Much has been made about the communal nature of music by both those who create it and those who consume it. Millions of words, from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity to Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke," have been spelled out on the subject. Sometimes it takes time for us to grasp and appreciate their true meanings, but when we connect through song, it's usually a wonderful thing.
This is usually the kind of thought that runs through my head as I walk into that beautiful, endangered ground they call a record store.
For most of my music-buying career, the record store didn't have the kind of transitive power it may have had for some of you. Music was always a large part of the family - an uncle of mine who'd passed away almost too soon for me to really remember him had owned a record store of his own in New Jersey, after a stint working for RCA. (It wasn't until later in life that I'd realize how formative having a relative so involved in the music business could be.)
Thanks to an incredibly photographic memory, I can recall where and when I obtained nearly every one of the albums I own, or the chain of events that led me to purchase them. But the journey never meant much to me back then. Chalk it up to youthful indifference, I guess, a problem that hit much of my generation hard in terms of music. Too much of my collection was obtained at Target, K-Mart, Sam Goody or FYE, and it seemed so convenient to get stuff there that I didn't really consider alternative routes to buying my discs.
Thankfully for me (and for you, the reader), that would change before too long.
During high school, the constant changes in eyewear I had to endure at the time meant frequent trips to an eyeglass store in Summit, N.J. Before long I'd noticed a music store across the street, called Scotti's. My curiosity soon got the better of me, and I'd found myself able to get things I'd never have dreamed to find in a department store. There was even a wide selection of vinyl - something that I've honestly not bought much of (my biggest vinyl purchase actually was made there - a near-mint copy of the original pressing of Billy Joel's Cold Spring Harbor for $25), but a medium I've drawn inspiration from as far as dreaming up reissues.
Eventually, in college, my horizons broadened further. Going to a university so close to a train station meant I could find more outlets to satiate my love of recorded music. Whether it was Tunes in Hoboken or the departed Virgin Megastore in Times Square (a place I was freer to visit as a student), I bought up a storm. (That doesn't even count the newfound ability to buy used discs on Amazon.) Eventually I settled on my more-or-less current digs for music sprees: Vintage Vinyl in Fords, which I'd known about for years but hadn't known it was so close to my hometown, and the quarterly Greater NJ Record Shows in Springfield.
In each of those venues, I've discovered how important it is not only to patronize such businesses, but really pay attention to the inside as well. If I go to Vintage I know I'm going to come out with something that will challenge and broaden my love of the artists and genres I follow. And as reissue titles get harder and harder to find in the Targets and FYEs of the world (or at least more insanely expensive), I at least know I can buy them somewhere without having to resort to the Internet all the time.
Yes, Stevie sang that music is a world within itself, but it's thanks to these portals on the outside - these small but determined record stores - that we have that language we all understand.
I hope this little screed gives you a fond memory of a store you visit to get your fix. Do feel free to share your favorites below.
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Amoeba Records Becomes Digital Archivist
Boulder Colorado just lost its only good CD store. I'd been fortunate that the store was within walking distance of my workplace. I could take a walk whenever I felt the need to get out of the office, and check out their new "used" arrivals.
One gets a sense of the town they live in by what CDs turn up used. I was pleased to discover that someone else out there in my town liked Ulrich Schnauss, for example. Not enough to keep his discs, apparently, but, still, enough to buy them in the first place. That sort of insight into the obscure tastes others shared is now gone with the closing of the store.
Another element of going to the store that I will miss is the imperative to buy a disc the moment you spot it, or else you lose your chance. Do not let it be said that humankind has lost its primal hunter/gatherer nature -- that instinctual need to pounce still gives a thrill, and I'd often think of our cavemen predecessors when arriving home with my "kill". I'd even show it off to the housemates by leaving the discs conspicuously on the dining table! That engagement with our primitive natures is largely missing from the online experience.
One aspect of the online experience that I embraced was the ability to learn about new artists online, and then search the store the next day for what I'd learned. In this way, even if the inventory of the store had not changed, I'd find new discs that I'd overlooked.
Freed from the shackles of corporate radio thanks to the internet, there was so much more music to discover. Using a combination of online research and "nonline" buying, I probably expanded my music collection more in the past three years than I have at any other time of my life.
