To all the record stores that remain in the 200 mile radius of where I live, I have an important annoucement to make. When I turn 50 years old, I will be retiring from bargain hunting and buying out all the music stores. It will be moot point anyway, we lost so many music stores that we only have one decent one in town, my second home Half Priced Books.
It's funny how the internet has came along and made blogging fun but at the same time was killing off the music stores left and right. It's easier to shop online rather than go into town and maybe being surprised of what you could find at Goodwill or HP books. But everything comes to an end. Just like life.
I've spent 45 years going to music stores and buying 45s, tapes, records, cds what have ye. And some of the most fun moments was riding the bike up to downtown Marion to Marion TV and Records for the weekly single or in the grade school years walking up to the local Woolworths or Ben Franklin for 9 cent records or 4 for a dollar. The fun of going to Arlens or Wells in Waterloo, picking out something in the cheap bins and begging Mom to buy it. Or when we went to visit relatives, going to see what my aunt Cindy and Virginia would have for music. I drove our neighbors up the wall in Webster City when I kept rearranging their 45 collection when I go visit them with Mom. Maybe that's why I never had much social skills outside of what records do you have?
And I may not made much impressions on my ex girlfriends either. When I went up to Spokane to see Isabella, we'd hit the music stores and like me she had a big cd collection but I didn't see much of hers when I was there. In Portland, Lisa was kind enough to take me to Everyday Music when she was sick with the flu and we did the pawnshop bargain hunts. She was into a lot of techno music and had plenty of cds as well. Even in high school, my high school sweetheart couldn't understand what's all the albums that you buy as I showed her that I got bargain copies of Sly and the Family Stone Stand! and The Best Of The Hollies.
Girlfriends came far and few but the music continued to come on a regular basis as I researched things, remembered pawnshops had certain cds that I knew that would still be there when I return to Davenport or Madison or even Phoenix. In fact, music was the only constant in my lifetime and always seems like a visit would bring me a few things to go home and listen to.
I still live for the obscure and the lesser played but it's harder to find them. I know there's a few bargain hunters that like me, go to Goodwill to find the bargains and usually it's more perfect timing than skill. Most of the time, it's more miss than hit, especially when i drive out of town. But the urge of going out of town anymore is more work than play and as I get older, I seem to be a bit less interested in buying out ALL of the stores but rather the selected four or five that I like going to Madison (which includes two Half Priced Bookstores) and Mesa/Phoenix that has Bookman's. I have no clue on how I'll do the Phoenix trip next time I go. They have lost the Virgin Megastore and Tower Records, and Madison had a couple stores go by the wayside as well.
Used to be that Cedar Rapids had 8 to 10 places to buy music but Relics is gone, Rock N Bach is gone and Ratz Records failed. The Woolworth's, Marion TV n Records now a faded memory. And most of the time I scrap more bargain hunting trips than planned. I'd love to open up my own music store but it's a new world and I probaly wouldn't last anyway. Better to make it a Antique store, just like Sweet Living did before the tornado came and put them out of business. But never in my life would I have thought that I'd still be buying out what's left of the stores in business. Thought by now, I'd have a wife, kids, grandkids etc, but I remain the same like I was back in 1979 in high school, a special trip would be going to Cedar Rapids to Record Realm or Krackers for a musical fix, and Iowa City 1979 was like Madison of today, loads of stores, loads of odd records to check out.
Things end. The downloading, the MP3s, crappy music have rendered most of the bargain hunters obsolete or like vultures flying around roadkill, hanging out at HP Books in the Clarence bins to see what's left to listen to. Make no mistake, this bargain hunting vulture still finds them. But the constant bad news keeps coming, bad music, and more music stores closing is a never ending cycle. And after a while things pile up, records, cds etc. Maybe the virtual jukebox on the internet is the way to go, but this old audiophile still wants the physical product. It's always been that way for 45 years.
But ya know it is time. I don't know what I'm going to do once I turn 50 and do the last bargain hunt. I always thought the great sceniro would be sorting through the records at some place and die on the spot. That way, this old spirit would hang around the record store, not haunting it but rather play some old forgotten forty five or album track for what's left of the customers of that store to hear.
My life has always revolve around a turntable, watching the label spin. Doing that in the afterlife doesn't sound too bad either.
