The first thing you notice as you push open the door is the pungent smell of incense. Before your nose can adjust, your ears are hit with the sound of a rock song — playing loudly.
At 4:34 p.m. Jan. 29, that one-two punch included David Bowie midway through “Ziggy Stardust,” followed by Jimi Hendrix’s “Highway Chile.”
Thousands of customers have walked through Starship Records & Tapes over the last five decades, sharing more or less the same experience even as music — and the ways we listen to it — has transformed. Now, with less than 20 hours of operation remaining, the last generation of Starship loyalists is here to experience the magic.
The shirt racks are picked through, meaning the abundance of music tees – mostly black, of course – are down to some mediums and 3X and up.
There’s a steady stream of customers entering to shop what’s left of the records, CDs, posters and other merch, including “waterpipes,” before the legendary music store closes for the final time at 7 p.m. Saturday.
It’s mostly older men, a few with long ponytails that must be required by unwritten Starship rules because there’s always at least a couple. There are quite a few young guys. There is an older woman looking at a Debbie Harry record. A postal carrier flips through records close to the funk section as another carrier drops off the mail for nearly the last time.
“I always have a list in my head ‘til I walk in the door, and then my mind goes blank,” a customer, flipping through the Rs, said across the racks to another customer on my left.
“Same thing happens to me,” said the other guy. “That’s what makes it great. Just means you flip through all the racks till you find something you like, although it’s getting slim pickings now.”
The pair talk about how they’ll miss this activity. They’ve been doing it for a long time. I know the feeling.
The speakers suddenly blast Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused.”
Dazed and confused is right!
Starship has been a part of my life for longer than I can remember. I had two teenage stoner parents, who really loved rock ‘n’ roll.
I was born a few months after MTV debuted in 1981. My 17-year-old dad with his long hippy hair and my 14-year-old fair-haired mom would cruise Route 66 from Claremore to Tulsa, most likely listening to 97.5 KMOD “The Rainbow Station” with lots of Starship ads between songs the entire way. Then they’d pull up to a little yellow and blue house at 11th and Delaware and park in the back.
We’d enter through the front door and be hit by that familiar smell. I like to imagine AC/DC’s “Givin the Dog a Bone” from “Back on Black” blasting from the giant speakers.
My dad would hold little chubby me on his hip as he and my mom flipped through the records before settling on one or two.
Eventually they’d pay and make their way to the headshop next door with the black lights, those awesome black felt posters, lava lamps, lots of tie dye, screens and don’t you dare call them “bongs.” “They’re waterpipes!” the woman would yell before deciding whether to kick out the offending party. (Just in case they were a narc or an undercover cop or there was one of either within earshot.)
For the first decade of my life I spent many Fridays or Saturdays inside Starship as my parents’ record collection grew into the hundreds. I had the foresight to take it with me when I moved away for college. With Starship’s help, I’ve continued to add to it ever since.
My dad estimates 85% of the record collection he passed on to me was purchased at the store. He said he remembers it cost up to $9 a record unless he was buying a $5.98 special or “something weird” in the clearance bin. Today, it’s closer to $40 for some titles.
“All the Stevie Ray Vaughan and AC/DC (a couple with the Starship Imports sticker) came from there, and the Canned Heat,” he said during a Thursday phone call. “My photo of Stevie playing at Mohawk Park came from behind their counter. I framed it and added my ticket stub to it.”
It still hangs on his wall four decades later.
My parents split when I was in kindergarten and that also meant they divvied up the record collection. I own some duplicates, so one or the other restocked some lost favorites.
“On Fridays, when I’d get paid, we’d get in the truck and go to Tulsa, eat at Ma Bells and go to Starship,” said my dad, who has a lot less hair these days. “I always wanted those speakers. Those suckers were loud.”
He said I went from resting on his hip to flipping through the covers in no time. I still love looking at album covers.
A decade later, the trips to Starship were less frequent as Claremore had a Beat Goes On and a Blue Moon Discs to fill our CD needs. I’d still make the trek occasionally, likely from the brainwashing of the repetitive commercial on 104.5 The Edge.
“Starship Records and Tapes at 11th and Delaware! We’ve got Metallica, Nirvana…” then 10 other bands as Nine Inch Nails played in the background… “WE WANT YOUR MONEY!”
While I was away at Oklahoma State University, the Starship we all knew was no more. In 2005, the little iconic shops were forced to close when the University of Tulsa acquired the land as part of its westward expansion.
The music store and headshop relocated to 1241 S. Lewis Ave. and continued on under one roof in a nondescript tan metal building.
I wonder whatever happened to the gold chain man, who used to hang out in the back lot at the original location?
After college I moved to Tulsa and Starship became a frequent stop to purchase Cain’s Ballroom concert tickets. When friends visited town or I met someone who had just moved here and they needed to buy a dugout or pipe, I directed them to Starship and often offered to tag along.
Starship has always been there. It outlasted Peaches, Mohawk Music, the Sound Warehouses and the ones that turned into Blockbuster Music. In the malls, Camelots came and went as did the FYEs. It was around longer than the prohibition on weed, medicinally.
There are a few other record shops around town these days, but they’re just not the same — and you can find me in them often.
Less than a day remains for Starship to host shoppers as I watch a young couple flip through the posters and laugh. They’re hopefully making a memory they’ll remember for a long time.
Of course I bump into Brian Horton in the CD section. There’s no other person I’d be less surprised to see looking at the rows of thin plastic spines stacked on top of each other. Like many Tulsa music lovers, he’s extremely bummed about the end of the shop that has helped shape and influence the local music scene for over five decades, including being an original home for his Horton Records offerings.
There is a lot of talk about the 2024 death of founder Matt Bunyan and how the estate executor has handled the business since. It’s a tragic ending to a musical institution that attracted fans from communities throughout northeast Oklahoma.
After half an hour of flipping through the records and now holding four of them against my hip, Tom Petty’s “It’s Good to Be King” has started playing. An appropriate song for this sad-happy space we’re in.
“It’s good to get high and never come down. It’s good to be king of your own little town,” the (late) Petty sang.
Part of me didn’t want to buy a thing to stick my middle finger up to the villain of this story, but I bought the vinyl because I wanted to walk out of the store one last time with music I’ll be able to listen to for many years ahead — and always remember the legendary record store that made it possible.
I said my goodbyes and thanks, then exited with the smell of the incense clinging to my clothes and the records. I got to my car, and that’s when I called my dad to tell him I was in the parking lot and just purchased some records there for the last time.
We talked about the past and the good times we’ve had listening to some really great records as I stared at that iconic signage on the front of the building.
Starship may close its doors forever this weekend, but it will live on.
I have lots of great records to listen to.
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