I used to sell stuff at Record Shows at several cities in South Carolina and North Carolina.  If I had to travel, I would usually book a motel room for the night to be ready for the next day, and hopefully where the show was going to be held.  One such motel was in Spartanburg, SC.  

 I had arrived early to look around town.  One place I visited was the First Baptist Church, where my father had been on staff back in the late 1930's.  I enjoyed that visit, but I heard so much about the downtown area being filled with shops and pedestrian friendly.  I walked across the street to a jewelry store to get directions to downtown Spartanburg.  The man in the store took me outside and pointed across some woods.  He said that was downtown, but he said:  "You can't get there from here".  It was kind of weird, so I never made it downtown.

 I went back to the motel to eat and relax.  In the next room to mine, a TV was blaring through the wall.  It was so loud that I couldn't hear the TV in my room.  I knocked on their door to ask them to turn it down, but I got no answer.  I called down to the front desk to see if they could call that room and ask them to turn it down.  They told me that it wasn't their responsibility to control what others did in their rooms, even if it was disturbing others.  I just felt they didn't want to get involved.

 Now, it was approaching midnight.  I had to get up early the next morning to set up for the Record Show.  Still, the TV was so loud that I was getting irater.  I walked down to the office and demanded that they go up to the room next to mine and get them to turn off their TV.  Reluctantly, the guy at the desk walked with me to the offending room and pounded on the door.  No answer.  He used his passkey to enter the room and found no one there.  He told me that the room was occupied by a man and his son.  Apparently, it was homecoming at Wofford College, and they were in Spartanburg for that.  

 I finally went to sleep.  At 2am, I was awakened by those two coming back.  Thankfully, they didn't turn on the TV again.  The next morning, I saw them in the lobby and just glared at them.  The clerk at the desk apologized for my lack of sleep.  He said that the man apologized to the clerk for the TV.  It seems his son had cranked it up when they left, and he didn't know his son had done it at the time. The motel should have credited my account for the room, but they didn't.  I went to the Record Show with very little sleep under my belt.  Somebody could have bought all of my stuff for $1, and I wouldn't have known the difference.