AFTERWORD WITHOUT ENDING (JUST ADDED)
PROLOGUE
Hi, I’m Andy, owner of Wax Atlas Records, a Baltimore Record Store and DIY venue that often acts like a non-profit even though it isn’t one. We sell records, then use the money to subsidize a local show space bands can use for free. Easy as that.
In our 10 years of existence, I’ve often worked 12-hour days. I’ve never taken a regular salary.
We were recently victims of a series of massive thefts, causing losses in the range of $40,000 – $50,000. The crimes were also just WEIRD. The last month has been all consuming, surreal, like living in a bad cop drama where you can’t change the channel. Now, finally, we can share some of our sleuthery.
It’s true, we have tied associate/volunteer Clarence Davis (aka Tyrone Davis, aka Tuesday Dutch) to a portion of the missing items and are continuing to unearth more evidence every day. In the mean time:
– YES, WE ARE OPEN AS NORMAL
– YES, SHOWS ARE BACK AS NORMAL
– NO, IT DOES NOT APPEAR CLARENCE STOLE FROM CUSTOMERS
– YES, WE WILL BE REACHING OUT TO REPAIR CUSTOMERS
– NO, YOU SHOULD NOT CONTACT HIM
– YES, THIS HAS PUT THE STORE IN MORTAL DANGER
– NO, WE AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE
– YES, WE HAVE A PLAN
– YES, IT’S A CHARACTERISTICALLY WEIRD ONE
Before we begin, I want to be clear about 4 things.
1. Under no circumstances do we want anyone to harass, threaten or target Clarence in any way. The truth is all we need here.
2. NO ONE in our investigation has indicated that Clarence is a physical danger.
3. We literally exist to help create community for those that others often overlook. And we believe DEEPLY that ex offenders deserve genuine paths of redemption (trying to figure out what that is is part of the task of this piece). In any case, ex-offenders are welcome at Wax Atlas (THEY JUST CAN’T COMMIT CRIMES).
4. I’m writing this over the course of a few days and likely not reading any comments or commentary until then. I appreciate any offers to help, as well as admonishments for poor management (I’ll do plenty of that myself), but first just let me cook. I’m going somewhere with this and it isn’t necessarily to court or to lawsuits or traditional fundraisers or any of the other places you might expect.
Over the next few days I’m going to post in more detail about what has happened, where things stand, and what we need to do to move forward.
Day 1: PAST
Day 2: Present
DAY 3 Future
Why, this way, you ask? Because I was a professional word nerd for over a decade and I still think in articles. And, because, frankly, We’re not doing well, mentally, financially or emotionally. This crime and its effects are like an oppressive heat that no amount of sunblock can stop. It just burns and burns. We need relief.
[DEF NO AI USED ON THIS ONE. THESE HOT TAKES ARE ALL ANDY]
THE BALLAD OF TUESDAY DUTCH
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” –Mark Twain
“Good writers borrow, great writers steal” -T.S. Eliot
“Always tell the truth—it’s the easiest thing to remember.” –David Mamet
Clarence Davis is a man with many names, but not so many faces.
I can relate.
When I met him in spring of 2025, I was trying to be multiple men. It was a time of asynchronous expansion and implosion. The record store was getting wild and our DIY show space was absolutely taking off. Despite being a volunteer-staffed initiative, we began running a club-level schedule (up to 60 bands a month!).
By 2026, it was so overwhelming that I stopped even trying to make it out for everything. Last year MILO (yes the one that went to college), popped up unannounced and did two songs on OUR STAGE with his daughter. AND I FUCKING MISSED IT!
All that to say this weird thing I started in my basement to keep records out of the dump, that I sweated hard on through Covid, that I’ve moved 4 times with my friends:
It isn’t just about us anymore.
So, while others were playing and booking shows and sipping drinks and having fun, I was trying to leverage one of the least tenable business models in existence (Used Record Store Retail) to pay for a model so broken we didn’t even consider monetizing it. (Small Concert Space) .
I’d also just moved in with my partner, Liz (aka Lil Bob aka the Super Sleuth) and helped take in a nephew full time. Between that and a little festival I helped found called SubScape, it was a lot.
So imagine how good it felt to find a beacon of pure positivity amidst it all. When Clarence came in off the street with ideas on how we could partner to create a legit electronics repair program, I was all in.
We gave him space and resources to get started and agreed we would handle customer service. He would be responsible for repairs. We would collect payment and then split whatever was left after expenses. He could (and did) dive right in.
And he was a HIT.
