In Character with Terry Currier

A conversation with an interesting Portlander

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Aug 27, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Music Millenium owner Terry Currier in his record room. He still misses the 1970s.

JIM CLARK / TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

Terry Currier just might have the messiest office in Portland. Vinyl record albums and plastic CD cases are in high piles everywhere, and it’s been that way for decades.

What is truly amazing is that Currier, owner of Portland landmark Music Millennium on East Burnside Street, can recite details of most of those albums scattered about. In fact, that’s what brought Currier to Music Millennium in the first place.

Portland Tribune: How did you start in the record business?

Terry Currier: I started working in a record store in September 1972. It was quite odd because I didn’t grow up listening to radio and I didn’t attend my first concert until just weeks before I started working in a record store. I’d only stepped into a record store twice before I got a job at DJ’s Sound at Jantzen Beach.

But I made up for lost time. That first year I spent every dime I had on music. I bought 665 albums.

Tribune: You remember how many albums you had 37 years ago?

Currier: I counted them in the early days. I was combing through them all the time. Those kinds of things stay with you. I’ve got records where I can tell you where a particular scratch came from.

My first experience at Music Millennium was about three or four weeks into the job (at DJ’s). I was going out with a girl who worked at the store and she told me she had a surprise for me that night. And I wasn’t thinking record store.

She took me to Music Millennium and I went inside and I go, “Oh my God, there’s all this too?” I was like a kid in a candy store.

DJ’s closed at nine, Music Millennium was open until 10, and it took me about 15 minutes to get over to Music Millennium. At least three nights a week I would come over after work.

When I interviewed for a job Don MacLeod (Millennium’s original owner) took me to dinner and he started asking me about music to see if I knew the artists. I remember one of the questions in particular. He asked me if I knew Fairport Convention, and I started naming every person in the band.

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