Catching Up
As the 12 of you reading this probably realized, I’ve been out of town and thus not updating. Thank goodness I have a spare Ceci lying around, or else you’d have all defected for better surroundings!
In all seriousness, many thanks to my Swedish pal Cecilia for keeping things up-and-running around here while I was in California. She’s one amongst a scant few I’d ever trust with such a responsibility. After all, I don’t want to start posting about crappy music. At least, not the kind of crappy music I don’t like.
While away in California, I couldn’t completely turn off my desire for music consumption, so I visited Lou’s Records down in San Diego (well, Encinitas). I have to say, I was disappointed how things had changed since I was last there a few years ago. It seemed selection was down and prices were up. They had tons of rarities before, but this time I didn’t see nearly as many. They did have the Killing Joke remasters on Vinyl, but holy cow $40??? I can get them brand new on Amazon for $23. I’m starting to see why Keath fails to see the appeal in visiting record stores.
Oh don’t worry, I’m not giving up on traditional independent music outlets just yet. And I hate to pick on Lou’s, I’m sure they’re doing their best in an ever-shrinking marketplace. It was just something of a letdown. Especially given the fact that the first time I visited there I spent in the neighborhood of $150 and picked up a hefty number of gems. This time that would have snagged me 3 Killing Joke LPs. Big difference.
The whole thing got me thinking about the original discussion I had with Keath about why I value the experience of walking into a store and having an actual face-to-face conversation about music with someone. That had my wheels spinning, so I thought I’d pose the question to you, the faithful reader – Do you still visit your local record shop? If so, what do you enjoy about that experience? If you don’t make a habit of stopping into a shop, why not?
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Gary Numan – Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
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ludes song for a friend dark art
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Kinks – All Of My Friends Were There
Sadly the only music store left anywhere near me is FYE, and I refuse to pay their ridiculous prices. When I visited Edinburgh, I loved Avalanche Records. And Dublin used to have several music shops I liked, not sure if any are still open though. What I love about those kinds of shops is the relaxed atmosphere and browsing for random new music…unfortunately, it’s not something I get to experience on this side of the ocean.
Ha ha!
Vic, I’ve only found a few record shops here in the States that I thought were really outstanding. I know Amoeba is pretty high profile, but honestly the SF store is fun every single time I go.