POST January/February 2015

DICK STORMS, CO-OWNER OF THE RECORD ARCHIVE, IS OFTEN
REMEMBERED FOR HIS DANCING RECORD MAN COMMERCIALS.
HERE, A MORE SERIOUS SIDE OF A MAN WHOSE RETAIL MUSIC
SHOP CELEBRATES ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR.
What is your current state of mind?
I’m in a planning state of mind right now.
Your favorite food and drink?
My favorite food is BBQ fish, and my favorite
drink is Rohrbach Highland Amber.
Your favorite color?
My favorite color is metallic gold.
Your favorite flower?
Black tulip.
Your idea of happiness?
My idea of happiness is boarding an Amtrak
train, going to my sleeping compartment, and
waking up in Chicago for breakfast.
Your idea of misery?
A TSA line at the airport!
Occupation you admire?
Oh, I admire musicians. Real musicians. Not
like me.
Are you a reader? If so, do you have a
favorite author?
Margaret Atwood and Elmore Leonard are my
favorite authors. So I’m pretty middlebrow in
my reading, but it’s what I like.
Your favorite qualities in a man and a
woman?
I like men who are innovative. I like women who
are smart. Really intelligent women are like high
bling factor.
Who are your favorite artists?
In terms of painting, my favorite artist is Clyfford
Still. He’s a West Coast painter; he was an
abstract expressionist, and the Albright-Knox
has probably the biggest collection of his work
in the country. There’s an entire wing devoted
to him. … Hell, hell of a painter!
What do you appreciate most in your
friends?
I like friends who are there for me, you know? I
like friends who let me be there for them.
What is your main fault?
Concentration. I grew up in a big family, and
if I’m concentrating on something I just put
up the walls, and I’m in my own world. So my
worst fault is that I’m monomaniacal.
What is your best trait?
My best trait is my curiosity.
What is your favorite film?
“Ghostbusters”
Who are your favorite heroes in film?
The Dude.
If your life had a soundtrack, what song
would play next?
“Fly Me to the Moon”
What music do you find exciting right
now?
Well, I’m into an area that a lot of people are
into right now, and that is the early days of
electronic recording, between 1928 and 1932.
… There was a flashpoint then, when ethnographic
music and hillbilly music and black
music and all of it sort of became all the same.
Contemporary American pop music was born
in that moment, when there was all this access
to all these different musics, and they started
melding together. And one of the areas was
jug band music: Memphis Jug Band and Gus
Cannon … That’s kind of my favorite music, but
specifically the originals from that period.
If you could only listen to one album,
what would it be?
It would be Big Joe Turner, “Rock and Roll,”
Atlantic 8005, 1957, I think.
If you could have dinner with two people—one
living, one dead—who would
they be?
Cicero and Zbigniew Brzezinski. A couple of
astute political observers.
What natural talent would you like to be
gifted with?
I’d like to have a green thumb. I don’t.
For what fault in others do you have the
most tolerance?
Loquaciousness.
The least tolerance?
Imagined omniscience.
If you had walked a different path in life,
where might you be?
When I was young, I actually hit a crossroads
(and I didn’t really know it). I was invited to join
a real estate agency in Mill Valley, Calif., when
I was 21. I don’t know if I’d have ever taken
it though. Painter. Painter is the other path I
could have taken. I paint now, but I don’t do
it as a profession. It’s a vacation, which, you
know, gives me a lot of latitude. I don’t have
to sell the shit [chuckles]. I have to figure out a
place to put it.
How do you wish to die?
Quickly.
What would people find surprising about
you?
That I’m interested in ancient Roman history.
Do you have any words or beliefs that
you live by?
The best thing about getting old is that you get
to be old for the rest of your life. You can read
that as ironically as you like.
—Interview by Alexander Degas
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 9