Over the past year, things began to go missing. Small things. Then big things. That’s why Clarence offered to change the locks on the basement door.
As more bits of Wax Atlas Records disappeared (newly bought candles, guitar pedals, hand lotion), our Grandpappy emeritus dismissed it as the work of the “show kids” and offered to install and monitor a new camera system.
When more, bigger stuff went missing, he helped search. He added more cameras. He printed “Do Not Enter” signs in multiple languages and put them on the staff doors. He suggested potential culprits (often local, underage regulars).
He never caught anyone, but he was a real go-getter.
While I knew the theft was a problem, the cameras simply didn’t turn up any evidence. We poured over them, but a record store is a disorganized, slippery business with things coming in and out all day every day.
With so much going on and so many bands passing through, each event seemed isolated, a case of confusion, or simply the result of mismanagement. We were growing faster than I expected. It was our biggest year ever. Yet the numbers just didn’t add up.
I blamed myself. I’d taken on WAY too much the previous year (moving in with my partner and then helping take care of a 16-year-old family member).
I started telling the team, in all earnestness, “I’m not good at this. We need a real manager.”
Clarence always disagreed, saying, “You’re a great manager, Andy.”
Maybe, but this past summer’s sales were slow and I wasn’t able to find several more expensive items I’d set aside to research and sell online. More things went missing. Big bills began to vanish from under the drawer in the register.
This wasn’t isolated. It had to be addressed.
First, the money. I might not be the best retail manager, but I’m pretty baller when it comes to rock-bottom buying. In early August, I took out a loan and bought 13k records sight unseen to bulk up our normal store stock. I also bought a single crate of MIND-BENDINGLY RARE records to sell in September. I told the core team I’d solved our rent issue.
Then those records went missing as well.
THIS COULD NOT STAND.
So, we got to work. Clarence, Fiona, and I went back through EVERY SINGLE BOX in the back. Several high-school age volunteers helped. After three days, 60ish man hours, and moving over 150 boxes, we came up empty.
I might be the worst manager in the world, but, at that point, even I was pretty sure they were stolen. I made a few calls to other stores and then settled in for the evening.
By dumb luck, just before bed I saw a post from another record store in Pennsylvania bragging about a truly incredible drop from a few days before. I watched the video. It WAS incredible. They were my records.
The next day I told my brother I’d have to miss his bachelor party (that night) but I’d be with him the next three days as agreed. Then I called the cops.
The police did investigate (they just also didn’t). After making a statement, the investigator called the other store owner, then asked me a question,”What do you want out of this?”
“I want to know who did it.”
“You’ll probably never get your money back.”
“OK, but we still need to secure our space.”
“OK, Pull out your phone and type what I read.”
I did as asked and typed as he read each number out…….
“Any contact come up?”
CLARENCE DAVIS – CURRENT
FUCK.
Clarence was very good at placing himself above suspicion…. But he’s pretty crap at crime.
He sold the records less than an hour away in Pennsylvania, using his own name and phone number. He contacted the owner using a Facebook profile with his name and picture on it.
Yup, turns out that sweet old man who just loved to help, who would txt us coffee memes on Sunday mornings, who was a grandfather and father figure to the crew, is a man with three aliases and a long criminal history.
Needless to say. Liz was immediately out to crack the caper. I couldn’t keep up as she cross-referenced white pages with facebook profiles. She pulled case search files and property records. She found phone numbers and addresses. It was incredible.
- Court records indicate that he has done long stints in jail and has been ordered to pay restitution many times. In 2016, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
- He was once even ordered to pay restitution to…. a church. [Central Presbyterian Church vs. Clarence Tyrone Davis – 05/19/2005 – Amount of Judgment: $500.00].
- After reviewing 40,000 (yes, 40,000!) clips from the security cameras Clarence installed, we came to believe he made a practice of erasing short clips (or entire days) in order to mask criminal acts
- After two weeks of exhaustive inventory and search we estimate our losses at $40,000-$50,000 (more on that to come). We have not definitively linked Clarence to all of it, but we’ve certainly made progress. We find new clues at the store every day, be it the thousands of lottery tickets under his desk, or the missing Uranium glass stuffed in an open envelope with his return address on it.
She also discovered that Clarence has been known to use two other aliases, TYRONE DAVIS and…… wait for it …..
TUESDAY DUTCH.
