| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 23/02/2012 : 18:33:29
"Record shop heaven-find one if you still can..."
Not those chain CD store mega-monsters, but those last independent shops that carry vinyl mostly.
My favorite shop is in Portland, Maine in the restored (but not too much!) Old Port area. It has an almost illegible psychedelic hand painted sign, but the records in the window tell the story.
On the wall is a sign that reads-
Our CD collection.
Underneath, in a sandwich bag tacked to the wall are a couple of smashed CDs. Bob never has and never will sell anything but vinyl. That takes guts in this economy...but the store thrives.
The 60's shops were even better....Those were the days...let's take a trip back...
CDs & Cassettes did not exist!
...and if you weren't born yet...enjoy a taste with my recollections...
Imagine going into a small record shop with nothing but bins of shrink wrapped LPs...no cassettes or CDs. On all the walls there are display racks to individually showcase new releases--two long rows of audio dreams.
Behind the counter for the asking are opened promo LPs that you can listen to--as much or as long as you like...
You request Strange Days or Revolver (never having heard them before!!), and then you walk over to the turntables (no headphones back then--just two speakers sharing the sounds with the rest of the crowd), and finally, place the needle onto a fresh sweet vinyl platter...beautiful!
Of course once you got a taste, you never stayed long at the shop. You paid $2.99 for a new mono LP (stereo was too expensive for a kid like me..$1 more)...and you ran to find the first bus home for a perfect afternoon of DOORS or Beatles or Monkees....
Once home, you slit that shrink wrap, pull out the inner sleeve, gently slide the vinyl out and place it on the TT....audio dreams fill your head while holding, smelling, drinking in the strange new beautiful album, that perfect LP jacket gripped in your hands...visual & audio perfection....now that's ART!
Share you favorite memory, or the shop in your town you still frequent...tell us about it...
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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