Maybe it's the several Sundays Pastis that makes me nostalgics for Caroliner. I've never been able to adequately genre-ize these folks. Gothic art 'tards maybe? Regardless of my inability to pigeonhole, I will always have tremendous respect for this outfit not just for their unadulterated DIY chutzpah, but because they are really decent chaps.
It was maybe 15 years ago on a hot summer day like this. I probably wasn't wearing a shirt then either. I probably had a low grade buzz in effect. The phone rang. There were answering machices then. They contained analog tape that was reused and reused a infinity or indecipherable. I played this message over and over before understanding. "This is Bull Lips from Caroliner. About those records you ordered, man... Yeah they'll be getting to you soon. Sorry about that."
I'd almost forgotten I'd order a record or two via mailorder (this is pre- heavy WWW use). Here I was, some punk almost 2,000 miles away in a small Bible Belt lake town, and I deserved the gold standard service (not that I imagine Caroliner's mailbox was overrun with mail order requests).
A few weeks later a large box arrived at my door. Yeah I was expecting a few 12 inches from Bull Lips but this was like a full-on, packing tape-sealed serious shipment. Inside the entire Caroliner discography to date, complete with customized handmade covers, a few handmade buttons and gobs of other readables, listenables, seeables. My respect was sealed. One of those buttons sits on my messenger bag to this day.
1 comment:
I have a memory of that box arriving or of your telling me when it arrived. First year of acquaintance in B-town.
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