P/R/F/R/E

Today’s late night post is inspired by Gordon Lamb’s record store day post last week. Gordon did a store by store account of record stores that have meant something to him in his life, and it really made me think of my own life in terms of the record stores that mean or meant the most to me. I grew up in Panama City Florida, which as fun of a time as you think might be had there, one thing it sadly lacked was an independent record store. So my life in record stores can be broken up in four time periods.

Time Period #1: record stores before the being able to drive. Between the record buying ages of 6 to 16 I was stuck buying my records at Turtles, Sound Shop, and Camelot Music. Sure I not only bought my copies of the Fat Boys “Crushin”, the Beastie Boys “License to Ill”, or Men at Work “Cargo” at these shops, but I also bought my Cure, Smiths, Depeche Mode, Dead Milkmen, 7 Seconds, and anything with 4AD on the spine. Sure the staff couldn’t point me in the direction of anything beyond the big pop hits, but at least at this time the chain stores really did carry at the least the bigger indie titles.


Time Period #2: record stores after being able to drive. The two year period of 16 – 18 was a golden age of record shopping and overall chance taking music wise for me. Every Saturday became a day of nonstop record shopping. With only $15 to spend, I was out for bargains. By this point I had discovered that you can also find records, CDS, and tapes at pawn shops, goodwill, salvation army, and flea markets. My goal was to find at least 4 new records per week, and most of the time I did just that. I took chances on bands like the Clean, the Sundays, Trash Can Sinatras, Pylon, and many more not to mention the $1 Goodwill finds like a mint debut B-52’s LP and the Robert Rauschenberg sleeve version of Talking Heads “Speaking in Tongues”. This was also the time when it struck me that there were other towns nearby which had their own record stores. So it wasn’t long before I was on the road to Tallahassee to Vinyl Fever (? - present date). It was at Vinyl Fever that I started to buy imports, bootlegs, and the stuff that never made it to the chain stores.


Time Period #3: record stores during the brief art school years. I went to art school in Memphis, TN and it was the first time where I lived in a town that had multiple record stores. There was the skate shop Cheap Skates (1985 - present date) that focused on bootlegs, hardcore, and punk vinyl, Shangri-La (1988 - present date) which was a block from where I lived which was the Grifters' record store, house, and recording studio. I found so many rare indie singles and posters there. I can’t remember the names of the comic shop that focused on promos or the place right down the street which was so overpriced, but the racks were deep with rare records. I think they had so many rare records due to the fact they priced them so high that they could never sell them. Then there was also Pop Tunes (now Cat's Music) (1946 - present date) which was a chain just in Memphis. Not the best stock, but you could find lots of cut out LP’s and marked down import titles. I would also make trips over to Nashville at this time to shop at Phono-Luxe (? to present date) which were rich in promo only and rare LPs, Great Escape (? - present date) which moved lots of titles on sheer low prices and focused on moving lots of records quickly. The kind of place you had to check a few times a week to be able to get a crack at the good stuff. Then there was Lucy’s (1992 - 1998), which was like Shangri La’s in Memphis. Small but what was in the racks was top notch and there wasn’t much filler. I also went to my first instore there which was They Might be Giants. It was at this time the zine culture and DIY ethic first hit me as far as music was concerned.


Time Period #4: record stores post art school. I came back to live in Panama City after Memphis, and record store withdrawal was in full effect. It’s like winning the lottery only to turn around and broke the next day. I was able to get my first record store job at a Blockbuster Music (1993 to 2000) while going to college back home part time. The discount was nothing and the pay wasn’t much better, but I was at least working at a record store, too bad we couldn’t order anything I ever wanted in the store. There was no doubt that the world's biggest video store at the time was never going to be able to do both things well. Blockbuster Music even though it was owned by Viacom (mtv, sony, etc) has zero chance to make it as a record store. It was at this time that I started driving to see shows in Atlanta , Athens, and Pensacola and I found new second homes at some of these stores. I would spend hours, and I mean upwards of 5-8 hours going through every inch of the stores that I could. Atlanta had Wax’N’Facts (1977 to present date) which is still there to this day. I didn’t know it was the home of DB Records until I moved to Athens, but some of the items I found there I still can’t believe. They were on top of current imports, but also one of the old stores which had deep deep deep back stock so even when you thought you had picked up that hard as hell to find Robyn Hitchcock 12” picture disc, they had 5 more in the back. At this time Panama City got it's first independent record store called CD Exchange. It was a small store, but we now had used CD's and bootlegs. Pensacola had this little house turned record store East Hill (1995 to present date) CD while not the best stock, the owner Elvis was a great surf drummer, and he had some rare singles, and it grew to be one of the better hidden stores you could ever stumble upon. They started out with just a front room of the house with some record crates, some cassettes, some rare singles, and a decent amount of used CDs to opening up almost half the house with each room housing a different format. Panama City soon had a second indie record store pop up called Binjo Records (1999 to 2002). This shop had limited stock and no real upstart money and no advertising, so it poked along for a few years, but in the end the kids in town never got behind it fully, and it tanked. It was a cool place to hang out, and Scott the owner always stocked loads of Elephant 6 stuff on vinyl, but there just wan't enough people to keep it going, and he didn't have the bank roll to keep newer charting titles in stock for folks just coming in off the street. Then there is Athens, the town I now call home which is home to Wuxtry Records (1976 to present date)where I work. To be honest the first time I went to Wuxtry I was treated rudely and the records were way over priced. The store had a history though, and I just kept coming back. The prices went down over the years, and the person who was really rude to me is now a friend, (no it wasn't Gordon who was rude) so all is well.


It hit me on last Saturday that I have spent over ¾’s of my life obsessed with records. So much so that I have worked at two record stores Blockbuster Music and Wuxtry Records for a combined total of 8 years. I published and wrote a music zine the Bee’s Knees for 10 years. I dj’d at a college station WKGC for 2 years. I have put on the Athens PopFest now in it’s 5th year, and Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records has been going strong for almost 9 years this July. I wonder when I’ll reach that point where it’s time to grow up. I can honestly say I hope that I never do.