Steve Braunias on being accused of murder at a record fair

Record fairs aim to attract that species of music specialist known as the vinyl zombie. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

Last Saturday was shaping up as a really good day. The storm hadn’t hit; it was the end of the golden weather, a day in the sunshine that sort of resembled summer - summer itself in 2023 has barely resembled summer. I set the alarm for 7am and stepped catlike in socks around the house while my daughter slept the sleep of all sweet angels. I fed the cats, the tropical fish, the wild birds. There was a pale light in the sky, a weak sun. I got the essentials - Thermos of instant coffee, boxes of raisins - and slipped out the door.

Last Saturday was the Auckland Record Fair at Freemans Bay. Traders, collectors, experts, scholars, tragics, and men with beards gather to buy and sell records every year at the community centre; it’s one of about a dozen record fairs, held at Tauranga, Paekakariki, Te Awamutu, Wellington and other centres wanting to attract that species of music specialist known as the vinyl zombie. I spent about five years as a vinyl zombie in pursuit of New Zealand records for a book project. Oratia Books published my bestseller Cover Story: 100 beautiful, strange and frankly incredible NZ album covers at Christmas 2021. In all, I had collected about 600-700 LPs for the project. It was time to flog some of them.

Last Saturday’s event was masterminded by New Plymouth legend Brian Wafer. To say he was the man behind Sticky Filth ought to say it all. He helped take my three boxes of records to a table in front of the stage and left me to it, which is to say he left me to the sharks - as a first-time trader I had no real idea how to price the records, and I was immediately descended on by those who did. They bought up large. I got the feeling I had just been scalped but business is business, and anyway I wanted the records out of my life.

Vinyl fans at a record fair. Photo / George Novak

Last Saturday was all going so well. I met some great people who were selling records in the same row, like Dave who works in drug and alcohol counselling, and Zac and Clarissa, a young couple who were selling their records to help save for their honeymoon next year in Sicily. I ran into Ngāruawāhia legend Dujon Cullingford. To say he is the man helping to host a breaking (breakdancing) event in Hamilton on March 5, an important step towards selecting the New Zealand breaking team who will compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics, is to only scratch the surface. Awesome guy, very caring; he said afterwards, “Man, are you okay?”

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Last Saturday went somewhere strange. A man appeared in my front of my table carrying a plastic bag, and said in a very loud voice, “Murderer!” I looked at him, waiting for the joke. He had long hair and wore a hat. He shouted, “You’re a murderer!” I had a feeling he wasn’t joking. He was in his 40s and looked like he was familiar with life lived on an edge. He screamed, “You’re guilty of mass murder!” Everyone was staring and Zac stood next to him and asked him to calm down but he got louder, really went off, and I thought maybe I knew him and had done something bad to him along the way, but mainly I was thinking I was frightened. He kept yelling, and then he said, “Speak!” I had been stunned into silence. He repeated, “Speak!” I said I didn’t know who he was or what he was talking about but he shouted that I knew both these things, and he advanced a step closer, still on the theme of mass murder - but then he took a step sideways and parted with a message about how I was also responsible for 9/11.

Last Saturday’s incident was just one of those things, a passer-by who had wandered into the Auckland Record Fair recognised that I was a journalist, and gave voice to a head full of ideas (vaccines, 9/11) driving him insane. The misinformation project in real life, not in the deep space of social media. Yeah, frightening; I was afraid he might lunge forward. But he wandered away. No harm done. I drank my coffee, and sold all my records.