I’ve had a love affair with music for most of my life. It’s meant spending money I didn’t have just to get a particular album, lest it sell out and not be restocked. It meant running to Repo Records from Haverford College in the middle of my high school track meets. It meant secret trips to Young Ones in Kutztown when I was supposed to be headed to the pool to lifeguard. Later, it meant lunch break pilgrimages to Spaceboy Music when I worked at TLA Video. It meant spending hours at AKA Music just soaking in new and unfamiliar sounds.
The affair ended unexpectedly. I’d been going to record stores since I was a teenager, whether it was the aforementioned Young Ones, or just asking the hapless clerk at Sam Goody in the Coventry Mall in Pottstown if they had any Fugazi. I pestered the guys at Spaceboy as they migrated west on South St. right up until the store closed. I mourned the loss of Repo Records on Lancaster Avenue even after it had been completely picked over and left for dead long before they shut the doors for good. I still cared about the allegedly obsolete ritual that we nostalgics will struggle to explain to our children; “Once upon a time, we went to record stores, argued with clerks, and bought music, face to face.”
Then one day I just stopped going. I tried to tell myself it was a passing thing and that I would find myself browsing the racks at AKA again soon enough, but a few months quickly became two years. I’d walk by the store sometimes and remember that I helped them move twice as they drifted up 2nd St. to their present location.
Now I’ve fallen in love all over again, head over heels. I wandered back into AKA on Record Store Day and picked up Pavement’s Live in Koln LP, along with two Sonic Youth split 7″. I’ve been hunting down R.E.M. on vinyl, too. It’s felt great to get back into the swing of things and to really enjoy the lush sounds of heavy vinyl warming up the house. The whole experience is so much more satisfying for me, speaking as someone who found that I listened to music less at home since the advent of the iPod.
I’m happy to be back in the habit of looking for old and new favorites on LP. I’ve resolved to buy any album I recommend over the course of the year, and I’ve been doing due diligence to pick up those I considered favorites during the past two years. In short, I’ve been giving Insound and eBay an awful lot of business lately, which puts a smile on my face.
