Mail Music
Reidar Karlsen was a man who saw the need for a catalog based record store that wasn't limited to Trondheim. He had a solid background for starting a mail-order record store, because if memory serves me right, he used to be a mailman for the Norwegian Postal Service. He was also the neighbor of one of my closest friends, Jon Inge, so as soon as he opened Mail Music, my wallet was in severe trouble. The main office was a room in his apartment, and while his predominant market was mail order, he also used this as his showroom and store. My big downfall was that his apartment was only blocks away from Rosenborg Ungdomsskole, which is where I went to middle school. I spent many a recess in his store, talking about music and sometimes convincing him to take in new music I knew was on the way in.
In 8th grade, my friend Arve and I were very involved in writing and publishing a newspaper for our class. There were about 30 in the class, and we charged a modest sum for the paper, which was published biweekly. The money was spent on letraset and other supplies we needed, as everything was typed on one electric and one manual typewriter, headlines were tediously assembled from letraset, and any pictures were held in place with a little bit of glue, since the people supplying the pictures usually would want them back after they had been printed. Arve's dad had a xerox copier, I don't know how he got it or why he had it, but that was our printing station, and that enabled us to have a lot of fun. In addition to regular supplies, we also bought prizes for weekly music quizzes, supplied by yours truly - and this is where Mail Music comes into play.
For at least a quiz or two, the prize was a good old-fashioned single (the 45 RPM kind) of the winner's choice from Mail Music. This got expensive, so at one point we decided to buy singles from the sales bin to use as prizes. I believed we bought 3 copies of Danish singing sensation Nanna's single Buster, which also was from a TV series. I have to admit it is a crappy song - and an even crappier prize, but what made this a seriously bad decision on our behalf was that the first winner with the new prize was the one person in class who was picked on the most - Trond. I have to admit that I would like this order of events to be correct, but I am not positive that is the case. The truth is that if we indeed decided to do this to pick on Trond, I must have told myself the official story so many times that I actually believe it. So where that leaves me today is slightly confused and somewhat embarrassed - if for no other reason than the fact that no-one deserves to be punished for winning a quiz, which receiving the Nanna single really was.
However, Mail Music was much more than this. It was a place to hang out - and it was a place to find the Maxi single of Alice Cooper's He's Back. It was where I bought Master of Puppets as soon as it was released - and thus got hooked on Metallica. It was also a place I literally ran to on one occasion. I lived a good two miles away from my middle school and Mail Music - and it was up a hill and then down a much longer hill to get there. I was anxiously awaiting Iron Maiden's double live album Live After Death, and it had not arrived during the school day. When I came home, I called him up again, and yes, Live After Death was there - but it was almost time to close. So I ran. Granted, this was when I was far more fit than I currently am - and there was also a lot less of me to cart around - but it was still a workout. I got there in time, bought the album, and when I came home, I called my good friend Jan Are, to see if he wanted to come over for the first listen. I remember both of us being mesmerized as Churchill's Speech started the album and segued into Aces High - after all, Iron Maiden was the reason we were friends.
Jan Are wore an Iron Maiden shirt with the Powerslave design - and his nickname was Power because of this. If I recall things right, our friendship started with him asking me if I liked Heavy Metal. I said I did - and he said he did. He then asked if I had any good albums - and all I could remember was my dad's Deep Purple album Made in Europe. He asked me if he could borrow that album if he let me borrow Iron Maiden's Powerslave - we both agreed, and we were friends. Things were so much simpler in 6th grade. So here - in memory of Mail Music and as a tribute to the one and only Jan Are "Power" Hansen - is Iron Maiden with Powerslave from Live After Death.
For at least a quiz or two, the prize was a good old-fashioned single (the 45 RPM kind) of the winner's choice from Mail Music. This got expensive, so at one point we decided to buy singles from the sales bin to use as prizes. I believed we bought 3 copies of Danish singing sensation Nanna's single Buster, which also was from a TV series. I have to admit it is a crappy song - and an even crappier prize, but what made this a seriously bad decision on our behalf was that the first winner with the new prize was the one person in class who was picked on the most - Trond. I have to admit that I would like this order of events to be correct, but I am not positive that is the case. The truth is that if we indeed decided to do this to pick on Trond, I must have told myself the official story so many times that I actually believe it. So where that leaves me today is slightly confused and somewhat embarrassed - if for no other reason than the fact that no-one deserves to be punished for winning a quiz, which receiving the Nanna single really was.
However, Mail Music was much more than this. It was a place to hang out - and it was a place to find the Maxi single of Alice Cooper's He's Back. It was where I bought Master of Puppets as soon as it was released - and thus got hooked on Metallica. It was also a place I literally ran to on one occasion. I lived a good two miles away from my middle school and Mail Music - and it was up a hill and then down a much longer hill to get there. I was anxiously awaiting Iron Maiden's double live album Live After Death, and it had not arrived during the school day. When I came home, I called him up again, and yes, Live After Death was there - but it was almost time to close. So I ran. Granted, this was when I was far more fit than I currently am - and there was also a lot less of me to cart around - but it was still a workout. I got there in time, bought the album, and when I came home, I called my good friend Jan Are, to see if he wanted to come over for the first listen. I remember both of us being mesmerized as Churchill's Speech started the album and segued into Aces High - after all, Iron Maiden was the reason we were friends.
Jan Are wore an Iron Maiden shirt with the Powerslave design - and his nickname was Power because of this. If I recall things right, our friendship started with him asking me if I liked Heavy Metal. I said I did - and he said he did. He then asked if I had any good albums - and all I could remember was my dad's Deep Purple album Made in Europe. He asked me if he could borrow that album if he let me borrow Iron Maiden's Powerslave - we both agreed, and we were friends. Things were so much simpler in 6th grade. So here - in memory of Mail Music and as a tribute to the one and only Jan Are "Power" Hansen - is Iron Maiden with Powerslave from Live After Death.
And just so there is no doubt as to how evil we were in selecting the Nanna single - here is Buster
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