By George Petersen

OK, I’LL ADMIT IT—I’M A SUCKER FOR A GOOD FLEA MARKET. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in Italy, where they have the concept of a “flea market” down to a science. The “flea” part of the name has European roots, back to the days when goods brought in for sale from distant lands–particularly rugs and textiles—needed a good shaking out before putting them in your house. Even now, whenever I’m in Europe, I‘ll check out a good “Floh Markt” or “Marche aux Puces”

But these days, in-between my cravings to seek real Eurotrash, I get my fix at locally, at the weekly flea market in the parking lot at Oakland’s Laney College. Now before anyone gets off on one of those “my flea market’s better than yours” trips, let me say there are certainly larger markets around here, but this one has a nice local feel and besides a goodly percentage of guys who week-to-week are hired by local estates and people who want stuff hauled out of a basement/garage/attic and then bring the leavings to sell every Sunday. So you’ll never know what you’ll find there.

Flea marketing is a lot like fishing. You may hope to land that 110-pound sturgeon or 35-pound salmon when you go, but more often than not, there’s a lot of very small fish in between the big scores. And you never know what you’ll find there. I haven’t found that LA-2A or box of old Neumanns there yet, but I once scored a pile of Stratocaster neck plates with ‘70s-era serial numbers for a buck. Another time it was a pristine 1953 lowboy Leslie for $20 or $50 for an Ampeg 810 bass cab. The latter had some Tolex tears and as the seller said it was blown, so he musta been telling the truth.

YOU CAN’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING A SELLER TELLS YOU, BUT IF THEY SAY SOMETHING’S BLOWN, IT’S PROBABLY TRUE.

At that price, I figured I could patch it up and put new speakers in it, but later, we pulled a couple speakers, which were fine, except for the fact that all the push-on wiring was loose–meaning no sound. Some 90 seconds later, it worked fine. Still does.

Can you can find anything at a flea market? Sure. For the past few weeks, local musician/producer/performance artists Jon Brumit and Lisa Mezzacappa (helped out by a grant from the city of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program) are operating an open-air, free recording studio in a flea market stall to archive performances by passerbys. The program goes through May 20 and each participant gets an on-site acetate flexi-disk of their creation and a chance for their sounds to be on a compilation CD unveiled at Oakland’s 21 Grand Gallery (www.21grand.org) on July 6. Who needs “American Idol” with a deal like this???

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.

________________________

What do YOU Think?

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW AND SPEAK OUT!