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Counter culture - continued

Part of the problem is competition from the mega-chains. Indeed, when the giant Tower Records opened Boston's first music ``superstore,'' just up Newbury Street from Newbury Comics' flagship outlet in1987, the smaller chain's sales initially suffered. (Newbury Comics responded with a television commercial in which people in the infamous yellow Devo outfits were chained together in front of a tower, the victims of ``towering prices.'')

The electronics superstores and other chains pose another challenge: To attract business, chains such as Circuit City and supermarkets such as Star sell hit CDs at virtually wholesale prices, forcing music retailers to cut prices to remain competitive. Newbury, too, will sell CDs at this price, sometimes to the aggravation of the major record labels.

Even in this environment, Newbury Comics has enjoyed steady growth. The company now has 18 stores around New England; its most recent store, the largest, opened in Newton in May.

The strong performance can be attributed in part to Newbury Comics' mix of musical offerings - rarities as well as hits, depth as well as breadth - and a knowledgeable staff. For the past two years, Newbury Comics has won the National Association of Recording Merchandisers award for best midsize chain.

But a big part of Newbury Comics' success has come from being in the forefront of pop culture trends. As the ``over-the-counterculture'' has grown, as once cutting-edge alternative styles and products have become ``mallternative,'' Newbury Comics has benefited from the market moving in its direction. Black leather biker jackets, body piercings, tattoos, and jarring hairstyles, which once could shock the counterculturally challenged, today are part of a lifestyle choice that barely raises eyebrows.

Popular music, too, has changed. ``Alternative'' music is no longer aired only on stations like WFNX-FM, which plowed the path during the 1980s, but on big stations like WBCN. ``Since the day of our founding, music has moved only in our direction,'' says Dreese, although he admits that rap was one major trend that he failed to capitalize on.

Dreese bemoans what he says is the uniformity and mediocrity of much of mainstream pop music. ``We don't want McDonald's for music. We want it to have a distinctive flavor,'' he says. At the same time, ``that doesn't mean that everything we do is wonderful, either. A lot of it is obnoxious or boorish or banal.'' About the only thing Dreese says he won't stock now is the extreme Oi! music by white-power European punk bands.

Newbury Comics has accentuated its avant-garde image with its music-savvy employees and its eclectic product mix. Over the years, numerous local musicians have held down day jobs at the company's warehouse or one of its stores. These include Aimee Mann, formerly of 'til tuesday and now a solo artist living in Los Angeles, and Tanya Donelly, formerly of Throwing Muses, the Breeders, and Belly.

And the company's expansion into new product areas has made its name almost a misnomer. Indeed, although Newbury Comics still sells comic books, those account for only 3 percent of sales volume. On the other hand, 6 percent of the chain's sales come from Doc Martens shoes from England. CDs and cassettes make up 80 percent of its sales, with various accessories, books, and other products accounting for the remainder.

Dreese and Brusger still own the company 50-50. Brusger is more of a behind-the-scenes player, the computer and systems wizard - ``the silent strength of the company,'' says Dreese. ``John is a remarkably intelligent person who doesn't like to interact with large groups of people.'' Although both of the owners have voices that tend to rise and squeak when they hit upon an exclamatory point, Dreese jokes that Brusger is nerdier than he.

``That sounds pretty accurate,'' says Brusger. He calls himself focused, compulsive, and ``lucky to remember where I've parked my car.''

While Dreese's is the public face of the company, Brusger has overseen the company's just-in-time distribution system, which allows stores to stock a wide variety of discs by stocking fewer copies of each one. When the last copy of a title sells out of a store, it's generally back in stock the next day. ``We try to replenish rapidly,'' Brusger says. ``It's nothing glamorous, but it's easier said than done.''

Brusger is also responsible for the company's familiar logo - a childish happy-face drawing with a loopy smile - which he sketched for a last-minute ad in 1982. Since then, the company has sold more than 50,000 T-shirts bearing the logo.

Why is it so popular? ``Someone told me,'' says Dreese, ``that in a computer-designed world, it's a throwback - just a happy face having a wicked good time.'' He says a student doing a master's thesis on carefully researched, modern, childlike corporate logos once tried to pick his brain on the research done and the time spent on developing the logo. The answers, according to Dreese, were ``none'' and ``minimal,'' and she hung up.

If Dreese and Brusger still embody the idea of the non-businessman's businessman, their lifestyles have, over time, become somewhat more conventional.

After living for 15 years in the Back Bay, Dreese, with his wife and young daughter, moved two years ago to Sudbury, where Brusger also lives with his wife and two daughters. ``I've got family responsibilities now,'' Dreese says, ``and I commute. I ... bought the house in the suburbs. I got tired of the ambulances and the cars being broken into and all that. It was time to find some trees.''

Dreese owns about 500 CDs, a tiny collection by music-business standards, and these days, when he listens for pleasure, he's not likely to punk out. It's usually ambient chill music - ``mood music for burnouts,'' Dreese says, laughing. Dreese sits on two boards: for the Berklee College of Music and the Boston Institute for Arts Therapy.

Still, Dreese tries to retain his ties to the culture that made him a success. Indeed, he tries to be sure that all the employees at Newbury Comics remain close to the proverbial street. ``It's terribly hard to keep people close to the street,'' he says, noting the effect marriage, a nice car, a house in the suburbs, and, ``God forbid,'' kids, can have on a person. ``How do you retain the excitement?''

One way is to remain a player in the music world. Dreese launched Boston Rock magazine, which was later sold, and he recently invested in a small start-up record label, Wicked Disc. The most prominent band signed to the label is Boston's Gigolo Aunts, a 10-year-old pop band that joined the label after frustrating experiences with the Fire label in England and with RCA in America.

The Gigolo Aunts recently released a six-song disc, Learn to Play Guitar, on Wicked Disc. Says Aunts' singer-guitarist Dave Gibbs: ``Mike said, `You have great songs and a great band; I can help you during a tough period.'''

Friends say this fair treatment of people he works with or employs is also typical of Dreese. ``He treats his employees really well,'' says Oedipus, the WBCN program director. ``He recognizes that it's all about the kids - not just about the stars - and othat's what punk was all about. ... I think he has the same spirit he always had. He's done it without being a thief, and that's what I admire.''

But, for Dreese, this still doesn't mean you have to try to be all things to all people. ``If you make the individual happy,'' says Dreese, ``then everything takes care of itself. [But] if your whole business is dedicated to pleasing everybody, you're never going to please yourself.''