fivecats journal

'The Stone Roses'
composite image of an in-store display

March 18, 1990, Washington, DC
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This image goes out to new_brunette, a fellow Stone Roses fan and who was probably still in school when I created this display and took the images.

(The odd distortion comes from this being a composite of two images, each taken from different sides of the display.  I couldn't get it all in one shot, so I did the next best thing.  And, yes, I know I could have messed with the angles in editing software but, really, that was far more work than I was interested in putting into this.  The focus problems, on the other hand come from the original images being Polaroids.  With autoflash)

Back in the early 90s I worked for a while as an assistant manager of a Kemp Mill Records store.  Well, they still sold some records when I first started, but they were well on their way to becomming CD stores.  After my initial training in Georgetown, DC (where, long-time readers will recall I met Seren who kept telling me I needed to meet her mother) I was moved out to the Maryland suburbs for a stretch of several months.  After doing a good job there the district manager asked me to move to a struggling store in DC and see if I couldn't work some magic there during the evenings.

I went to work in music stores to feed my music habit.  (I'd done the same with an ice cream store at one point, but that's another story.  One with a photograph, actually)  While I loved the opportunity to get first dibs on the new music as well as the chance to open and play any new CD that I deemed "interesting" (that's how I found Sarah McLachlan, Toad the Wet Sprocket and The Innocence Mission) what I really liked doing was the in-store displays.  Especially for groups that I liked.

Each store had a polaroid camera and film to send in proof of the manditory in-store displays to the head office.  I did my share of the manditory ones, but I gave the extra effort to the bands I really liked.  (I also ripped through polaroid film trying to get my personal favorites "just right" on film)

I'll post a few others in the coming days.

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