things i didn't say at the record store

i went to my friend wes's record store last night in north adams. Belltower Records. its really nice. great stuff. great prices. open and airy. its in one of those converted warehouse/industrial buildings near Massmoca. i got good stuff and we saw three cool bands who were playing outside last night. this Australian band Lippers who have a record out on Goner were very cool. duo with a drum machine doing olde-tyme indie pop. or maybe its never olde tyme in australia. they never stopped making music like that down there.
my friends mike and eric from albany - who record under lots of names but who also are members of psych juggernaut Burnt Hills - have a band with the writer Karen Schoemer and they are awesome. she does that stream of words/poetry thing and she's very good at it. almost a lifter puller vibe sometimes!
Wes and my friend Patrick have a great three guitar band and they sounded amazing. the mix and the tone were perfect. i told them that i wished they could have heard themselves from where we were. they give me that beechwood sparks vibe occasionally. i don't listen to a ton of new indie rock but i would listen to them. patrick used to be in a great band here with mikey turner called Huevos II. they were likewise right on in the guitar department. mikey moved to england though. he used to be in a band called Warmer Milks.

that doesn't have anything to do with something i didn't say in a record store. it was cold last night. i was pretty stoned.

I got a few good things, at reasonable prices, at Belltower on a road trip last year! Nice vibe, manageable scale. (Had wanted to make it over to your spot, Scott, but the closest we got was Shelburne Falls.)

actually, woah --- i am right now listening the copy of Exile On Main St. i got there!

its a nice spot that they have made for themselves there.

i felt so blessed and lucky to have a spot during the plague. i got to leave my house and go somewhere else! that was huge. if felt luxurious.

maria sold records to Of Montreal yesterday. they bought some solo pablo casals and other stuff. they were playing at the place on the corner last night. huge tour bus. i might go see Pharcyde there. they are coming soon.

this is what modern english buys in my store. damn boomers. i wish i'd thought to have my 7-inch of "drowning man" handy. he coulda signed it.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/379983173_10161337645880908_2848704052332469288_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=49d041&_nc_ohc=t-dKU3tFyDIAX8nJyKi&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfAW-BujToqbu0zOFIFK-G8BIvRVxUFxXydq4AIY0Qx5qg&oe=650A9004

Of Montreal are our free advertising models for the store.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/378227026_10161334843610908_8893353495009870131_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=49d041&_nc_ohc=vGlG3cqYuSUAX-ybXSf&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfCTumn4LmU1OqhYsY7UAlc00mMrNURtUw24tTNQNaD7Qw&oe=650B2B1E

good times

that pressing of pet sounds (w/ the carl & the passions record) is supposed to sound really good? i don't care for that record much personally but that's what i heard!

it does sound really good.

a lot of people think its the best mono version of the album.

have you heard the Duophonic version recently? or ever? Strange listen. It was the LP of pet sounds I just happened to have. The first one I came across at a thrift store or whatever.

Was wondering how Duophonic Records came to put out a version of Pet Sounds, but I guess that's not what this is.

a classic exchange from 2021. work is fun.

Person: I'm lucky to be from the Midwest, there are records everywhere. I know its getting harder and harder to find records.
Me: No, it isn't. Look, there are thousands of them right in front of you.
Person: Well, not for the prices i want...
Me: There are tons of $1 and $2 records here as well. See, you don't need to be in the Midwest to be lucky! Where do you live in the Midwest?
Person: I live in Florida. Oh, look at that, you do have $1 records, well, i'll come back sometime, i've got a grinder down the street...
Me: have a great day and come back anytime.

kinda sums up the Trump era pretty good too.

What kind of grinder do you think he meant?

You know like Hoagie? The hook up app

grinderrrrrrrr looking for meeeat

Scott, do you have an automatic response for people — ok, let’s be real, guys — who want to bang on about shitty music, or their record collection, or general random shit, and you don’t want to engage/encourage them but you don’t wanna come off like a dick either? This is the best thing (and the worst thing) about my situation, where I don’t actually staff my own store, so I don’t have to deal with the bores that seem to surround this hobby like flies on shit (but tbf I don’t get to have good conversations with interesting buyers either ,& potentially learn from them). I get this a few times a year at the record shows, and it’s what makes me think I don’t actually want to do this as a retirement gig: the energy I have to put into manufacturing responses for the eye-bleedingly dull stories of how someone has been looking for a record forever, or found one recently, or has 12 pristine copies, or do I know this song by Night Ranger, and I should listen to it because it’s great, but not as great as this other Night Ranger song, and I just want to, you know, DIE

“It’s really sad that your goth/industrial CD section is relegated to a single drawer UNDERNEATH one of the metal CD drawers. You have a fair amount of goth/industrial/circus music CDs languishing in the various Rock misc A-Z sections.”

brim, in that situation I would likely be like, “oh, man, if you could help me out by picking out all the goth/industrial that are incorrectly filed, I’d really appreciate it.”

the really true realness is this: people won't bug you or tell you long boring stories if your store is busy and people are buying things. because then they will realize that they are in a store. its when nobody else is in there that you have a problem. because then they forget that they're in a store. and that's when you need to think about drugs.

i'd kinda had it with people after the pandemic but maria pulled me off the ledge. she does the bulk of it now. i just want to work. that's really where most of my frustration came from. it was just me. and it made it hard to do as much online work as i wanted to do. i used to bring my work home with me and i was pricing CDs at homw last week but i have a LOT of television to watch and i am olderish. i could get drunk and clean 45s and watch netflix late into the night in the olden days. but that was then. i'm happier now! sorta. or my version of "happy" anyway. filled with dread and confusion.

