MUSIC

Record Store Day celebrates an addiction to vinyl

Austin is full of smart, adventurous record stores

By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 16, 2009

My name is Joe, and I am a record store addict. (Hi, Joe!) I love record stores the way some people love baseball stadiums or certain bars.

Saturday is Record Store Day, so it seems like a good time to get that confession out of the way.

I love the interiors — clean or dank, well-lighted or tomblike. I love the rows and rows of LPs and CDs and singles, each one its own world, piled on the floor, stuffed into bins or dressed up in plastic sleeves.

I love the people who own record stores, especially the reckless few who took the plunge this century, when it was clear that the physical album might be going the way of the buggy whip and the big chain stores were close behind. I even love the folks who work there, which wasn't too easy to do — until those same folks figured out that you could buy music online or find it for free and being a jerk behind the counter was not exactly bringing the masses in the doors.

I could kill hours flipping through racks, seeing what's new in the used section, glancing at one record cover and making a connection to a different album and seeing if the store has that one. I've never left a record store thinking, "Man, I spent too much time in there." There's no such thing.

And Austin is far and away the best record shopping town I've ever lived in. It's the best record shopping town most of us will ever live in.

Let me say that again: The best excuse you're ever going to have for owning a turntable is a River City ZIP code.

Sure, the San Francisco Bay Area has the massive Amoeba Music, which sits atop the indie record store world like a colossus. Chicago has the soulful Dusty Groove America, and New York is New York.

But in our fair city, a $2.99 LP copy of Willie Nelson's "Phases and Stages" or Waylon Jennings' "Waylon Live" seems like a right, not a privilege, like Zilker Park or Barton Springs. There are a dozen shops where a rock-solid record collection can be had in a matter of hours for far less money than purchasing the songs off iTunes.

And the new and used CD selection spread across the city — from Texas hip-hop to mainstream pop to Mexican music to punk rock — is as sharp and diverse as you could possibly expect from a city of our size.

But record stores serve another function, one that can't possibly be replicated by buying things online, let along downloading them peer-to-peer.

As a teen incapable of a decent romance (I spent so much time in the Friend Zone, I built a summer home there) beset by irrational anxiety and no interest in Jesus in a town full of Young Life types, I can honestly say my record store job saved me from losing it.

I worked at the Falls Church, Va., branch of Kemp Mill Records after school from fall 1989 to spring 1992. Kemp Mill was a local record store chain based in Washington, D.C., with dozens of stores at the peak of its success. The company's business plan was both smart and its undoing: The stores made money on accessories. It was an unusual thing for a CD to cost more than $12.99. Most were $9.99 to $11.99 in the very early 1990s.

Selection-wise, Kemp Mill was somewhere between the suburban consumer fantasy of a Tower Records and the truly depressing selection-vs.-price ratio of a mall music store.

It was exactly the sort of local chain that was destroyed by the rise of big box stores like Best Buy, which could do the same thing Kemp Mill did on a mass scale. Kemp Mill is down to maybe one or two stores now, if that.

I loved that gig, and it loved me back. I was the youngest employee there by at least six years. There, I took my first shot of Jägermeister; borrowed my first issue of Forced Exposure, Charles Bukowski, Louis-Ferdinand Céline and other staples of sensitive young man literature from a co-worker; fell in love with Austin, thanks to that same co-worker's stories; became addicted to Stax/Atlantic soul; and heard countless bands for the first time. For a record store in the Chocolate City's most egregiously vanilla suburb, it had an amazing go-go selection. I wish I still had all my $7.99 live go-go tapes.

There was a distinct lack of hipper-than-thou-ism, possibly because it wasn't a particularly hip store. I enjoyed everyone I worked with and, not to wax my own car, but I was amazingly good at this job. My customer service skills ruled. I was friendly, I was good at reading people (leave-me-alone vs. help-I'm-lost) and I just loved turning people on to stuff. I was Mr. "If you like this, you might like that." My finest hour? The week after I sold a gal some CDs, she returns: "My boyfriend liked the ones you picked out more than the ones I picked out. What else you got?" I had a blast.

The brick and mortar record store kept me from going nuts, and I suspect many others can say the same. Let's prevent that from happening for at least another year.

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926

RECORD STORE DAY IN AUSTIN

Fourteen stores are participating in the record store day crawl. Shop one store and get discounts at every other participating store. Stores marked with an asterisk are official Record Store Day stores and will have exclusive Record Store Day products. A full list of products can be found on the Waterloo Records (waterloorecords.com). Not every store will carry every exclusive item.

Antone's Record Shop, 2928 Guadalupe St. 322-0660 *

BackSpin Records, 4631 Airport Blvd. 454-7746 *

Breakaway Records, 1704 E. Fifth St. No. 105. 538-0174

Cheapo Records, 914 N. Lamar Blvd. 477-4499 *

DJ Dojo, 2210 S. First St. No. A. 447-3656

Encore Records, 1745 W. Anderson Lane. 451-8111

End of an Ear Records, 2209 S. First St. 462-6008 *

Friends of Sound, 1704 S. Congress Ave. 447-1000

Immortal Performances, 1404 W. 30th St. 478-9954

Musicmania, 3909 N. Interstate 35, D1. 451-3361 *

Out of the Past, 5341 Burnet Road. 371-3550

Snake Eyes Vinyl, 1101 Navasota St. No. 3. 600-6950 *

Sound on Sound Records, 106 E. North Loop Blvd. 371-9980

Turntable Records, 1903 S. First St. 462-2568

Waterloo Records, 600 N. Lamar Blvd A. 474-2500 *

Whetstone Audio, 2401 E. Sixth St. 477-8503