Digging through bins of records in backwater thrift shops would probably be classified as an annoyance by most, but for record geeks it is a way of life. Nothing is better than sweating your ass off on hot summer day in the back of some thrift shop usually bent over or digging under racks looking at records.
There are however a few annoying aspects about this.
1.Company. There is nothing worse than some random joker getting in your way while you are trying to speed read through a couple boxes of records. It is bad when they are ahead of you. I generally go and look at books or just bum out waiting, but nothing is worse than when they see you digging around and like a zombie moth stumble over to get in the way. What are you looking for? Even worse is the dude that wants to strike up a conversation about whatever he collects... No talking when looking for records! I don't care about WW2 German radios. Go away.
2.Competition. You pull into the parking lot and see a car with some cool bumperstickers-trouble. Or you walk in and some dork that looks like he should be roadieing for TV on the Radio is digging through the records already. You don't have company, you have competition. 2 gold miners cannot work the same river. An even bigger bumout is when you have traveled. The final insult is if/when you see what records they have or worse, if you know them, and they come over and tell you and gloat. Ouch.
3.Empty Jackets. Last week, I grabbed a Unity 2 picture sleeve 12" only to discover it was empty. Damn. Shirlee could have been my girlee if the damn record was still there. Come on, you remember the Unity 2?? Stop sleeping.
4.Bait and Switch. Wrong record in the sleeve. This happened for the 1st time to me last week as well and was extremely painful. I was totally amped to listen to Paul Mauriat's LP "the soul of" which is basically some French dude covering Stax and Motown classics. Good or bad, that was going to be a record to remember. I was crushed when the sounds of the Baptist Choir's "Odes to America" started coming out the speakers. What kind of evil fiend would do this????
1 comment:
oh man, i remember those days! SO frustrating, as i was only looking for punk records in the sea of "herb alpert"s and "bread"s and private press gospel choir lp's... but the jewels are out there, and i (being a tooo early riser) always found i could beat the casual indie creep by using the clock to my advantage - fire down a mountain dew @ 7:30, bike ride for the 9:00 opening... the indie creeps are still trying to fit into those too small t-shirts while i'm rifling through... ah, face it - herb alpert and bread and private press gospel choir lp's...
Post a Comment