Old School Glam Postcards
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 12:02AM A few days ago, our dear friend Mick from Rocksalt.mx sent me some awesome photos... that, taken together, formed an awesome Glam postcard message! I was so impressed, I wanted to share the story... and Mick offered to explain it to you himself! Here's the story:
During (and just after) college, back in 1990 and 1991 I worked for a retail store called "Record Town" (part of the Trans-World chain that now owns F.Y.E.) in Boston. (I wasn't hip enough to get a job in the indie record stores around Boston, all of whom sniffed and stuck their noses up at me). I worked at the Watertown Mall and the Copley Square locations (briefly with Greg Cherone, Gary's brother in Watertown; and the future Joe Public of KISS108 FM in Boston). As you would imagine, we got all kinds of free product. In those days, we were just changing over from vinyl to an all-cassette and CD format as Nirvana had yet to deliver Nevermind. As one of the few rock fans/metalheads there, I typically got a bunch of hair metal and glam-related stuff. Those were the days of wretched excess and I collected posters and weird promotional items from the day (i.e. a Tom Petty "Learning To Fly" frisbee, which I still have; etc.). One of the nifty promo items I collected came in the mail, in the form of postcards. I knew what it was instantly by the logo and started saving them. They had no indication of what they were, beyond a single word on the front. As you will see, each week a new postcard arrived with a different word, until finally, we got the payoff. Pretty cool. You don't really see that kind of thing these days.
Reader Comments (7)
What a clever casebook study direct mail promo campaign from Geffen!
p.s. Saw the original line up of Junkyard off both their classic albums at unforgettable shows at The Cat Club in NYC back in the day!
One of my old bosses told me, "Save everything that's cool.", and this is a perfect example of why.
And I would add that when you look back on all of these cool things, say, from your first KISS lunchbox, first Zeppelin LP or whatever it may be, to everything up to the coolest thing you saved just yesterday, it all defines you.
And I hear ya, Roy. I bought a collection of Beatles and Stones picture sleeve 45's in 1994 plus the picture sleeve Hendrix 45 of "Hey Joe", all for $500 because the seller had to pay bills. Today, that collection is worth about triple that on Ebay.
Though I have traded a few rare collectable Hair Metal CDs (usually doubles) for some even rarer demo tapes, I have never parted with anything other than an original set of the first dozen Clash singles, which I then paid triple to buy back a few years later, swearing to never sell any music related stuff again as long as I live.
Cool stuff I wish I bought when I saw it...
1) An original of a 1000 unit limited run of the sculpture known as "The Object", designed by Hypnosis, as featured on the album cover of Led Zeppelin, "Presence". They made only a thousand to send out to Radio DJs but this one somehow wound up in the window of an indy record store in Santa Cruz in 1980 with a price tag of only $8.50! I happened to notice it as I was leaving the store, chasing a gorgeous blonde, thinking I would come back the next day to get it later. Of course, when I came back about four hours later, it was long gone. It was an old school version of not moving fast enough on a rare "Buy It Now" item on Ebay.
2) A limited edition promo Dangerous Toys "Jack In The Box" which was a perfect 3-D version of the one from their first album's cover art. It went for about $185. Had I the bread at the time, I probably would have way overbid that to see if I coulda pulled it down, it is SO cool and SO frickin' rare!
One of my favorite items that I got was a prerelease cassette of Soundgarden's BadMotorFinger. The crazy part about it was that I got it almost 8 months before the album was released. This was very uncommon, as we would usually get the advance copies a few weeks before release. I was jamming to that album for a long time before it was released. It also had an alternative cover which had this weird 3D holographic image on it. Super cool item!!!!
Working at a record store back in the day was definitely the place to be for free promo goods. We would get stuff in the mail daily. All it took was establishing a good relationship with the reps and they would really take care of you!!!!