I associate Record Stores with Drive Ins. In my youth they were commonplace, and every other day I'd spend lots of time combing through the 45s up at Marion TV and Records and then walk to Town Square Books to pick up the jukebox records that used to play at Ole's Ham n Egger and the Marion Landromat on the edge of town. Back in those days, you could walk into the place, nobody's around and play the jukebox for a while. Back when the landromat was 24 hours, before the idiots would come in after dark and vandalize the place. Even back then you couldn't have anything nice.
But like the drive ins, the record stores in town are now a distant memory. Cedar Rapids used to have Krackers, Record Realm, Record Bar, Record Store, Marion TV, Relics, Rock n Bach and Omni, Co Op Records and Big Apple. I used to consider Relics my second home and paid Saturday Night visits to Rock n Bach before going next door to Desoda's to either get drunk or pick up ladies, mostly the former. All the independend record stores are out of town. Iowa City has two of them, even Dubuque has two stores going on, CDs 4 Change and Moondog Music. The Internet may have killed off all chances of opening up any new stores around here and that's a shame. The only store I consider to be a record store is Half Priced Books in town and that has been a Godsend for the bargain hunter and music collector. In fact, HP Books still amazes me in terms of albums that I have bought there, including last night finding Humble Pie's 1974 flop album Thunderbox, Redd Kross Neuroica and Mose Allison Your Mind Is On Vacation, his 1976 jazz album. I also found some 45s of note from Spike Jones and the late great Earl Palmer. Just like the good old days of lore, I still find them. A gift from the Good Lord and from somebody cleaning out their house.
I decided to stay within a hour driving distance and went to Iowa City to visit the folks at Record Collector and Real Records. to which I bought Billy Paul-360 Degrees of Billy Paul and The Dammed Light At The End Of The Tunnel 2 CD set for MCA back in 1987. And then Real had a vinyl copy of Buck Owens Hot Dog and a CD from Flash, the band that had Peter Banks and Tony Kaye from YES in it. Plus I got a Record Store Day 45 of the MC5 Kick Out The Jams. Even FYE had some bargains as well. So it was a good day for me. Finding more music and to celebrate the second annual National Record Store Day and the turnout was actually pretty good for these record stores I mentioned. I'm sure Moondog and CD's 4 Change had a good turnout as well but I can only go to so many places.
But I'm also sure next year when we had National Record Store Day again I'll be driving old reliable to the music stores of unknown destination. I live for the tunes.