The staff loved Clarence, customers loved him, I loved him. He was often intoning “NOW I’VE HEARD EVERYTHING!”and “NEVER A DULL DAY AT WAX ATLAS.” We’d repeat his catch phrases when he wasn’t around. He doordashed candy for the kids. He gave job advice to our interns. I talked to him about relationships and store issues in complete confidence.
And yes, he slowly, but surely, fixed stuff.
As we all became closer, I pulled him aside several times and said, “Hey, if you want to talk about a new arrangement, I’ll understand. You’re volunteering upstairs more than you’re working electronics. You’re barely making any money.”
Rock solid, as always, Clarence said, simply, “Andy, we’re a team. I GOT YOU.”
He sure did.
EPILOGUE – THE FIONA FACTOR
This is reckless.
This is manic.
You clearly have PTSD.
What if everything implodes?
This isn’t your responsibility
This IS your responsibility
Did you try doing this the “right” way?
Won’t someone please think of the children?
YES
Throughout the last few weeks I have sat with a lot of confused, angry and traumatized people. It’s hard to explain the manipulation that occurred here. There are so many instances effecting so many people that I can’t even begin to capture it.
I tried. This part was hard to film but even harder to write. A year from now the material theft will be resolved. But the real damage will still be around.
That’s the reason we ARE HERE instead of in court, in fundraising mode, or just quietly moving along as many have advised. I hate this, but to address it, to really address it we all have to look it directly in the eye:
People who have experienced trauma or mental illness know this. We are disproportionally the folks willing to help when institutions fail. What that means is you have trauma trying to address trauma with an insider’s access and eye. That can go right, or really, really wrong
Yes, over the last few days I framed this as a caper with good guys and bad guys.
We are all liars in our own way.
The shift in perspective that this story adds gives you a better idea of what we actually experienced… and are still experiencing. 1000 little moments for each of us. I wish they were gone entirely. Instead they’re ever-present, stale and sinister.
Meanwhile, two things can be true. A thing can be your responsibility without being your fault.
So, let’s do our best not to pass the buck.
No it’s a my fault that a man may have committed multiple state and federal felonies against us. But it was my responsibility to hold the line. I chose that responsibility. In the course of failed attempts to reach an agreement with Clarence’s family (as well as in conversations with some of the kids affected), I found myself sounding like a grandad:
“A man takes responsibility for his actions.”
I can’t look any of those kids in the eye until I at the very least live up to what I demand of others.
I allowed this in.
I know it.
I’m sorry.
I accept that this is part of my job description, but I can’t help but ask:
Why?
It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’sIt’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job. It’s not your job.
Then whose is it?
I don’t believe people are evil.
At least not as something innate, inborn, or inevitable.
I know from experience that the human mind is a tricky devil. I also know that, however twisted or indecipherable an action might be, people tend to make themselves the hero of their own story. (I give myself mixed reviews on that one).
That belief may cause them to do enormous evil, but to really understand it we have to figure out where things went wrong. You have to find the deeply buried explanations, those nasty, dirty rooted barbs deep in the ground. You can’t always find those things from a place of authority.
At best, the justice system indelicately hacks at the branches and trunk. But stump and knotted roots remain.
I also know that in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing. I’ve lived in a nursing home, unable to move any part of my body. THAT was something. In there I met a young woman who was permanently paralysed, who’d been stabbed, in the stomach, by her boyfriend, to kill her baby. THAT was something.
Untidy, swept-away, unresolved realities surround us on all sides. The question isn’t whether or not they exist, it’s whether a person allows them to remain abstract. This situation is dark, but palatable enough that we can reckon with it. It’s a stand-in for the MANY, often deeply unsettling things society pushes to the margins.
This is something I learned working for the public defender (as I did at 18), watching my parents do 30 years each in public education, and getting to know the intimate challenges of EVERYONE on the store block, regardless of background, housing status, criminal history or income.
It’s the well from which I draw a sense of service. When you step into a record shop, you enter a space with different metrics than the rest of the world. A place where you can connect with others whose politics you may abhor or whose identity you don’t understand. Because those things are not the main plain of connection within these walls. All you need to be ruler of this roost is knowledge, interest and enthusiasm.
We aren’t connecting well as a society and it’s because we’re only engaging in things that are comfortable. We’re hiding safely in dichotomies when spectrums are what is actually afoot. That’s what cultural institutions are for… or what they ought to be. We meet people where they are and ask where they want to go.
So when the police asked what I wanted out of this, my answer really should have been: the best outcome for all involved. To me that demands public reckoning, responsibility and a real, thoughtful community response.
