he presents what is unquestionably the best explanation I’ve heard for why vinyl is a better audio
format than all others. He concludes the interview by revealing what he loves and hates about this
remarkable town.
Callum Houston: May I ask what age you are?
Mark Lemna: Fifty.
CH: Where are you from originally?
ML: Born and raised in Powell River. Absolutely.
CH: If I was to ask you to define yourself as an individual how would you describe yourself?
ML: That’s a tougher question. Well, I like to think that I’m laid back; I like to think that I’m an
equal opportunity type of person, interested in other people and, you know, how I can help them
out, especially, you know, when it comes to the music. [Just then Mark’s partner Claire walks into
the shop.] Oh, here’s my partner here. How would you describe me as a person?
Claire: No comment. [Everybody laughs.] Dedicated!
ML: Dedicated!
CH: Is there a generational category you’d put yourself into? Like a baby boomer or Generation
X?
ML: I think I’m actually on the cusp between those two. I have a lot of qualities that are very much
like the baby boomers, especially growing up in a small town. You know, of course, both my
parents are baby boomers so those sorts of values were, you know, what I grew up with. But, you
know, I was a punk rocker in the ’80s, the late ’70s and the ’80s, which kinda puts me into that
younger generation as well.
CH: I remember in high school, social dividing lines were often dictated by the type of music you
listened to. I was a rocker myself. I identified with anti-authority party bands like AC/DC and
Van Halen. You were a punk rocker back then yourself?
River City Q&A: Mark Lemna, Owner of Roxy Records
Vinyl records forever! In this way cool “River City Q&A”
interview I speak with music aficionado Mark Lemna, owner of
what is probably the most unique shop in all of Powell River,
Roxy Records, a store dedicated to selling vinyl LPs.
Prior to Roxy Records Mark had a successful career in the
music industry in the big city and he reveals some of the famous
musicians he encountered back in those days. But he was also
an active musician himself in his high school days in Powell
River and he talks about that and about some of the other
players circulating around town back then -- including one
friend who went on to join Bryan Adams’ band! As well, we
go in-depth regarding his current pursuit, Roxy Records, where
ML: Well, I wasn’t so much a punk rocker
because I always listened to lots of different
styles of music. I was really fortunate that
when I was a child my mom was a real big jazz
fan, she listened to lots of big band and so I
grew up loving that. Simultaneously, my dad
was into classical music and the Beatles which
really gave me a huge palette to draw from.
I’ve got an older brother who had a lot of
influence on me. He would bring home a lot of
records. He brought home like, you know,
David Bowie and Elton John and Kiss records
and things like that. And I really got into the glam rock. I was a really big fan of T. Rex. David
Bowie is still my favorite to this day. So it’s really hard to categorize me as a punk rocker, but I
was really into it for a portion of my life, let’s just say that.
CH: You’ve told me that your nickname is Floyd. How did you get that nickname?
ML: Okay, so I was a bass player in a band and the bass player in The Muppet Show band was
named Floyd and so that’s what my friends started calling me. And I was a real big Pink Floyd fan
as well so I think that it’s a combination of those two things.
CH: So you’re a bass player?
ML: I am. I don’t play as much as I wish I could but I’m really busy, right. I’ve got a full-time
job, I run the store and then I have another business where I do web page and database
development. Plus I work for a company in Victoria too.
CH: You’re a busy guy. It’s just bass that you play?
ML: Primarily bass. A little bit of guitar. I’m not very proficient at guitar but I do enjoy playing.
CH: You actually pursued music as a career, right? You were involved in music software.
Could you explain what job you had in the music industry?
ML: I worked for a company called PG Music and they’re developers of many different software
titles including Band-in-a-Box which is world-renowned music software. I was with the company
for fifteen years I think. I started out as the shipper-receiver, moved my way into becoming
marketing manager and then spent a good ten or twelve years doing a lot of traveling for them. I
would do trade shows all over the U.S. into Europe to Australia, things like that. It was lots of fun
and a great company.
CH: Where were you doing that?
ML: That was in Victoria.
CH: Which trade shows did you attend? Did you go to the big NAMM [the National Association
of Music Merchants] shows in the states?
ML: Absolutely. I went to many, many NAMM shows, both summer and winter NAMM. NAMM
is the North American music manufacturers’ trade show so you’d have all the big guns there. You
would have Roland and Yamaha and Marshall amplifiers and, you know, Fender guitars and Dean
Markley strings and big people like that. And then little guys like us and we’d have a little ten by ten
booth and other guys would have booths as big as a football stadium sort of thing.
So I would do those shows and they were really exciting actually because the big guns, these big
companies, they would get the people that endorsed their products to come and sign autographs.
So, you know, you could be walking down the aisle and there’s Stevie Wonder over there or, you
know, there’s Stewart Copeland. So that was really exciting for me to do that. And that one took
place mostly in Southern California, either Los Angeles or Orange County. The summer NAMM
every year was in Nashville, Tennessee. And, as one would expect, it was more country oriented.
So you’d see a lot of country music stars there. It was a little bit smaller than the winter NAMM
down in Orange County, but still a great time. Nashville’s a fantastic city to visit if you get the
chance.
And then when I did the international shows, like the Musikmesse in Germany or the AMAC show
down in Australia, those were a little bit different. The one in Australia was, again, for music
manufacturers. The one in Germany was actually open to the public and they would get three
hundred thousand people coming through their doors over the five-day period that that show went
on for. The remainder of the shows I did, and this was most of them, were educator trade shows
and they were all in the U.S. and they were usually state-wide. So I would go to Ohio once a year
and it would be, you know, music educators; university music educators, high school. So I would
be selling my products to them and there’d be just a huge array of different styles of products.
There would be people with marching band uniforms and shoes and tubas and, you know, all sorts
of stuff that you would see in band. So it was pretty exciting actually. I really loved it.
CH: You were also telling me that you met a lot of famous musicians at the trade shows.
ML: As many as I could.
CH: Who are some of the big ones you met? You mentioned Stevie Wonder.
ML: I didn’t actually meet Stevie Wonder but he was certainly very close to my proximity and that
was extremely exciting. As you can imagine, you know, most of the stars that we would see at
those big shows, they would just be walking around like regular guys. Stevie Wonder, of course,
would have an entourage, probably because he was blind, right, and he needed that guidance. And
we were lucky, we got to see Stevie perform for a very intimate crowd one time. He was trying out
instruments and everybody was just staring at him and he played “Superstition” for us so it was a
wonderful thing.
But, you know, the first person I really met was Bootsy Collins, the bass player from Parliament-
Funkadelic, played with James Brown, Bootsy’s Rubber Band. I was fortunate enough to meet
Stewart Copeland, the drummer from the Police one time. Met Paul Stanley one time. I feel like I’m
name-dropping here. I was just thinking about him today -- George Clinton from Parliament-
Funkadelic was another guy that I met. So yeah, many people. Uh, Mike Garson, the piano player
who played on many David Bowie albums. So it was really cool.
