things i didn't say at the record store

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.

i DO know how good i have it overall. every time i go to a restaurant i think: oh thank god i don't have to work in a restaurant i would be killing people left and right. sometimes i think the whole thing is so archaic. "so, what do you recommend?" "i recommend you order something fast because we are fucking slammed and you will never get any food unless you hurry the fuck up."

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

tbc this place was always a tourist trap, I went in a couple of times in the 00's and they had, like, computer manuals from the 90's lol. when I tried to order a book they didn't have they were borderline hostile.

I just meant the building is definitely pretty

Oh yeah agreed, charging admission was always the logical endpoint because it works as a cool spot to look at but is useless as a bookshop.

In 2002 I went to the Chateau Frontenac hotel in Quebec City and I vaguely recall being charged some kind of admission just to look around. Maybe I am misremembering.

There is a tour that (understandably) costs money, and of course they wouldn't charge actual guests an admission fee. But I think that at the time, they were trying to discourage tourists from just going there to look around and hang out.

This is of course irrelevant to the record store discussion, but fancy hotels exist in a liminal zone in between public space and a private business.

I will confess that I have used some of the world's nicest hotel lobbies as, essentially, an extension of my living room, either with or without being a paying guest.

See also: "My Darling Nikki."

sometimes i really wish i had a cell phone jammer. do you really have to look up EVERY record? definitely a time when i miss the olden days. whatever happened to chance? people will youtube or spotify 400 12-inch singles. babies.
have i made mistakes by buying blind my whole life? hell yeah. and i LEARN from my mistakes.

people here might do it too. i get it. i don't have to like it though!

i don't let people use their shittyass portables either. fuck off dj shadow.

and i haven't had a listening station since...i dunno...2010? too many broken needles made me say naaaah. i can't even imagine what it would be like now. ten times worse.

fwiw usually if I do this it's because I can't remember if I've already got it, or if that's the specific record I'm looking for by that band. this is what happens when you already have too many records and have listened to too much music

that totally makes sense though. these are people who literally look up EvERY record that they look at in the store. it takes them forever.

this is why i'm so glad i'm not out front much anymore. the agony of watching people be laboriously slow. i had a japanese dealer look at every record in my store in 20 minutes once.

Age 13 I bought a used copy of Quadrophenia from Stereo Jack’s in Cambridge MA for $5 based exclusively on the fact that it looked great, came with that beguiling pull-out photo booklet, and was a double record which made it seem even more of a deal. I had never heard a note of The Who in my life. The punchline should be that I hated it but reader I fell in love with it, taped it, and listened to it on my Walkman all the time, even when my family hiked up Mt Washington.

xp tbh I usually feel bad about looking things up because I assume the shop staff will assume I'm just looking it up on Discogs to see if I can flip it, but that isn't what I'm doing!

I will look things up if it is something that looks intriguing, but I'm not familiar with it. When I got back into listening to vinyl a few years ago, I was taking risks on stacks and stacks of stuff. I got spatially overwhelmed by all the music that I didn't want to listen to. At that point, I realized that it was not my duty or obligation to be the Disco 12" Guardian of My Small Town or whatever. It's pretty rare for me now to haul records back to Goodwill or try to sell them to a local record store. When I bring a record back to the house, I'd prefer that it's for keeps.

I have a bunch of stuff floating around in my mental wantlist where it’s like “is this the album by wire train heard that I liked?” so I need to look up on internet to confirm #oldstonerlife

I definitely walk away to a corner while I do it, though, if I can’t get out of peoples way I don’t do it.

people I didn’t punch at the record store

I've definitely started looking up more and more things to see whether I like them or not. Have put in my years of taking a chance on things, I've literally got about 1200 unwanted records to start putting up on discogs and a large amount of those were bought because they looked interesting and turned out to be not my thing, and a good few of the others are duplicates that I accidently bought. Don't really care how the shop owner feels about it tbh, I always buy something in every place I go unless it really sucks, and if they've priced their records properly then they don't need to worry that I'm trying to make a buck out of them (i do buy to flip though sometimes, some people put the daftest things in the bargain bins just cos they've dismissed whole genres as being not worthy of their time - those are some of my favourite shops tbh)

someone years ago came in and asked me which albums would be best to buy...to sell. i wasn't that helpful.

haha! I pulled out a copy of this from a box on the floor the other day. old mono classical record? straight in the quid bin mate...

https://www.discogs.com/release/4143663-Brahms-Johanna-Martzy-And-The-Philharmonia-Orchestra-Conducted-By-Paul-Kletzki-Brahms-Violin-Concert

xp the ones in your store, because you bought them to sell

Yeah if you’re going to look up every record, why even go into a store??

( M just told me that someone commented on a paid FB ad of ours and asked about stereo gear. they weren't looking to buy. they just wanted information. another local store commented and told them to come to their store because they have lots of gear. M hid the other store's comment. the old me would have been pissed. just seems like poor etiquette to tell someone to come to your store on an advertisement for someone else's store! but i'm in the back room listening to deep tech from argentina. live and let live! for the record: we don't sell stereo stuff. but i don't think that matters here. this other store is new and i don't know the owners well. just met them in passing. i went in and bought stuff when they opened and made a mention of them on our FB page to be neighborly.)