My frustrations with Clarence at this point have morphed into the frustration of being failed by many of the same institutions that have clearly failed him over and over. Beyond pure punishment, how many times has someone looked into the depth of what’s clearly a major mental disorder and said “That’s not my problem?” That’s a every bit as concerning as a store on the edge.
To me, at this moment, our best outcome looks at public accountability in a way that will diminish Clarence’s ability to do this again. Nothing more, nothing less.
- If his family paid for this that makes me “whole”, not the others affected and not him.
- Even if insurance paid for this (which they won’t) that makes me “whole”, not the others affected and not him.
- If the community pays for this (which I believe they would if I asked) that makes me “whole”, not the others affected and not him.
- If we pursue criminal charges, that puts more enormous burdens on ME and, “best” case scenario is that we enter another cycle of what didn’t work. Same if we sue.
One of the best advisors I’ve ever had told me at the beginning that the best business outcome here was to take the hit, raise public money and move on. Clarence may not have the money. This is potentially a year of my life sucked into constant stress and darkness and the end result would just be a repeat of consequences that have failed Clarence over and over.
He’s not wrong. But my heart isn’t either. There is no answer and it all feels impossible.
Why? Because if you choose to look at “evil” instead of sweeping it under the rug, it inevitably reveals trauma and mental illness. I don’t know why Clarence is this way, but I do know fixing it isn’t something simple. And nothing they’ve tried in his 66 years has really, truly worked.
It reminds us that there are people that simply aren’t being caught by anyone. That’s uncomfortable, and it’s easy to retreat under the safe umbrella of the word “evil.” I refuse to look away. And I’m willing to take the hit.
I hope Clarence will find healing through the interventions of his family and friends and that this will cause the community to keep an eye on him. Not to punish or exile, but to uplift and empower his better inclinations. All I wanted was for the community to look at this the way I have. To sit with each emotion each day while waiting for another update.
I’m reserving my right to press charges and sue, but have no plans to do so at this time.
He crimed me. Why should I do the work?
The greatest gift this job has given me is a true appreciation for what small business owners actually are. Like all retail workers and folks in the service industry, we open our doors each day and take the risk of welcoming and engaging with whatever and whoever walks in.
We are the link between the margin walkers and everyone else.
It takes guts.
It takes compassion.
We really are public servants, just with dust under our nails.
The same heart and worldview that let Clarence in (clearly a mistake) has, in other moments, helped empower others. It’s built a wobbly institution that’s saved well over a million pieces of legacy media, helped the community throw hundreds of shows and platformed over 1000 bands.
As that heart looks at the naked implications of all that has happened, there is a sadness, a mourning of innocence. But I will not allow myself to overcorrect. We have to leave our hearts open in spite… not in ignorance.
Do not mistake kindness for weakness.
We will open the door. We will welcome what comes in, and we will find a way to deal with it.
That’s the job.
I still choose it, but boy do I need help out here,
Because, as Clarence was always so fond of saying:
It’s never a dull day at Wax Atlas.
…..
…..
….
….
PS. Yo Clarence, I forgive you, and I really hope you see what I did here: there are ways to work through challenges, traumas, and mental struggles where people willingly allow you to manipulate their emotions. And that also makes one feel powerful.
I tell everyone who walks in about it.
It’s called art.
HIDDEN TRACK
REINVENTING AXL ROSE
BY AGAINST ME:
We want a band that plays loud and hard every night
That doesn’t care how many people are counted at the door
That would travel one million miles and ask for nothing more
Than a plate of food and a place to rest
They’d strike chords that cut like a knife
It would mean so much more than t-shirts or a ticket stub
They’d stop at nothing short of a massacre
And everyone would leave with the memory
That there was no place else in the world
And this was where they always belonged
We would dance like no one was watching
With one fist in the air
Our arena just basements and bookstores across an underground America
With this fire we could light
With this fire we could, 2, 3, 4
Just gimme a scene where the music is free
And the beer is not the life of the party
There’s no need to shit talk or impress
‘Cause honesty and emotion are not looked down upon
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And every promise that’s made and bragged
Is meant if not kept
We’d do it all because we have to, not because we know why
Beyond a gender, race, and class, we could find what really holds us back
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That they are the beginning and ending of everything
And we all are stronger
Than everything they taught us that we should fear
We Can Got Crimed ...And It Was Weird.
Where we've been, we're we're at, and where we're going
Where we've been, we're we're at, and where we're going
By Andrew Phillips Posted in Commentary, Writing on September 29, 2026 0 Comments 24 min read