Thanks, Drew

Sunday – 3:45pm – August ‘96

The Vault was a small coffee shop on the corner. Its large windows looked out onto the wide sidewalk and parking meters of Highland Avenue and provided a ledge, a stoop for the kids to sit on. And they did. They were lined up flavoring the hot summer air with the unmistakable scent of cloves. Skateboards cracked against the curb and the metal benches. A few Mohawks denoted a significant, possibly embarrassing amount of time spent in front of a mirror with a few cans of hairspray. Patches and safety pins held together clothes subjected to mostly intentional degradation.

It started at 4p.m., the weekly affair organized by Andrew Chadwick. He had somehow arranged for a steady flow of good, mostly Florida bands to play Sunday afternoon shows at The Vault. Everyone complained about the small-town. “There’s never anything to do,” they would say. “This place sucks.” Andrew gave them something to do – every Sunday. It was church for those who might otherwise be tempted to conjure up something sordid.

Boxcar Records was the name of Andrew’s creation, his child, his way out of the strip-mall culture. It was his cure for the small town homesick feeling for somewhere else, somewhere new. The kids had a limited number of choices, none of which were of their own design. Cars tended to gather in parking lots; no one knew what to do or where to go. Parties down old dirt roads – kegs and bb guns – the meeting of the mindless. You could take a walk around the mall, consuming your way into an afternoon of memories. There were organized sports complete with rules and discipline. There was Denny’s at four in the morning, the baggy-eyed chain smoking widow with crossword puzzles scattered across the table, the 70-year-old former prom king and his leopard skin date-for-hire.

Kids needed something to do - something that wasn't handed to them by a coach or a member of the congregation or a clever advertising agency. They needed something of their own.

Andrew’s answer was a little independent record label and production company. He sold records out of the back of his VW bus. For the price of a sandwich, one could get the latest 7-inch from a slew of great bands and watch them play the very next week. The epitome of DIY.

The shows at The Vault started and soon Andrew was handing out fliers with the monthly schedule: Sunday afternoons at The Vault, September – $2 – all ages – 1^st Sunday: The Usuals, with special guests Baccone Dolce – 2^nd Sunday: Discount, Skif Dank, The Rug Cutters, and so on. There was a small train-car logo – Boxcar Records it said.

A girl in a checkerboard skirt cuffed her hands over her eyes, peering through the window as the buzz of an amp shot through the front door and out onto the street. Her boyfriend sat with his back against the building taking the final bites from a sub wrapped in deli paper. The warm hum of an organ tempted the kids like the scent of a cartoon apple pie, lifting them off their feet to float towards the source. It was their cue. The crowd moved inside and pushed up towards the front. The band stood in front of them, no stage, but ready.

It was Sunday, 4p.m.