Tuesday, July 28, 2009

A guy goes into a record store…


7-28-09 A guy goes into a record store…


Weekend before last, I went into two different somewhat interesting record stores – and didn’t buy anything! Maybe it was because it was really warm weather, I don’t know. Stuff just didn’t look like what I wanted to spend my money on. At one store, I saw all of the “Woodstock Experience” series of CD’s: Jefferson Airplane (“Volunteers”, Johnny Winter (his debut), Jimi Hendrix, Santana (their debut), Janis Joplin (“Kozmik Blues”)…they pair a CD of a Woodstock festival performance with the artist’s contemporary album.


At the next record store, I had a “40% off any one used item” coupon. Even with that, I didn’t find anything I “needed”. I really wasn’t in the mood to be “buying to be buying”. After the second store, we got back into the car, and my GF says, “Wow! Two record stores and you didn’t buy anything! That must be a record!”. I thought about it, and – for the last few years, I guess that is something of a ‘record’. But in the past, in LP days – it was unfortunately altogether too common for me to go into a record store and “not find anything”.


While I was still in high school, I had tremendous interest to go to record stores and see everything that was on offer. Sure, I knew what I was looking for, but…there was still so much I did not know. I never ‘worked’ until after high school, so I didn’t always lots of expendable cash to blow on vinyl. Yes, it’s true – I did spend “food money” on records…but I could always go home and eat something…later on.


Well, in the summer of 2009, the CD’s I really want to buy are either released only in Japan – or available on-line mail-order only. I recently ordered a CD of Osanna “Palepoli” from Japan – as an SHM-CD in a little paper album cover (kami sleeve). And I really want the 6CD live set of Joe Cocker that Hip-O Select sells on-line – I have not seen this CD set for sale in any stores in L.A., as yet. Maybe I’ll get lucky when I go up to San Francisco for my birthday – the Amoeba Records store on Haight Street is fairly ‘mighty’. They might have a “promo” of that Cocker set. Amoeba S.F. was where I found the UK Stump box, last Christmas!


So, yeah – I went in 2 record stores and didn’t buy anything recently. Guess I’m still alive. Still in the game. A friend recently told me about a new record store that has opened near my GF’s house (that makes 4 record stores near her now!) – “Territory Records and BBQ” – a record store that serves barbecue food. Too good to be true??


Approx. July 30th is my 7th anniversary of 5-day-per-week blogging! This blog has been through 3 different configurations already: “20th Century Music”, “The Ron Kane Files” and now “Music Life” – I guess if I was writing books, those would be the titles of the three ‘volumes of prose’ I have contributed to the collective consciousness, so far.


No, I don’t want to ‘vanity publish’ a book (or three). Mental note to self: Come up with a decent thematic premise to link last seven years of writing about music.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the club, Ron. It a far more common event for me to not buy in a record store than to purchase. It has been for at least 15 years. 99% of what I would buy in a hot second (and have been looking for for years, if not decades) is generally not available in stores.

On rare occasions, this is so depressing that I buy music that I don't really want all that badly. But it's far more common to find one single thing that I "sort of want" in a store, but without further impetus to buy, it's just not worth breaking out the cash for that one item. Alternatively, drop me in a good store, and it's hard to hold back once you have an armful of swag.

I am visiting Manifest Discs in Charlotte in two weeks and am bringing some decent cash along. It's always worth a visit there. It is an extremely large, Portland-caliber store with vinyl too. Should you ever visit my neck of the woods (consider yourself invited - Asheville is a great food city and has recently shared the title of "Beer City USA" with Portland) we'd have to make the 2 hour trip.

Ron Kane said...

Beer City, USA, huh? Would definitely consider a visit out your way, Jim-san. Where would I have to fly into?

We are still researching a RK52PDX810 event - though not a repeat of RK50PDX808, with an event hosted in a hotel. Portland Aug. '10 looks likely, too. Maybe NW PDX this time!