Supply Is Limited

Saturday is Record Store Day, & I'm going to visit one of my old haunts, Record Time in Roseville. I've been going there since the 80s, and after all this time Mike Himes is still the owner. He's been written up & quoted in the UK press during all the Detroit garage action. Record Time was my favorite place for 12" singles in the suburbs. Mike's taste was similar to mine, so he was always referring stuff to me. Matthew Smith from Outrageous Cherry used to work there in the 80s. So did a number of the guys in The Witches. One of their best staffers whose name I can't remember dj'ed my niece's wedding. Another cat who worked there made up these cool WKNR Keener survey t-shirts which I never bought, and now I wish I would've. Kid Rock did some very early-day rapping gigs there, he was more wigger than the beer guzzlin' hick he portrays himself as today.

Back when I was a tot, you could buy records at barber shops in the hood. Also at "electronics" stores, where they sold TVs and radios and of course record players - that's where Brian Epstein worked when someone came in asking for a Beatles record. I never was in a shop that had "listening booths", but I always thought that was the coolest thing. At Record Time you can listen to CDs on boomboxes chained to a shelf as long as you give the clerk your keys or something like that. You could also buy records at "dime stores", the precursor to Kmart. My sister worked at one & that's how she built our singles collection. "Music liberation", similar to what I do today on the internet.

I bought records at an electronics store as late as 1970. I saw a yellow pages ad for some place in Ferndale. I called them & asked if they had this & that, which they did, so I hopped a bus over there & bought a stack of 1950s r&b. That night I also made my first trip to the Grande Ballroom and saw my first (and only) Who concert. That has no pertinent meaning, I thought I'd just throw that in.

Young people today don't get the importance of the Record Shop Experience. I wouldn't expect them to. But to go into a place where everyone's hanging out, listening to/talking about/obsessing over music, well, it's a beautiful thing. Amazon & eBay & all the rest make it so incredibly easy. You can sit in your drawers with a drink & a smoke (I love that analogy) & it doesn't get any easier than that. (Interesting fact: a good number of my on-line purchases have been vinyl) But the push & pull of an in-store scene makes it so ... I don't know, authentic? It's a sad reality that record shops' days are numbered. I don't see that reversing, either. I'm just glad I was able to experience it. You should too while you still have the chance.