Monday, April 23, 2012

RECORD STORE DAY: APRIL 21, 2012


Ah, Record Store Day. A holiday that encourages me to make a visit to the local music store and purge my wallet from the root of all evil. Also a day to pay respects to the industry that labors very hard to preserve an aspect of culture that is atrophying before the behemoth that is online MP3 stores. I spent the day hitting up the four Graywhale stores in the Salt Lake area, and this is my story:

SANDY

The newest addition to the Graywhale family (at the expense of the Orem Graywhale that was conveniently located), I wasn't sure what to think about the place. I mean, it killed my baby. However, I discovered that the Orem legacy lives on in Sandy (only because I recognized the ultra-obscure CDs in the used indie section from Orem that have no hope of getting purchased).

Me and my bestie/photographer, Cait

Since this was our first trip, I was not shy about throwing down plentiful cash for music I wanted. As was expected, I bought the most CDs at this location. They were
  • Built to Spill - There Is Nothing Wrong with Love
  • Built to Spill - The Normal Years
  • Built to Spill - Ancient Melodies of the Future (hey, they had the CDs, and I bought them)
  • Sound Team - Work
  • Garden State Soundtrack (purchased for Cait)
  • Sonic Youth - Dirty
  • Yo La Tengo - Painful
Me and Ben, Sandy's resident Graywhale employee


WEST JORDAN

I've been to this Graywhale before, mainly for the Black Friday Sale of 2011. Since it was almost literally down the street from the Sandy Graywhale, it was quite easy to find. They had reorganized the CD shelves since the last time I'd been there; I would never have thought of that.

I still managed to find the hipster music section pretty quickly.

On the other hand, Bichón! headed straight to the Duncan Sheik albums.

This store didn't have as much of an immediately desirable selection, but the prices here were very reasonable. Like, a dollar a CD reasonable. My booty at West Jordan:

  • Screaming Trees - Sweet Oblivion
  • Vanilla Ice - The Best of Vanilla Ice (for two dollars? A steal!)
  • ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
  • Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
  • U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
  • Gang Gang Dance - Hillulah

My picture with Chase, the guy who rung me up
Of course, we couldn't say no to a stop at Asian City across the street, nor could I resist a $5 bamboo sword...


TAYLORSVILLE

This Graywhale was truly interesting. It was smack dab in the middle of a strip mall, and curled up outside were three hipsters (or homeless people; I can never tell the difference). Luckily, the interior was all too familiar, with the concrete floor, cinder block walls, and various references to underground things that you have a 15% chance of catching.
"By buying used music? Heck, I was gonna do it anyway!"

Monitor This! teaches kids what new music to get, with an innuendo for a name.

Sadly, I already had a lot of that music, or simply didn't care to get it. So instead I picked up a couple of CDs...just a couple. :-(
  • Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
  • Don Caballero - Punkgasm (in my defense, their music is usually instrumental, so no suggestive lyrics)

This is Ben, Taylorsville Graywhale's manager (his name was pretty easy to remember)


University of Utah

As you can see from the picture, Record Store Day is a thing at this Graywhale. They had all kinds of local bands playing all day long. I could tell this trip was going to be special.

Contemplating my wares

Meanwhile, Bichón! showed off his diversity by browsing the metal section. Opeth, anyone?

I've always liked this Graywhale because it was built in an old house close to the U campus. They replaced everything with shelves upon shelves of CDs, and it's a truly unique experience to shop there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a whole lot of albums to buy, but I did score a couple of rare discs.
  • Sonic Youth - SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century
  • Sonic Youth - SYR6: Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui
They were two more additions to that set of experimental Sonic Youth collection I started way back when! Even John, the Graywhale cashier, acknowledged that this was a good find, as it came from the private collection of the manager. Yeah, it'll be super-experimental and not...well, catchy, per se...but Sonic Youth is full of very talented musicians, and even their weird stuff is appealing to me.

It was actually an extra shelf to store all the extra electronic music, and yet...band name??


This is John. We're pals.

So that was my Record Store Day. Seventeen discs of new music to dump into my library, and a beautiful day spent in my choice environment. I was once given the advice to find a passion in life and to cultivate it. Check that box.


My CDs. My wardrobe can be explained because this photo was taken on Monochrome Monday. But that's a story for another post.


You've got a vision / You're on a mission