There was a store in Chicago that is long-gone — Blackout Records on Southport (closed in '97 or so) that was a special kinda store to me.

The clerks were the ANTI indie record store people. Nice, accommodating, and just genuine music lovers without a hint of snobbery. They also had an in-store or two in their time, and just got run out when that part of the neighborhood was (unnecessarily) gentrifying and rents soared.

But yeah, I remember walking in there, and hearing this amazing song, in incredibly poor fidelity, asking about it, and being pointed in the direction of this band called Guided By Voices. Their Alien Lanes album.

I bought it on vinyl, went home, put on Side One, flipped it to Side Two, and then BACK to Side One; all in a single mezmerising sitting.

I also discovered Neutral Milk Hotel in the same place, in the same way.

This is the type of thing that is missing from today's music buying experience.
God bless online retailers for the availiability factor, but the thrill of new discovery is gone.

Yeah, the old days wuz better, young'uns!

Wasn't there a similar thread opened last week?

Probably.
Sorry.

i got a blowjob in the back of Uncle Sams Records after purchasing the first Chapterhouse album. the girl there used to order me imports, and we'd spend hours chattin' about british bands. when it was slow, we started messin' around, which then turned a bit more serious, with me finishing up on her while Lemonheads were blaring in the background.

Now, you see you don't get service like that, online!
It's all self-service.

todd that is probably the best post you have ever made, word for word

yeah but you don't have to waste hours chatting

when i was 14, i went out bmxing one morning and crashed while landing a stair jump. my face and arms were pretty cut up and i was about a mile from home. but my local record shop was a block away. so i walked my bike over there and asked my friend if i could wash my cuts in their bathroom. then i blacked out.

the security video became a hit at parties for a few years. you see me talking with my friend, then taking one step, and collapsing into a pile of cassettes. and my friend says, "whoa." then he walks over and wakes me up. i must've seen that tape 50 times.

I worked at the quintessential indie record here in Cincinnati. Although we had our fair share of indiekid snobbery, I tried to be an open-minded and friendly rec store clerk.

My favorite memory is when the Screaming Trees came through on their Dust tour. The alt-venue was right next door, so there was all sorts of chance encounters with 90's alt-stars. When they came in the m.o. was just to remain cool and unadoring.

Anyway, Lanegan comes in and it must have been the depths of his junk habit because he looked like shit. Super emaciated and sweaty and freaked out. Our boss was a ultra-enthusiastic Mormon-cum-biker dude and had zero social skills. He got all up in Lanegan's face and, seemingly unaware of Mark's difficulties, started pumping his arm with all sorts of praise over his solo work. Lanegan spooked and scurried out the door. Moments later we was completely passed out in the middle of the sidewalk outside.

You win. That's a great story.

Neutral Milk Hotel had just released Aeroplane... and they were playing an in-store at Reckless on Broadway. They did a pretty damn good set — more than a 1/2 hour, which is pretty long for something like that, in my experiences.

Then, they asked if anyone had any requests.

I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and blurted out for "Song Against Sex"!!!

"Well, we don't have the trombone here," Jeff replied, "But..."

Then he turned to Scott and asked him something and, "But Scott said that he can do the part on flugelhorn, so let's do it!'

They then proceeded to do a killer version of the song that had the whole place smiling and dancing.

Afterward, I had a chance to talk to some of the guys in the band, including Jeff. But, he was predictably awkward and quiet, so that was a pretty short convo. The other guys were very cool though, and they thanked me for the request because they "had a great time playing it".

I'll share some...

I used to get a kick out of this record store located in Champaign, IL that I would visit when I was road tripping to go see the SST bands that would play at a bar called Mabel’s. The same guy worked there for ages, some severely balding guy with long hair who always walked around in karate pants, a Dead Kennedys shirt and no shoes. He had a cat that used to wander the place and there were signs located around that read: If the cat is sitting on something you would like to look at, just tell it to move. Explain to the cat that it is fat and could use the exercise. Used to get some great old punk 7" records there that I wish I still had.

Place I used to work had a two way mirror and we were seldom busy, so basically my buddy and I used to just sit in back, smoke dope, drink beer and listen to records. We thought it was hysterical to blow pot smoke through the crack by the mirror when the rare customer would wander in and start browsing records within our range of vision and watch them sniff and look around.

