Hot and bothered over vinyl

My name is Noah Greene, and I am a 1999 grad from USF. I own a record store in Ybor City called Hot Wax. As a matter of fact, I ran two ads per week in The Oracle.

Anyway, the reason I am writing now is because I’d like to express my disappointment and anger at The Oracle for not including my store in this article, published on June 24. Hot Wax should have been included for many reasons:

I, the owner, Noah Greene, am a USF grad, the other owners from the listed stores are not USF Grads.

I would definitely like to add that of all the sample “records” that were named, no student or young adult in their right mind would ever purchase any of them. The Allman Brothers? U2? Johnny Cash? Ray Charles? Ella Fitzgerald? Come on now … Let’s talk serious …

Is an 18-year-old freshman DJ going to purchase an Ella Fitzgerald LP? Or is the 18-year-old freshman DJ going to purchase the new Jay Z LP or any techno. The answer is the latter.

I would recommend getting better advice on albums to pick when doing the next article. It was very disappointing for me to see this written the way it was. No student is interested in the type of music examples given.

This is the year 2002. The Allman Brothers and Ella Fitzgerald are out; electronic music and hip-hop are in. Ja Rule, Tony Faline, Jay Z and Sharaz are what today’s college students listen to. I find it quite embarrassing for The Oracle to print such an article. I had many USF students bring this feature article in to me and all found it very comical and ridiculous that such an article was ever printed.

Ninety percent of the provided information is from San Francisco and New York City; only a few sentences about WBUL were mentioned. And if I am not mistaken, WBUL has a large hip-hop, reggae and techno following … not music like Peter Gabriel and U2.

As per the music store in San Francisco, I called them two weeks ago and asked them what they mostly sell and the man at the store said “West Coast House and Experimental.” So, out of the 1,000 records they sell daily, how many of those are “older rock and artists mentioned in the article?” Answer: None.

If an article like this is ever written again, please let me give the author a few tips. Write about music that is sold in today’s day and age (even if they are just examples – techno DJs have both EPs and CDs).

I would also to see a company/store used that is close to USF. Hot Wax is 10 minutes from USF and the owner is a ’99 Alumnus.

Noah Greene is the owner of Hot Wax and is a USF alumnus.