When the Metronome Society first started meeting, I remember making a request that whatever album we chose, we should buy the music - in some circles, a tall order in the time of Spotify, Pandora, BitTorrent, etc. But the group replied nodding their heads in agreement, we are artists, after all, who believe in paying artists for their work. I then went on to humbly ask that, if at all possible, we buy this music in a record store and the nodding heads paused for a minute followed by a slow “sure” and “yeah, I think I can do that”. Think? What was there to think about? It was at that moment when I realized how behind that times and hardcore nostalgic I was for this, apparently, archaic platform to purchase music. It wasn’t the closing of Easy Street Records in Queen Anne in 2013 or the consistent updates I receive from friends in San Diego that Lou’s Records in Encinitas is “not like it used to be”. It wasn’t when one of my nephews asked me blankly what I meant when I used the word “album” or when another nephew looked at me with some confusion when I gave him a CD as a gift. Lastly, it wasn’t the fact that an aging, maudlin community felt that a day had to be dedicated to the fledgling business enterprise we over the age of, say, 32, know as a record store to remind us how awesome they are and, yes, we should spend our money there. No, those moments were only filled with denial or pretension. It was when I was surrounded by my peers who grew up in the same era as I did looking at me with a “You want me to buy what, where?” expression on their faces did I realize that one of my favorite things was going to way of the Dodo.
Not everyone has the time to flip lazily through the new used albums from A-Z and then go look for the music they actually came in the store to buy. Not everyone has the time to show up on the designated vinyl delivery day eagerly awaiting store staff to distribute records and lift an invisible checkered flag (“Go!”) Stock is also questionable in a record store and if you’re hurting for time, like so many people are these days, your search for a Matador Records compilation circa 1999 might prove to be a mission impossible and, at best, foolish. A fun search for an album that might have been feasible to find ten years ago turns into a moment of sad desperation with a little soul searching about what the hell you’re doing with your life. As you dig through the crates below the CD racks while asking if there’s any more stock in the back room, you realize a light-hearted rummage has turned into a full assault on the things you know to be true. Mixed feelings of nausea and a sense of creeping middle age set in only to be cured by some hard liquor or to run away from it all fast, like, really fast, passing the guy in the skinny jeans and Converse who absolutely has to walk out of the store with the vinyl he purchased under his arm to show the world he knows who The Stooges are.
With the question of whether or not you’ll actually find what you’re looking for hanging overhead, there is also the sad honest-to-god fact that not all record store employees are customer service orientated. While I have to say the employees of Easy Street Records in West Seattle break all stereotypes of typical record store employees, I have seen and experienced the “Barry” character from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity all too often. While working at Rasputin Music in San Francisco I experienced co-workers treat well-meaning and good natured customers like they had committed a moral crime against humanity because they wanted to know if we sold the latest Coldplay album. Buyer beware if one showed they were not enlightened by the history of SubPop, the fanfare of the Madchester scene of the 80s, or displayed the right amount of interest in a rare Stone Roses recording. I even found myself taking on role of arrogant jerk when a teen girl dressed à la Abercrombie and her mom came up to me one day on the fourth floor jazz section and asked if we had the Love Song single. I told them that I wasn’t sure if we currently had singles by The Cure but before I could check for it in our super fly DOS computer system I was stopped by the girl, “No. It’s not by...whoever you said. It’s by that punk band - 311!” and went on to ask me where she could find Ok Computer on vinyl. I told her I’d check for her and took my lunch break instead.
So why do I still go to these places if they can be so horrible? I think it begins with the feeling that these stores offer me weird rolling moments of Zen because the second I walk in my mind blanks and, for the life of me, I cannot remember any reason why I stepped foot inside. I remember and then go blank. Remember. Go blank. Remember….blank. And on and on until I suddenly have about ten CDs in hand and an urge to look for some Gil Scott Heron spoken word and Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass on vinyl. I know that the employees won’t ask me what I’m looking for and what some people see as lacking in customer service I see as being afforded some space and freedom from algorithms that tell me what “other people like me” have purchased in the last 48 hours. Sometimes my shopping list is spared from the mind-wipe function that is secretly located at the entrance of every record store and although I can’t say I always find what I want, I always end up with some interesting purchases under ten bucks a piece.
