As I came home from the Davenport bargain hunt and didn't find a single forty five, I realized that the days of going to the music store are becoming numbered. Basically with niche record stores popping up to sell overpriced vinyl and the big box stores phasing out CDs, it has simply come down to just going to thrift stores to find any sort of 45s, or estate sales or the every other month trip to Moondog Music to see what scratchy 45 I can find. Thank goodness for the going to Dubuque last week. Davenport was a bust all the way to the three and half hour baseball game to which the Kernels outfielder waking me up from my nap to ask about the time.
Granted this summer, I found some great stuff and managed to bring back to life, dirty 45s to play one more time, but I have yet to make a final trip to Madison, to which that will be the final bargain hunt of the year. We learn to never say never but since last year, I made a couple feeble attempts to drive up there from US 151 only to stop as far as Dubuque and hang at the local shops instead. Since the trips to the main cities around here actually yielded some great music, I decided to stay close to home. But I do need to make a Mad City run, since it was 25 years ago that I discovered that city and the music stores. They still have Mad City Music X, Strictly Discs, two Half Price Bookstores and St Vincent De paul and other thrift stores. The time will come.
In the time that I compiled what is called the Last Bargain Hunts and I documented of the closings of the stores. We said bye bye to FYE in 2010 and they continue to shrink their stores down to two in Arizona, it used to be 30 record stores are happening back in 1995, but once FYE started buying the Wherehouse Music chain, and the major labels doing stupid shit such as LOUDness Cds and the death ending Copy Protect CD which cause computers to fail from the Rootkit virus. And of course the majors eating each other so that three came out on top, the usual suspects are Universal, Sony Music and WEA, tho of late the Concord Music group has been issuing stuff from Atlantic and Wind Up via Craft Recordings and BMG Music Rights returning back from the dead. So in theory we have three majors and two up and comers. But still hard to find since Best Buy doesn't sell CDs and Wal Mart and Target shrinking their sections down to nil, forcing most folk to go Amazon.
I enjoy looking for CDs at stores better than ordering online. Stuff Etc and Goodwill usually have some sort of turnover, but Salvation Army usually has the crap nobody wants, they are more willing to have somebody donate a bunch of scratchy records, thus the chance to actually find something worth taking home. Streaming is easier, and it takes up way less space but for the record collector that has been me for 55 years, I still want the product in hand. Hard habits are forever hard to break, especially for the music hoarder/collector.
For over a decade, I started something called the last bargain hunt, which turned out to be pure bullshit. Me stop collecting? Right, as I planned my trips to Arizona to see what Hastings and FYE had. These big box stores, which everybody hated, had the better buys in the dollar section or discount bins and that's how my collection got big. To find Badfinger-Straight Up and Airwaves for five dollars or less, Wet Willie's Capricorn Cds for 2.99 and so on, that was the intent to go to Hastings out in the Northern Arizona country. And my home away from home was Hastings, in Kingman/Lake Havasu City/Bullhead City. It was a shame to see them fade into the dark in 2016.
(To Be Continued)
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