The sign in the window says they closed on Valentine's Day. I know the reasons for the closing, which involved a well known mega-bank calling in a business loan three years prematurely (as is their right, but which is exactly what the Federal government has been asking banks NOT to do), and I hate the bank for it. But I admit, I see record companies pressing fewer CDs, and I understand that lossless downloads are the near future. Indeed I already subscribe to one musician's lossless release plan -- Sam Phillips' The Long Play. And I'll do so for others I love.
But I imagine that on average I will be buying less music, now that I can only buy it online. Though I appreciate discount sites like ebay, half, gohastings, and Amazon's resellers, I feel as if I have lost my "tribe". I can still hunt, but no longer am I part of a pack. It will be quite a change. And with google's recent elimination of most music blogs, it will be more difficult to discover new bands. It feels like after three years of buying more music than I ever had, a time of less buying is approaching.
I still love -- and purchase -- vinyl. My ex-wife always complained about the pops and crackles, but since those were (for me) part of the soundtrack of my life, I never really minded them. I check my local Craigslist daily, and quite often some kindly sixtyish couple will decide to part with their collection. When that happens I check and see if they'll allow 'cherry-picking' since I have over 4000 LPs already and don't need another copy of, say, Uriah Heep's "Demons and Wizards."
So for me, that sort of in-somebody's-home-cratedigging is my "store." I'm always amaze at what I find. The last time -- right before Christmas -- I went through this couple's collection --they were as mild-mannered as you could imagine -- and found a Timothy Leary LP (the one with Hendrix on bass), a few Collosseum LPs, the one Black Sabbath album I lacked, and a copy of The Merry Go Round's sole release. Each was a dollar.
About a year ago I bought the vinyl collection from a college radio station. All kinds of weird things, like String Driven Thing's "The Machine that Cried" and albums by The Wackers, Nicky Hopkins and so forth. All over the stylistic map, and in good shape.
I can remember where I purchased many, many records and CDs in my collection, and in many cases what I paid.
Sealed purchases took place mainly at The Wiz, Sam Goody, Music Factory (on Kings Highway in Brooklyn), Rock 'n' Soul and Disc-O-Mat (on the same block of 7th Ave. in Manhattan)
Used purchases took place at Titus Oaks (mostly the Ave. U Brooklyn outlet, but also the Huntington and Westbury ones), Zig Zag (further up Ave. U), then as I got older, St. Marks Sounds, Rockit Scientist, and others on St. Marks Place in the Village, Academy Records, Disc-O-Rama, the now-defunct Revolution Records on West 4th (where I met Lars Ulrich!), and Tunes in Hoboken.
Now, I still make pilgrimages to the still existing outlets in the above list, but more and more I am hitting Amazon Marketplace and eBay for used and Best Buy or J&R on day of release. Bad for brick-and-mortar, but good for the wallet...which is sadly more important to me these days.
I thought about this when the Beatles reissues came out last year, and collectors were being asked what they were doing with their copies of the '87 discs.
I'm keeping mine, for no better reason than since the Beatles took so long to do the remasters, the '87 discs were among the oldest discs in my collection, and as battered and as antiquated as they are now, they were still my perosnal copy of the Beatle catalog for a couple of decades, and as such, some of the core discs in my collction, with too many memories attached to simply toss away. Many of them were purchased in long-discarded long boxes, from stores and even malls, that have since gone out of business or been demolished.
One can't simply just "upgrade" memories like that.
I am very angry with the upcoming Hendrix Re-re-re-Issues of his first 3 LPs/CDs.
We are being ripped off by record companies.
These apparent Re-Masters can't sound much better as CDs are limited to 44 Khz 16 Bit.
A DVD-A or Blue Ray Disc can go from 96 Khz to 192 Khz, far superior sound and fidelity to a CD.
There are no extra music on offer, only a DVD that contains a documentary (NO MUSIC).
I was very excited when I heard Sony Music was going to release 'Deluxe Editions' of Jimi's classic music.
What is deluxe about re-packaging the same old same old?
All due respect, you CAN make a 16/44.1 CD sound better. Same as you could make a 96k DVD-A or Blu-Ray sound like crap. It's all in the mastering. You slam it with compression, turn it into a brick waveform, it'll suffer.
The original Reprise CD issues sounded pretty good, but low in volume for many tastes, yet dynamic. Then came the first round of MCA (with the alternate album art) that was noise-reduced and compressed. Then the Experience Hendrix/MCA round rectified the noise reduction issues, but kept the compression pumped and added some piercing EQ to boot.
If Vic Anesini does the Legacy versions, they will most likely sound better than what's been out there the last 15 years, IMO.