The Metronome Society listens to a lot of music and I’ve finally realized that not all of the albums we listen to can be purchased at a record store. Some of the albums we pick are already resting in our personal music libraries such as albums by Violent Femmes, Jimi Hendrix, Suede, The Zombies, and Neko Case. Some we’ve had to download due to availability and time (as in, running out of) like Aretha Franklin, Heart, and Chet Baker. But occasionally, an album is found by taking some time to walk into a physical store, looking around, tracking down the title, and making a purchase from an actual human being standing behind a counter. The album Poses by Rufus Wainwright was my big find for a Metronome writing assignment and it is the album that inspired my script “Four Boys on a Beach” that will be playing this July. I’m happy I was able to find it the old school way but I was also pleased I could make a small contribution to the conservation efforts of keeping my record store from the brink of extinction.
Not everyone has the time to flip lazily through the new used albums from A-Z and then go look for the music they actually came in the store to buy. Not everyone has the time to show up on the designated vinyl delivery day eagerly awaiting store staff to distribute records and lift an invisible checkered flag (“Go!”) Stock is also questionable in a record store and if you’re hurting for time, like so many people are these days, your search for a Matador Records compilation circa 1999 might prove to be a mission impossible and, at best, foolish. A fun search for an album that might have been feasible to find ten years ago turns into a moment of sad desperation with a little soul searching about what the hell you’re doing with your life. As you dig through the crates below the CD racks while asking if there’s any more stock in the back room, you realize a light-hearted rummage has turned into a full assault on the things you know to be true. Mixed feelings of nausea and a sense of creeping middle age set in only to be cured by some hard liquor or to run away from it all fast, like, really fast, passing the guy in the skinny jeans and Converse who absolutely has to walk out of the store with the vinyl he purchased under his arm to show the world he knows who The Stooges are.
With the question of whether or not you’ll actually find what you’re looking for hanging overhead, there is also the sad honest-to-god fact that not all record store employees are customer service orientated. While I have to say the employees of Easy Street Records in West Seattle break all stereotypes of typical record store employees, I have seen and experienced the “Barry” character from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity all too often. While working at Rasputin Music in San Francisco I experienced co-workers treat well-meaning and good natured customers like they had committed a moral crime against humanity because they wanted to know if we sold the latest Coldplay album. Buyer beware if one showed they were not enlightened by the history of SubPop, the fanfare of the Madchester scene of the 80s, or displayed the right amount of interest in a rare Stone Roses recording. I even found myself taking on role of arrogant jerk when a teen girl dressed à la Abercrombie and her mom came up to me one day on the fourth floor jazz section and asked if we had the Love Song single. I told them that I wasn’t sure if we currently had singles by The Cure but before I could check for it in our super fly DOS computer system I was stopped by the girl, “No. It’s not by...whoever you said. It’s by that punk band - 311!” and went on to ask me where she could find Ok Computer on vinyl. I told her I’d check for her and took my lunch break instead.
So why do I still go to these places if they can be so horrible? I think it begins with the feeling that these stores offer me weird rolling moments of Zen because the second I walk in my mind blanks and, for the life of me, I cannot remember any reason why I stepped foot inside. I remember and then go blank. Remember. Go blank. Remember….blank. And on and on until I suddenly have about ten CDs in hand and an urge to look for some Gil Scott Heron spoken word and Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass on vinyl. I know that the employees won’t ask me what I’m looking for and what some people see as lacking in customer service I see as being afforded some space and freedom from algorithms that tell me what “other people like me” have purchased in the last 48 hours. Sometimes my shopping list is spared from the mind-wipe function that is secretly located at the entrance of every record store and although I can’t say I always find what I want, I always end up with some interesting purchases under ten bucks a piece.
The Metronome Society listens to a lot of music and I’ve finally realized that not all of the albums we listen to can be purchased at a record store. Some of the albums we pick are already resting in our personal music libraries such as albums by Violent Femmes, Jimi Hendrix, Suede, The Zombies, and Neko Case. Some we’ve had to download due to availability and time (as in, running out of) like Aretha Franklin, Heart, and Chet Baker. But occasionally, an album is found by taking some time to walk into a physical store, looking around, tracking down the title, and making a purchase from an actual human being standing behind a counter. The album Poses by Rufus Wainwright was my big find for a Metronome writing assignment and it is the album that inspired my script “Four Boys on a Beach” that will be playing this July. I’m happy I was able to find it the old school way but I was also pleased I could make a small contribution to the conservation efforts of keeping my record store from the brink of extinction.
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