RIP Tom's Tracks (1985-2007) (by Bob Short)

The life of a music junkie can be a lonely one. I spent the early afternoon of my 21^st birthday lying on my stomach in my parent’s living room with a trio of Let’s Active LPs spread on the rug, scrawling notes in a composition book as I stared intently at the speakers. If you turn the volume all the way down you can hear a small and tinny facsimile of the beat coming from the needle. When you hit “stop” the frequency distorts like you’re listening to a chopped n screwed mix. Listening to vinyl makes me feel like a tourist; I enjoy the huge artwork, I love the smell of the record, but I wouldn’t want to deal with these platters every time I listen to music.

My mind wandered to the day I bought them. I was in the vinyl section of Tom’s Tracks, the last record store standing on Providence’s East Side. Walking aimlessly from aisle to aisle with my hands in my coat pockets, I flipped through the REM section, where I found those three records. I was impressed. They didn’t say “File under REM” on the back, they didn’t even say “Mitch Easter (Producer of REM’s Murmer and Reckoning)’s band.” Just some godawful covers and pictures of androgynous early 80s indie kids. Someone behind the counter had known that Let’s Active was Mitch Easter’s band and made the connection. I snapped them up, and walked to the counter with the self satisfied grin of a true snob. A needle wouldn’t touch those platters for over a year, but if the man behind the counter was as cool as I thought he was, I was earning major points.

You see, Tom’s Tracks was a place where you care what they think about you. I’ve made some pretty shameless buys at Newbury Comics in my day; picking up two copies of a Gym Class Heroes album in one trip, stuff like that. I know I wouldn’t ever try a stunt like that at Tom’s. Tom Farnsworth is/was a thin man with graying hair, intense eyes, and a scowl that had the capacity to intimidate. I had seen him snap like a turtle at the poor people who didn’t know that buying concert tickets was a cash only transaction. Still, I made visits a weekly ritual. Three weeks straight in October 2005, I left with a Todd Rundgren album; each time Tom would copy down the serial number, assess the sales tax on a tiny calculator, handwrite the receipt, and swipe my debit card thru the most ancient credit card device I’ve ever seen. He didn’t say a word until the third week, when he narrowed his eyes to slits. “You the kid whose been buying all my Rundgren?” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation. “Umm, yup,” I gulped. He gave an appreciative nod and with what seemed like a benediction said quietly, “his stuff’s great. No one listens to it anymore but the guy’s a genius.” I didn’t say anything else but walked out feeling vindicated. In the coming months I had many more conversations and arguments with Tom and his customers who would stick around to shoot the breeze; whether The Kink Kronikles have the best ever liner notes ever, whether The Rolling Stones psychedelic period was a horrible mistake, why Bruce Springsteen is trying way too hard. I felt like I was part of a community with the people who came there. It was the kind of record store that existed only in Pitchfork Media’s guest lists, Spin’s city guides, and my own imagination. The first time I listened to the New Pornographer’s “Myriad Harbor” I thought of Tom when Dan Bejar sang the line “I walked into the local record store / and asked for an American music anthology.” Bought an album for its cover? Hell yes I have. For the liner notes? Yup. Did I walk in to browse and say hi with no cash in my pocket and no intention of spending a cent? Better believe it.

My freshman year of college ended and with no explicit reason to be on the East Side and my dismissal from a high paying job. My visits to Tom’s would become few and far between. I dropped by in the dog days of August to bark at the financial aid office and visit the store. But when I walked to the counter with a deluxe reissue of The Who’s My Generation Tom looked distressed and didn’t seem to recognize me. I was disappointed but didn’t want to push the issue, and I walked the four blocks to my car.

Over my sophomore year, there was someone new behind the counter. He was slightly heavier, he was nicer, hell sometimes he was outwardly friendly. One time I left my calculator on the counter when I visited after class and didn’t return for several months (cash squeeze, high gas prices). When I came in again though, he recognized me and gave me my calculator back. I could hear him talk to Tom sometimes on the phone. I heard rumors that Tom was sick. I heard rumors that Tom had a stroke. I entered a mostly fallow period in my music buying. For every album I bought that was great (I discovered a love for Guided by Voices and rediscovered my love for They Might Be Giants during this period) I seemed to buy two ones that collected dust in piles on my desk. I spent ten bucks on a cd-r compilation of the Beatles’ fanclub Christmas singles. NEVER EVER SPEND A CENT ON FANCLUB RELEASES. THERE’S A REASON WHY THEY ONLY DUMP THIS KIND OF SHIT ON THEIR CLUELESS HARDCORE FANS. I also got a similar semi-legal release of Paul McCartney b-sides that sounds like it was dubbed from a tape having some dire speed problems. I imagined Johnny Rotten taking the form of Tom, rushing through a crappy Stooges cover and laughing as he asked “ever feel like you’ve been cheated?”

One day I wrote a letter on looseleaf and gave it to the 20-something clerk with the glasses to give to Tom. It said something to the effect of, “Hey how are you/Hope you’re okay/I’m Bob/You know the Rundgren kid/Get well soon/If you ever need help around the store/I have cash handling experience.” Confession: Tom’s Tracks was my dream job.

This fall I bought TV on the Radio’s acclaimed Return to Cookie Mountain and handed it to some girl I never saw before and haven’t seen since. “Oh what do they sound like?” she asked. I was slightly embarrassed. Here I was, a big, bad music writer and I didn’t want to admit that I had been flipping through 8 month old Spin issues and noticed it was album of the year in 2006. “Umm…I dunno. Low-era Bowie” (Complete guess). I’m just glad they didn’t make me explain dropping 50 bucks on The Pet Sounds Sessions. Or grabbing five Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci EPs. Or two Urge Overkill albums.

I saw Tom a couple months ago. I was just running in to flip through the new vinyl before my two hour parking ran out. Tom was there. He didn’t look that well, his eyes seemed glassy and he wasn’t really focusing on the people that he looked at. He is blind now.

When I visited in early December, there was a 25% sale. At first I was thrilled, but then I noted the malaise in Rick’s voice as he chatted with some college parents flipping through the Dead section. “Are you going out of business?” I asked with a rising panic. Rick looked sad and just nodded. “Yeah, Tom’s health is just getting real bad and you know most of you kids aren’t buying music anymore.” I gave a weak smile and said in my saddest deadpan “I’ve been buying as much as I can, I guess I just wasn’t pulling the slack hard enough, eh?” Looking at his face as I added to my Dylan collection suddenly made me depressed. Why the fuck should I care? This place tried charging 10.99 for a promo copy of a Love as Laughter cd with no booklet and a “not for resale” sticker. (For the record I didn’t buy it until they marked it down to 3.99). Why should I lament the dying phenomenon of the record store? I had my own way of grieving though: I must’ve bought half that store at 1.99 a pop over the course of that month. It felt like I was throwing dice for Christ’s clothes. I wanted to be there when they closed, but I missed it. I jogged to the door and found only an overflowing mailbox and a stark sign reading "FOR RENT".

Tom’s Tracks opened the same year my girlfriend was born. It makes sense; there are days when I’m glad I’ll never see that punkass clerk with the glasses again. But most of the time I recognize that I would never feel this way about another record store.