Place shut down due to lack of business, but not before I accidentally smashed one of those big glass display cases when I dropped this giant book where people could look up stuff to odder that was held by this big metal stand; tried to pretend I was cleaning very carefully cleaning the counter to a spot free shine when the boss walked in, but no dice.

I still have an allergic reaction to the Atlanta Rhythm Section since the guy who owned the place had a temper tantrum one day (after ignoring our requests for records by people we asked for that people actually wanted to buy) because we did not have the entire Atlanta Rhythm Section catalog in stock and no one had requested this be remedied...fucking idiot.

i go to a collector's shop on the southside of chicago sometimes because they have a great 7" collection, but they also sell comic books and baseball cards. this is the kind of place where they know just about everyone, so your first time in there is a lot of "who are you? how'd you hear about the shop? are you from around here? where'd you go to high school?"

anyway, they have thousands upon thousands of old 45s. so this one guy's just picking through everything. i overhear some commotion at the counter when he goes to pay and then he walks out in a huff. they said he'd been in there looking through the dollar bin for three hours. he picked out one record to buy and asked, "since you didn't have much of a selection today, could i get a deal on this?" the guy at the desk is thinking, "it's a dollar." but instead he says, "ok, sure. 50 cents." so then the guy says, "i was thinking more like a quarter." that's what the commotion was all about. i think they told me they banned him for a few months.

unfortunately ive never had any experiences like these. instead, in my small isolated little town the only place i could buy music was at the grocery/general merchandise store. i had to special order everything i wanted and then needed to wait at least a couple of weeks to get it. i got a hell of a lot of great music that i would listen to again and again and again, because there was nothing else to do. i must have listened to electric ladyland or the sex pistols or dark side of the moon or mellon collie hundreds and hundreds of times. oddly enough i still love them all.

Todd's been waxing pretty nostalgic about the record stores lately.

you've been watching High Fidelity again, haven't you?

I met David Bazan at a Pedro The Lion in-store and told him Achilles Heel is great, which was (and still is) an enormous lie. But, I also truthfully praised the brilliance of Control. All that was after the performance, which was great, because him and the two other guys switched instruments for each song. Bazan can really slay on the drums. At one point, when people were shouting out song requests, I yelled "DO 'MAGAZINE'!" He said it was too hard to play with what they had on hand, which I actually found to be an acceptable answer.

Smashing Pumpkins, performing most of Gish, at the Bloomingdale Tower Records. It may not be an indie store, but we still has teh love for teh Tower.

I used to work above the HMV in Harvard Square. They had a lot of in-stores, so I'd love to say to people how I was going downstairs to see Buddy Guy or J Mascis or whoever.

once i went to a indie record store and bought 6 or 7 cool albums. no one gave me any trouble or snotty looks and I paid and then walked out.

I remember Mabel's and that fucking cat.

Mabel's was the greatest. I think I'm in a Braid DVD that they shot there for one of their last shows.

Record and Tape Traders was my mecca in high school. Used to go and peruse the records for hours upon hours. Usually they had what my inquiring mind was looking for. This was also back when record stores took the time and effort to put together a weekly Top 30 on the wall, without label tomfoolery biasing the selections. Every week I would come in and sniff around that Top 30, looking for something that piqued my interest. They carried imports, bootlegs (shhh..."imports"), and really small label shit.

At xmas, I learned they were closing down the R&TT in my hometown, and several other of the stores.

Friday night I went to one of the stores local to me now, and was looking for records. Place is frightful. Teenage kids who know nothing about about music--and no, this isn't just crotchety, old man speaking--they knew nothing. Really sad to see such a great franchise go downhill like that. I probably won't go in there much anymore unless I'm looking for used stuff I'd imagine.

Do you remember those old Kemp Mill commercials where they smashed the records with a hammer? Not sure what made me think of those just now.

What was their price point? No single disc cd over $12.99, every day, I think.

I LOVED Kemp Mill probably up into high school. It was considerably cheaper than anything at the mall, and I always hated Oceans in Annapolis for treating everyone, including the elderly and waterheads, like shoplifters.

I didn't get big on R&TT until they moved from Severna Park to Annapolis, partly cause I wasn't living here, and partly because they always hired people I knew but didn't really like.

These commercials were smashing LPs with hammers, not CDs. But yeah, Kemp Mill was awesome. Then a whole bunch of them closed in the mid-90s. Then I moved to Boston.