Entry Seventy.
Saturday, 2008.04.26, 2:05 AM CST.
A belated RIP to Music Sound World.

As you can tell by the time of this posting, I am up fairly late.  Lanna and X are asleep, and I guess I'm just being a night owl.  I fell asleep for a short bit on the living room floor while watching TV, but then woke up and haven't felt incredibly tired.  At this point, I've been awake for a couple of hours or so.

The week has been okay.  I finally watched Cloverfield, a film which I had hoped to see much earlier.  On Tuesday, it was released on DVD, and I picked up a copy in the limited-edition "steel box" packaging from FYE.  I had intentionally tried to avoid any information about the film until viewing it, and while it wasn't the greatest movie of all time, it was visually remarkable and an impressive piece of work overall.

Tonight, I've been listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song "Dani California" repeatedly.  Although I usually lean more towards electronic or downtempo fare, I will freely admit that I absolutely love a lot of the Peppers' tunes.  "By the Way" was a masterpiece, as was "Under the Bridge," for which I have a deep emotional affection.  "Dani California" is also an amazing song - so "rocky" and driven, but yet so touching.  Even though the song was only released a couple of years back, it makes me feel quite nostalgic.  Plus, the video is incredible.

There are still a number of things that I've wanted to write about that I meant to mention during my "dry spell" over this year.  This particular post has been overdue for quite a while.

Farewell to my favourite music equipment shoppe in Tulsa.
As with so many other parts of my past last year, I found out in January that Music Sound World, the wonderful music shoppe located around 27th and Memorial (up in front of the Oertle's/David's/Burlington Coat Factory/Clear Channel building), was now closed.  I called in to ask their PA and DJ gear guru, Maury Tindle, about their price on a particular Peavey mixer, and although someone was there to pick up the phone (Maury himself, I think), I was told that they had actually closed for business at the end of December.  I was stunned.

Chalk up another score in the "pieces of my past gone forever" game.  This will count as yet another reason that 2007 was a year of tremendous loss for me.

I first remember going into Music Sound World in very early 1989, with my mentor DJ Dave.  We'd just gone music shopping (I had picked up the domestic 12" of new remixes of Depeche Mode's "Everything Counts"), and Dave needed to go to MSW for a bit, so I tagged along.  Although I wasn't into "live" music performance gear, I was impressed by how much stuff they had to offer.

Later in 1989, when my parents very kindly offered to fund the foundation of my first DJ company, EKG, we went to MSW for my first mixer, speakers, and DJ coffin.  In fact, I think I even got my first DJ truss there.  I know that I was probably a lot more annoying back then (being a very fortunate high school kid), and to the staff of MSW, if you're reading this, then I apologize if I ever irritated you.

Anyway, over the years, whenever I needed an upgrade, I would go in and talk with Maury or one of the other guys; the expertise abounded in that place, and I could usually get a decent deal.  It was a much smaller business than places like Saied Music (with whom I refuse to do business), but it felt a lot more "warm and friendly."  You could tell that the people there really loved what they were doing.  They weren't just salespeople; they were musicians who loved to share their musical knowledge.

Around the late 1990s, however, I admit that my loyalties began to stray.  Although I sometimes went there for the occasional odds and ends, I knew that I could get better prices online for the "big stuff," and more and more often I chose to go that route.  Money was sometimes tight for me, and I guess I just presumed that MSW had more die-hard, regular customers who would keep the business afloat.  Obviously, I was mistaken.

If I had the technical means and the finances to go back in time and make more purchases from Music Sound World over the past several years, then I'd gladly do so if it meant that they would still be around today.  I deeply regret that they had to go under.

So, to Maury, Randy (the owner), Terry (the keyboard whiz), Barney (the brilliant sound tech who worked there in my early DJing days), and everyone else at Music Sound World, I hope that you're doing well, and I can't tell you how sorry I am that MSW isn't around anymore.  It was, in my opinion, one of the backstage cornerstones of the Tulsa live music scene, and even though it had been quite a while since I last visited there, I had some wonderful memories there.  I will miss it very dearly.

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