Hi. My name is Marty, and I own Hox Box Records.

I am a record buying maniac. I love it, most of all.

I started finding records on my own in the early 70s. Elton John, Kiss, and all kinds of pop hits…I couldn’t get enough of it. There were a mess of LPs in the house, including every Beatles record and a ton of folky stuff my parents were using to gig with (Peter Paul and Mary, the Lettermen, etc.) as wedding entertainment. There were 45s too, and my sister and older brother were buying things, and receiving gifts, and all of them were kept in the same place. My first 45 was Elton John in 1976, my first LP was KIss Alive at the same time. I was entering fourth grade…and next year, I would start playing drums.

Even before puberty hit, I was pretty much addicted to music and especially, playing records. I also really liked the radio, and had an AM and 3 FM stations to play through…and I knew everything they played.

My uncle Hox (over there, with the huge Northern pike) started giving my whole family records early on – pop and rock bands and soloists, heavy on guitar players. A wide range of stuff, but no jazz really – Hox was seriously into rock-and-roll and the blues. I can’t think of a time without him being a musical influence on me, and all the rest of us. But specifically in 1980 (I was 14), he gave my older brother Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True, and my brother couldn’t have cared less – but I couldn’t stop playing it. Nothing I had collected in the tiny family pile to that time, sounded like THAT. It opened my eyes and ears to a lot of music – it just fit.

From that one, I also found Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Paul Carrack, and eventually my beloved Buzzcocks too. I listened to college radio, and wrote down cool, aggressive stuff that was unlike all the plain-clothesed stuff forced on me everywhere else.

I thought I was completely New Wave in 1982, because punk scared me a few years earlier, and the B-52s were more fun than trying to understand Sid Vicious and all that darkness. Plus, I wore yellow pants and checkerboard Vans, or red high-top Converse sneaks. I had shirts without collars, and zippers all over the place.

I also dove into the Doors and psychedelia, found some jazz, couldn’t get enough of the Who, and was discovering Stevie Wonder…it was an awesome time for me and my musical tastes to grow and explore. I thought I hated country, so there was none of that (yet), but little else was off the table. I was way done with folk (for the time being), and was not a big fan of soloing on forever either, so didn’t like a bunch of stuff trying to hit me back then. A lot of softer, mellower stuff was immediately something I would not stand for, and the late 70s was the melding pot of wimpy shit. It’s all good now, though. Miss it. 🙂

Hox sent down more and more records all the time, and every time he did, he was opening up new little doorways into different things – might be songwriting, might be guitar players, might be a producer – usually, it was all of that and more.

A year or three later, Hox was still buying like crazy and I was actually working for a record store – and became a bit of a rabid collector in my own right. The infatuation I had developed young about shotgunning my tastes, had only encouraged more record buying, and my collection was growing at a truly stunning pace. My store discount meant I blew just about every paycheck buying more and more vinyl – and I was also grabbing promos by the pile to see what was coming out next. Then started combing junk stores, for old stuff – still an untouched treasure trove in the 80s.

I was immersed in music at 17, and still a lot of my influence was coming from my uncle Hox whenever I saw him.

Hox often bought albums in bulk, even using my store discount when possible…he sometimes loaded up with 50 or more titles at a whack…I saw it happen more than once.

Regardless of how things sucked from the 80s thru the 90s, my uncle Hox could weed it out…he kept collecting LPs and such, getting into CDs as well, when they finally stabilized as a medium.  He just kept buying more and more stuff, for whatever reasons he had. His family was growing, but his record and music collecting never slowed down. And when visiting him, I coveted his collection – thought of it as a holy grail of sorts.

I personally, had stopped buying records like that pretty much in the early 90s because I stopped working in record stores and had a kid, and thought better of my time (foolishly) and money (not so foolish). I was trying to ignore that deep calling within me, and being broke as a young dad, helped. I ended up sealing my own records in boxes for a couple years until my son was older, and I was no longer worried about seeing him make an Eddie Cochran frisbee I might have to beat him senseless for throwing. Luckily, that never happened…instead, my son grew up loving all kinds of music. When he was older, we spun lots of wax together, but he never grabbed onto records like I did. At least, not yet – I always have hope for the boy.

So cut to today: and Hox didn’t want to leave behind a huge pile of stuff for his offspring to sort and wrangle when it is his time to pass on. And I am by now divorced, of course, and so indulging my record fetish once again. I started buying stuff. We agreed that I had similar tastes to his so decided I should buy it all from him, and move it, his coveted collection, down here to come live with me in Atlanta.

He put everything in boxes, so that’s why I have such a clever name for this business. Hox Box Records, indeed. But I rented a truck, and in addition to everything I got from Hox, I stocked up on good Wisconsin beer, too. See it here, when it happened:

I ended up with more than 30 boxes of collectible LPs, 78s and 45s – plus a lot of other stuff Hox simply dumped my way. Radios, stereo stuff, books, magazines…way over 3000 pieces in all…to sort, to love. To sell!

I was drawn to the second-state Beatles’ butcher cover in awesome shape, but soon found with a little digging, I had much more in here for sure, worth even more. I started researching, sorting and cleaning records – playing them non-stop again. I lit the fuse in me that had been put out by family responsibility so many years prior…and I was more than ready to let it go now.

So I dug, and continue to dig into my Hox boxes…and here you go.

His collection has continued to impress me, and I also started to buy collections whenever I could find one I liked. Records cover my house, and are just about everything I do again. I am not complaining – not by a long shot. Instead, I only want to find more records to root thru, more treasures to unearth.

In the years since I got his collection, I have been lucky to sell stuff all over the world. I have talked to cool record collectors on many continents, and shared some truly spectacular vinyl. I love selling records again, because it is just something I have done for so long, and I do find it pretty natural to get lost in it completely.I love the people I meet, and I never get tired about talking good records. I like to think Hox inspired a lot of it in me.

And so it goes, as Nick said so well.

If you’re looking for something specific, shoot me an email: marty@articulayers.com, and I will dig thru the boxes for you. Happily. 🙂