Tangents Stories

Farewell to The Wax Museum

For 45 years, The Wax Museum record store offered Charlotteans a collection of the “old” records: Beach music, R&B, soul, big band and rock ’n’ roll. It was all there, even when the store's location changed. I started going to their second location on Elizabeth Avenue in the early ‘90s, and then its next location on East Boulevard, and then on Monroe Road. Last Saturday, the Wax Museum closed its doors. It was never a magical place. Just a dusty store with lots of records, many of which I saw

The Last Christmas Dinner

I never see you in my dreams, only  in my memories. And in a moment, as the first sight of snow  begins to fall,  I can still see you,  all those years in the past. We all arrived that night  for our Christmas dinner in that nice restaurant, before they tore it all into something else, and turned it into something you wouldn’t recognize. The flocks of tour buses that line their gates now stumble through the doors in their praise, but  you and I know what they  really missed. You sat near the

I Love This Freakin’ Band! The Left Banke

It’s June of 1999, and I’m driving my car down one of those endlessly humid highways. I haven’t had the best of days, and I’m missing a girl that I’m no longer seeing. I have the local oldies station on for its noon show, and the DJ announces a song that’s “a lost 45 by The Left Banke.” Having heard their biggest hit “Walk Away Renee” for years, I turn the radio up. The song is “Pretty Ballerina,” the band’s second single, released in early 1967 and the one that should’ve been bigger than