Singled Out: Salim Nourallah's Boy In A Record Shop

09-28-2018

Dallas indie music godfather Salim Nourallah released his brand new double album "Somewhere South of Sane" today and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the song "Boy In A Record Shop". Here is the story:

I've been a maniacally obsessed fan of music ever since I first heard pop songs on AM radio in El Paso. When I was nine years old, I convinced my grandmother to buy me my first record in a department store called Kmart. I was drawn to the cover. Funny thing was, it was all-white except for text toward the lower right side that said "The Beatles." I'd already started diligently saving my allowance money to buy records. Eventually, I would mail-order them from record stores I found in the back of a new wave magazine from New York called Trouser Press.My mother would drive me to the post office so I could purchase the money orders and send in my bulk orders. One afternoon, she looked at me quizzically while she was driving her tiny, beat-up green Datsun. "Why are you doing this? Isn't there something else that interests you?" There wasn't then and there hasn't been anything else since. So fast forward all these years later... I'm getting ready to release my seventh solo record. It's my first stab at the double-album - a medium I've been fascinated with since The White Albumbut unwilling to tackle myself. Why tackle it now? Because vinyl has finally come back! This is the first collection of songs I was able to conceptualize from the start as an vinyl LP. So I embraced it fully and also wrote 5,000 words of liner notes, included the lyrics to all 21 songs, and encouraged the layout guy to go nuts with a psychedelic gatefold spread. I also luckily hung on to my own collection of records from my youth (they sat for years in a closet in my parent's house). I have a turntable in my bedroom for the first time since I was a kid. It feels almost decadent. I have a turntable in my living room, at my recording studio (www.pleasantrylane.com) and at the headquarters for the record label I co-run (www.palosantotx.com). I'm mail-ordering records again like I did way back when. The music mania continues. It feels good.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!