(but what say you, peanut gallery. poor form or what?)

I love going into a record store with no agenda or hope of getting any particular record. That said, if I’m looking up/price checking an album it’s because 1) don’t want to be scammed 2) genuinely surprised if the record in question is actually selling for $X used these days.

Yeah if you’re going to look up every record, why even go into a store??

For me, I mostly like buying records I've never even heard of before, things I'd never otherwise encounter. Some of them are in genres where there's a hell of a lot of mediocre records, if not outright garbage. Looking stuff up does help navigate things, especially if you can listen to them, otherwise I'd be going home with 20 fresh slices of total poop that would go straight in my ever-growing pile of shite I don't want.

Being able to look up things is a luxury! Prices can be all over the place depending on the shop, but the more I trust the place the more likely it is that I'm looking up things just to get a better handle on what something intriguing or vaguely familiar actually is.

i knew you guys were going to end up defending yourselves. but you guys don't count! if an ilxor-type came into my store i would be so happy. but this is mostly dudly dudes. they look up every record and stand in one spot for two hours and then spend five bucks and they are boring as hell.

also i am mean and cranky.

seriously though when smart city people come in they are a joy to talk to and open and curious about stuff and a pleasure to be around. and they love my store and say nice things about it. unfortunately i don't live near a city so they don't come in that much.

when i see people looking up a dire straits record though...come on now.

or "supposed DJs" who ransack my 12-inches and buy nothing...blah. but that's commerce for you.

"but this is mostly dudly dudes. they look up every record and stand in one spot for two hours and then spend five bucks and they are boring as hell."

Guys do this in the store where I work with dollar records and $0.50 singles! Looking up and play testing for an hour. You can't take a flyer on those, man? It's not my store so I have no say in us having a listening station but sometimes I want to hide the headphones behind the counter when I'm working and tell these guys they broke.

you need a switch behind the counter that enables and disables the listening station based on the dudliness of the dude

or ask the owner to make a time limit. put up a sign.

record stores should offer overnight lock-ins with a turntable, a comfy chair and a couple of bottles of wine. charge a fee, set a minimum spend amount. would totally get stuck into those crates of 45s that no-one ever has the time to go through

no play testing vinyl records period

my brother used to lock an NYC DJ into his store overnight. they have the best all night digging drugs.

ahhh the dream

i feel bad when i have a record and i don't want to put it in the store because its too nice! so sometimes i don't. i do put the bulk of my discogs stock in the store but not the $$$ stuff where i really have to make sure that the condition stays exactly the same. people manhandle records. and people LOVE to manhandle the most expensive records with no thought of buying them.

i have been known to clasp trees albums to my heaving bosom its true

(especially older stuff that is more delicate. people just aren't as careful as they should be. when i was younger i used to hate it when a store just had covers out and you had to ask to see the record for more expensive stuff but i get it now.)

I bought some records off discogs last week, the seller messaged me that they were about a mile away from me so I could just come and get them and save on postage, so I did, and the guy there said they'd got a big collection in with a load of rare flexis that they decided not to put in the shop because of people fucking them up browsing through them.

It was a good plan to get me to pick up the records because I ended up spending another £50 in the shop.

I stopped going to record stores when I started listening to vaporwave -- there's just no demand or supply

Not much of a market for vapor, I reckon.

people LOVE to manhandle the most expensive records with no thought of buying them.

#truthbombs

they look up every record and stand in one spot for two hours and then spend five bucks

gearing up for selling at a show on the 12th, if anyone tries this at my table they are banned immediately. go bother someone else, digging space is at a premium

good luck at the show.

i opened up and put on a live Pretenders boot from 1980 and the first person through the door had to tell me that he never listened to the Pretenders until he heard "Brass In Pokcet" and got physically aroused. he kinda liked them after that. i will have to live with that little tidbit until the day i die.

You know, we are all Pretenders to some degree in this crazy world, in life, until the day we die

What I mean by that is that from now on I'm going to have to pretend you didn't share that story with us.

haha, sorry! i needed to share my pain.

new band name:

"Brass In Pokcet"

is that Brass In Pocket, or are you just happy to... hear the Pretenders?

I inherited a signed copy of The Pretenders' first LP from my grandpa. it's otherwise a £1 record, do people want signed Pretenders records? just wondering

someone might!

i am a record dealer who has zero interest in autographs. i do have a copy of black sabbath s/t signed by all four demons but even that i don't get that excited by. i have two early westbound funkadelic records and they came from different places and on both george clinton uses the word "bitch" and "dog" in his inscription. those are kinda cool.

i feel like they weirdly complicate my life. sometimes i just pretend they aren't there. does a signed maria muldaur record raise the price? by how much? who cares!!??

I don't care about autographs either. I have CDs signed by Paul Collins and the guitarist from D.R.I. but I didn't ask them to sign them they just did (bought them at gigs)