Belated RIP to Steven Stokes, an electronic musician who ran Record Gallery in Dallas during the bleak Reagan Years, before moving to Seattle in 1989. (He ultimately wound up in Portland). His record-store-plus-art-gallery was an oasis of "downtown" culture in Dallas's dystopian sprawl of malls, sports stadiums, topless bars, and Baptist churches. Eventually even Stokes had had too much of it: "Nothing's ever going to happen here," he told me just before he moved. I kind of liked the negative inspiration but moved to NYC a few years later (which now has 7/11s and K-Marts).
A boingboing BBS post features reminiscences by a then-teenager from suburban Arlington, TX, who made pilgrimages into Dallas to visit Steve's store on Greenville Avenue.
I lived a few blocks away and bought many vinyl records, a few cassettes, and a painting there. Talking to Steve about music was always enjoyable.
The boingboing piece links to Mark Zuckerberg's crayon scribble site for teens and seniors, which has more info and a "Steven D. Stokes and the Record Gallery" page.