Interview with Hal March of Toonerville Trolley
Hal March was the owner of Toonerville Trolley, longtime record store in Williamstown, Mass. Wes and I purchased the shop from him in 2018, and we now call it Belltower Records. Hal has been a great friend and advisor to us, and we sent along some questions for an interview.
First off, how's retirement? How are you adjusting and what have you been up to?
- I guess I can’t say retirement is not good, but after 40 years of 6 days a week, sometimes 7, it feels weird. It’s nice to be able to hike or bike when I want to, but at the end of the day I get the feeling that I haven’t done anything.
What kinds of music do you find yourself listening to these days?
- Mostly bebop, Brubeck, Chet, Miles, Rollins, some Coltrane, Sun Ra, doo wop oldies, Terry Riley, Kronos Quartet. Since the speakers are in the living/dining room I can’t go blasting death metal or grinding downer noise. But that’s usually not what I want to listen to anyway.
You started Toonerville Trolley as an almost literal "trolley," traveling and selling records. What prompted you to start doing that? Were you a heavy collector before and just had a surplus to sell? How did that grow to where you could open your brick and mortar shop?
— I was always into music. My father worked for a vending machine/jukebox company, so I got records there and just kept on buying records. When I was teaching high school English in the 70s, on snow days I would tear around hitting the cutout bins and at some point I realized that I was more interested in records than teaching. I was a car nut too, and Marge’s brother suggested that I sell records out of the trunk of my car. The basic idea sounded good, so my brother and I bought a used (for selling fish) step van. He built those grey record bins for it, we put in a sound system and got it painted it yellow with TOONERVILLE TROLLEY on the sides. I was always a listener rather than a collector, so rather than any surplus, I wanted to get records I wanted wholesale!. I got my first stock of records at Bee Gee Distributors in Albany (they were job racking cutout bins), printed up some flyers with my schedule for stops mostly at colleges around Vermont. After a year or so, a front wheel of the truck locked up going over a bump and I nearly went over the bank. That, plus too much inventory in our bedroom, made me look for a place to open a store.
Toonerville opened in the late 70s, just as punk was arriving in the States. From what I understand, that kind of music took a little while to get to smaller places like Williamstown. How did it come to your attention and what was your reaction to it?
- Soon after I opened the store on Water Street a high school kid named Jon Vankin (later a Toonerville employee) introduced me to the Ramones. I loved the sound and the whole idea, so we all got into punk, formed a punk band (or bands), I stocked lots of indy label 45s, put out a zine, went to concerts and so on. Poly Styrene, Pere Ubu, The Contortions, The Meatmen - it was fun.
You had an incredible collection of noise and experimental music, which was partly what attracted Andrea and me to your shop. Was there sort of a logical leap from you having enjoyed avant garde jazz to this kind of music? And again, how did you discover this stuff?
- Yeah, the free jazz stuff could get pretty close to noise, so there was kind of a link, but I just liked out-there stuff. I liked the rock bands that moved toward noise, like Cabaret Voltaire, & Chrome. But the precise moment I flipped over industrial noise was the day a customer brought in Soviet France’s Norsch, the 12” EP with the tin foil cover. I played it at the wrong speed, but it still sounded great. I loved it. At the time that was exactly the sound I wanted to hear, and the whole noise scene seemed very interesting, musically, artistically, politically, philosophically, everything. So I started buying from Ron at RRRecords, from Soleilmoon and other noise distributors, and some homemade & indy stuff. Of course, noise was never a big seller, but it was sort of a Toonerville specialty.
How much of your taste and awareness of different kinds of music was broadened by opening a shop, and how does that occur? Is it through your own discovery, or through people bringing it to you, or both?
- As I’ve mentioned, customers turned me on to a lot of things. My onetime landlord, Alan Green, helped me with my classical section. But running a store and dealing with music all day (and some nights) let me - or in some areas made me - really expand my knowledge. First of all, I could buy all the records I personally wanted (deductible of course) and that way I could get to listen to anything. That knowledge would - in theory - help me know what to stock and hopefully sell more records. And the store opened up a lot of connections and opportunities to hear live music, which I was happy to take advantage of.
Are you a musician? Did you play in any bands or anything?
- No. I tried to play the piano, alto sax, harmonica, etc. but didn’t get very far.
During the CD boom in the 90s, were you jumping at the chance to grab up records on the cheap? I imagine people were selling off some incredible records then.
- No, although in retrospect I should have. CDs were what was selling and the new music I wanted to hear was on CD, so that’s the way I went. We never thought that records would ever come back the way they have.
As a record store, a lot of our own personal taste is reflected in what we carry, but you can't operate solely on that. You have to be a little broader and maybe carry some things that you might not necessarily be all that into. But then again, selling things you don't care about, at least to me, feels perhaps slightly cynical, or pandering. Is this something you ever thought about at Toonerville, and what's a good balance to strike?
- Good question! Of course I did I overstock music that I was into so I could rave it up and maybe sell some, but luckily I really did like almost everything. I wanted to have a store that had (or could get) whatever anyone was looking for. My philosophy was: Music is great. If you want to buy music, that’s great. I want you to have that music and I want to be able to sell it to you.
- The only music I didn’t stock were records that I thought were going to help someone go the GG Allin route.
You taught English before Toonerville. Did you find parallels between your two careers?
- I never thought of it, but actually no. I walked into the teaching job. I liked teaching, but I don’t think I was very good at it, and certainly there were times when I was at odds with the system. On the other hand, I loved selling records. I sold a lot of records for a long time and had a great time doing it.
- What was the most rewarding thing about running Toonerville for so long?
- I was into getting a lot of the music out to a lot of people.
- Finally, top 10 jazz records of all time, quick:
- Wait a minute. What do you mean by “top 10”? And forget “quick.” But
- If you mean the 10 jazz records (LPs) that everybody should own or hear, I could say:
Sun Ra “The Magic City”
(Decca or JSP label) Django Reinhardt with The Hot Club of France 1935 - 38
Miles Davis Kind of Blue
(Roost) The Bud Powell Trio
Jelly Roll Morton “The Pearls”
Ganelin Trio “Catalogue”
John Coltrane “A Love Supreme”
Benny Goodman “Carnegie Hall Concert”
The Quintet (Parker, Gillespie, Powell) “Jazz at Massey Hall”
Cecil Taylor “Spring of 2 Blue Jays”
- If you mean my personal top 10, I can come up with a list of records (I probably have them on CD) but it’s not exactly solid.:
Sun Ra “Atlantis “
John Coltrane “Soultrane”
Sun Ra “ God Is More Than Love Can Ever Be”
Ganelin Trio “Catalogue”
(Roost) The Bud Powell Trio
Roland Kirk “The Inflated Tear”
Cecil Taylor “Love for Sale”
Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond “Jazz at Storyville”
Charles Lloyd “In Europe”
Mal Waldron “The Call”
- But if you mean “top” like “best” …. It would be like when Marge took her first grade class to the post office to have the postmaster explain how the mail processing and delivery worked. When he finished, he said, “Any questions?’ and a kid asked, “What is love?”
The photograph below is of Hal March (left) and his friend Rick, date unknown, taken by Jon Vankin.