It's weird. I've had my share of being trapped into convos but shoppers of a certain age will, say, Shazam the overhead music rather than ask an employee. I've had a couple people come up and be like, what is this? it's not coming up on Shazam. Like buddy go ahead and ask us in the first place! We are definitely down to gab about our stereo picks lol.

It's also a real thing now that many, many people genuinely don't understand why they shouldn't / aren't allowed to BLAST their phone speaker playing music or facetime or a phone call in a shop.

spooky clowns and scientologists. boo!

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heard today for the 447348373th time:

"I could spend hours in here. I might be tempted to buy something." *leaves store*

stop selling records. start charging admission.

Apparently a bookstore in Porto, Portugal that was swamped by Harry Potter fans 'cause JK based something on it, started doing exactly that (charging admission).

Halloween has to be the most grating holiday

Apparently a bookstore in Porto, Portugal that was swamped by Harry Potter fans 'cause JK based something on it, started doing exactly that (charging admission).

― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Monday, October 23, 2023 12:10 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well yeah also it's an incredible space. I don't think they'd get away with it if it looked more ordinary

But yeah it's weird that people keep announcing their desire to spend time there and dangle the hypothetical of even purchasing something, my guess is that they find the idea of a record store magical but don't have the means to play records, kind of like how people might enter a gallery or a highly curated vintage (furniture or collectibles etc.) store / showroom to gawk but would never actually pull the trigger, no that would be reckless, but maybe... just maybe if they were feeling nuts you know just totally spontaneous or inspired after finding that perfect souvenir... something truly special...

Anyway I think that might be the mindset, and just like how some those other aforementioned businesses are more common to have people coming in to glance or go full tire-kicker only to leave with a "thanks for coming in!" regardless, they expect the record store is also the same kind of niche place for that song and dance.

Then there are musical instrument stores where people want to try multiple $4,000 guitars and leave with maybe some strings or picks or, more likely, nothing.

Sell download cards?

i sell a lot of CDs.

a lot of people still have CD players in their car. or they buy an old car that has one. so they come in looking. that works out well.

i just think the *threatening to buy* thing is funny because i can't imagine people doing that at other stores. you know? "wow, you guys sure do have a lot of great vitamins. i could spend hours in here." *leaves walgreens*

Well yeah but again they put record stores in the same category as other hobby stores or showrooms where they get to be a tourist

Sorry I've got major jet lag I've got to stop posting

I went to a place today and saw a tears for fears tape “hurting” for $3.75. I went to buy it and the clerk said “$10.80.” There was another sticker on the back.

you should have thrown it at them and screamed "you don't give me love!".

"Well yeah but again they put record stores in the same category as other hobby stores or showrooms where they get to be a tourist"

i wrote that in the paper i read at ucla. that sometimes i felt like the shabbiest tour guide in the shabbiest museum in massachusetts.

you can hear my dulcet tones right here. and greil introducing me.

https://archive.org/details/podcast_2011-emp-pop-conference-at-ucl_ebay-light-of-my-life-fire-o_1000093737988

re:"i could spend hours in here", ime when people say stuff like that its to tell themselves a story more than anything else. lots of people like to imagine themselves as the kind of person who frequents record shops, independent bookstores, arthouse theaters, etc, but don’t ever actually do those things. But hearing themselves say things like “I could spend hours in this record store” or “my idea of heaven is a good bookstore” reassures them that they are the kind of quirky interesting person who they imagine says things like that

completely and totally and utterly OTM.

Charge $10 to come browse ($40 if there's conversation expected), deduct from purchase on exit.

i'm not even gonna go into the guy who came in today and talked maria's ear off about possibly helping him sell the record he had made and wondering if we could be a sort of "fulfillment center" for it amd distribute it to all the local stores for him. because he has issues. i finally had to come out and say "oh maria are you going to have time to finish that tax thing..." and he finally left.

"I could spend hours in here. I might be tempted to buy something."

I can't think of any response other than "what am I, your fucking hostage?"

i actually yelled as he was going out the door: "Oh, no, we wouldn't want that to happen!" right after he said that about being tempted.

I went to a place today and saw a tears for fears tape “hurting” for $3.75. I went to buy it and the clerk said “$10.80.

I can't stand this indecision

I was leaving the weed dispensary which is next to a winery (omg Scott imagine if you had to deal with wine people) and some old rich dude just wandered in and bumped into me all “oh hello what’s this place” and the security guard was like “it’s a cannibus dispensary, I need to see your I’d” and he was like “oh good to know” like the doors of the world are just made for entitled rich white dudes to go around opening and walking through to see what the deal is, we’re all just here for their entertainment.