I bought my first Mr. T Experience CD in the used bin of a long-defunct music store called One Music in Muncie, Indiana. The place was run and owned by an incredibly nice hippie dude with Allman Brothers hair and a soothingly soft voice, which at the time I chalked up to what I assumed was his access to high-quality mellowing dope. I ran into the fellow — his name was Jim, I think — when I was a college student at Ball State University student working as a “waiter” at the Sirloin Stockade steakhouse in Muncie. He told me he was going into the ministry, and I was forced to re-examine why he had such an admirably kind disposition.
Anyway, his record store was incredible, and Muncie hasn’t seen the likes of it since One Music closed it doors well over a decade ago. And it was thanks to him that I was introduced to the surprisingly agile mind of Dr. Frank, the lead singer of the Mr. T Experience, whose CD I bought solely on the strength of the band’s funny-as-hell (to my 19-year-old brain) name. That started the beginning of a love affair that would continue for a good five years, until I outgrew snotty Berkeley slacker-punk.
The Mr. T Experience were contemporaries of Green Day, and in my mind, better than them. But Dr. Frank lacked the vocals for a hit single, and his band — clever, rollicking, often hilarious — floundered in obscurity until, I assume, they broke up. To be honest, I stopped thinking about them years ago until recently a wild hair drove me to do a Google search on “Dr. Frank.”
To my surprise, although it’s really not that surprising at all, Dr. Frank — Frank Portman, it turns out — has become a pretty-good-selling author of juvenile literature. I haven’t read “King Dork” yet, but I plan to. And if you have a teenage kid battling awkward self-consciousness and insecurity, you should probably buy it, too.
August 15, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
oh, dear
why does the thought of One Music
make me feel weepy.
August 17, 2008 at 9:21 pm |
we always called him “Jim Music,” so much that I actually believed that’s his name. loved, loved that guy. that store was the first place I ever bought a cd. I got a little cd player for xmas and went straight there to purchase four used discs w/ xmas $: “Listen without Prejudice” by George Michael, “The Lion and the Cobra” by Sinead O’Connor, the Best of Blondie, and “Disintegration” by the Cure. a very vivid memory! it was 1991.
I think the space is now a Merry Maids office. I wonder if they’ve been able to get the smell of incense out of the walls. I hope not.
September 10, 2008 at 3:57 pm |
I actually found an old Mr. T Experience shirt that I bought at a mid-90’s show at the Emerson a few weeks ago when cleaning out my closet.
One Music was a typical destination for me…I remember my car got hit in the parking lot by some stoned guy going in to buy incense and some Grateful Dead CD. I spent a lot of my hard-earned teenage money at that place.
Muncie is in great need of this kind of music store.