Cheap Trick, the Super Flea and a Prized Cassette Player

The Things That Define Us

Boxes and boxes and boxes of junk at the place that helped raise me!

During the summer of 1979, my mother and I spent a couple weekends selling at the local flea market. At the time, the Walden Super Flea and Farmer’s Market near my house was a huge undertaking, hundreds of booths, both dealers and everyday people like us - an inside and outside floor.

Some of the dealers even had large tents set up where you’d walk into the tent like it was a store. As teens, even if I wasn’t selling, we’d go there all the time, mostly for music and other, how can I say this, more adult oriented reading material.

One of our favorites vendors was a guy named Corky who wore a pork pie hat and sold paperbacks and magazines. He told us stories about the 60s and going to Woodstock and meeting Jimi Hendricks. I’m sure he didn’t actually do those things, but to a group of teenage boys from a Western New York suburb, well, that was high class man!

Anyway, the Super Flea came back into my attention this week because this is the 45th anniversary of the American release of Cheap Trick’s monumental live album, Cheap Trick at Budokan. So that album was playing ALL the time that summer.

I loved that album, still do. And live albums being that big of a hit back then wasn’t very common. Plus, it was the release that catapulted Cheap Trick into lofty rock gods stratosphere.

So, how does this relate to the Super Flea? Well, it was Cheap Trick and that album, I’m happy to say, that helped me make five bucks for my mom.

You see, I didn’t own one of those fancy, shoulder carry boom boxes all the flashy kids had back then. Instead I carried around a sweet, metallic Panasonic cassette recorder. I think it might have been my dad’s. It was so old, and full of scratches and dents. But when I was out at the table selling our junk with my mom, that’s what I used to play music. One of my most cherished cassette tapes that summer was Cheap Trick at Budokan.

Once, my mom went to take a bathroom break and left me to man the table. I was absolutely blasting “I Want You to Want Me” on my cassette player, I mean just shredding that tape for all to hear, when a guy came up and offered me five bucks.

“For the tape?” I said.

“No for the cassette player,” he said.

“Deal!”

I bet you thought I was going to forget Cheap Trick was in there, didn’t you? I did not. I removed that priceless tape and sold the guy my dad’s cassette player without even blinking. It was up to my mom to explain to her husband what happened to his equipment, but I don’t think he minded.

That Christmas, my primary gift was a record player and stereo system, complete with duel cassette players! Cheap Trick would live on!

Alas, the Super Flea wouldn’t. Today that holy ground is desecrated with a Super Wal-Mart. But at least I’ll always have Budokan.

Is there one single album from your youth that helped define you?