About a month ago I approached David Rolland about doing a local legends series bimonthly or so, and starting shooting around ideas. David was all for it and my lazy ass was lollygagging around until the legend I needed to write about first fell out of the sky. About the same time I brought up the idea, I picked up a new book on punk archives titled We’re Having Much More Fun by Judith A. Peraino and Tom McEnaney. The book came to my attention from a group I follow about Tomato Du Plenty from the Screamers. As I breezed through the pages I stumbled upon a photo of D. Boon and Mike Watt, and sure as shit they were photos from a legendary two night stand of the Minutemen at Flynn’s on Miami Beach. Lo and behold,  Leslie Wimmer was the photographer and had a beautiful quote in the book! I reached out to Leslie to inform her but heard no response. This hit home in my head because I know Leslie would have loved to see it and gotten back to me joyously.

Leslie showed up on the scene in the late 1970s. I believe she may be one of the shouts at the end of the infamous “Communist Radio” song by the Eat. I could be wrong, but does it really matter? What matters is Leslie started a store with Ted Gottfried, who I hear was not psychedelic. The store was called Open Books and Records. Their first location was in Deerfield beach where they kind of sold their own stuff,  before moving to Progresso Plaza in Fort Lauderdale. At that location there was a famous The Eat show that deserves it’s own story. While at Progresso Plaza they started a record label and put out The Land That Time Forgot a compilation record with 15 Florida bands plus two singles and a full-length by Charlie Pickett and the Eggs including Live At The Button, recorded at the club on Fort Lauderdale Beach. As Charlie told me recently, “If it wasn’t for Leslie I would have been a guy driving a front-end loader at the Sessa rock pit.” Soon they relocated to their legendary spot in North Miami Beach on 167th Street.

The shop on 167th became the mecca of all independent record stores in South Florida for original music, imports and whatnot. There were others, but this was a point of congregation. Ted split for the East Village in NYC around 1984 to open up See Hear, the most radical underground zine and book store around. The store was actually downstairs in a basement. Leslie carried on at Open. This was about the time Tina and I found our way there. Although I worked at Record Haven – with the cantankerous  legend himself Robert Mascaro – sweeping the floors and picking up things he broke in the store as a 15 year old in 1979 and 1980, I didn’t find Open until 1984.

Once I entered Open I knew I was home. Leslie was the kindest, most warm-hearted person around. Most record store folks were obnoxious, self important jerks at the time. Don’t get me wrong, I found great record store owners after meeting Leslie, but she was the first to treat me like a friend the day I walked in the store. They had a couch near the front window, books, magazines, and cassettes across from the counter, and a u-shaped room with records around the walls and down the middle. This is where we were introduced to the SST label, IRS and Shimmy Disc. It was a whole new eye-opener of music to me. Although MTV ran The Cutting Edge and 120 Minutes, this store had records and magazines to discover even more bands. Tina and I would go there so many Sundays to hang out, buy music and meet people, and it was all because of Leslie. There was an arcade a block down with a miniature golf course, and our Sundays consisted of searching for records, a walk to the arcade, and a round of goony golf to contemplate what we’d purchase. We would spend hours in the store just chatting with Leslie about art, books and music – all on that couch that everyone sat on and is legendary in itself. And there was a store cat too! We all loved AJ.

One of the other things Leslie conjured up was “Song and Dance.” It was a phone number that you called up for the local shows of the week and there was a new song every time. It was rad. There were many legendary shows there. Henry Rollins doing spoken work, Half Japanese playing in the store, the Flat Duo Jets with a stand up bass player and Crow using his drum cases, a snare and hi-hats. Also the Velvet Underground Appreciation Society, or whatever the hell they called it, where bands performed Velvets songs. Local bands also performed in the store. When I saw Boise and Moss for the first time there I knew I needed to be in a band. And watching The Eat play with Eddie O’Brien cursing in between every song then apologizing because Eddie Jr. was there – classic! Leslie either orchestrated all of this or just let it go on, always with a smile on her face and the kindest heart. Also, meeting the folks that helped out there was golden. Debbie Rage, Malcolm Tent, Punk Jill, Todd Jenkins and Hal Spector changed my life by just being friends, and made me the record store guy I am today. My favorite was when F. Clarke Marty worked there for a brief period and we showed up at opening time one Sunday and found him asleep in his car out front. We banged on the window and woke him up, and he said he’d been there since his gig the night before. It was 10 in the morning or something. Leslie really instilled in us the way to treat people in a record store, and her and Joe Harris are the reasons that Tina works in a book and record store and I at a record store today – to carry on that tradition.

By the early 1990’s the big box music stores were taking over, especially when things changed to CDs. In 1994 Leslie decided to close Open after 15 years. It was sad and tough buying stuff at the closing sale, but then Bob Perry offered her a job at Blue Note Records down the street. It was awesome to see her for a dozen or more years at Blue Note, but times were a changin’ again. There came a point when Leslie needed to take care of her mother in Melbourne or the whereabouts. Seems we all, or most of us, eventually get in that position as caretakers of those who took care of us. She did a fantastic job and occasionally would came down for events, record shows or reunions and hang outs. One of the last times we saw Leslie was 4 years ago. She came down to visit Joe Harris at My Mama’s, the book and record store Joe helped curate and Tina worked at . She wanted to stop by our house for tea and biscuits and talk books, music, art and gardening. It was lovely. She said to me “Steve, I can’t believe how much my mediocre heavy metal records are worth.” Haha! Thanks for stopping by, Leslie.