Like a bonus 7″ unknowingly slipped down into the dustjacket, I wanted to say a few more things about the local record-buying scene, especially with the announcement of Needmore Discs’ closing this past week.

I love records.  I love buying them.  I’m proud of my sleeve-flipping speed and my ability to sight-read and to know what I’m looking for.  The records I bought today are actually sitting behind me in my little corner of the cube farm in the air conditioning instead of warping out in my hot car.  I love them.  I want to buy them.  I don’t want to buy CDs and I don’t buy CDs unless that’s the only format on which the band I just saw live absolutely has ever only issued a particular release that I can’t find on ahem any other format.  I will buy tapes before I buy CDs.  Rebellious, I know.

To all the record stores out there, especially those in the metro Kansas City area, regardless of whether you’re a mom & pop store or a nationwide chain like Half Price Books – the idea that those legions of albums from the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s are ever going to sell is ridiculous.  When you stock your selection with row upon row of Elvis, Wings, Toto, Joni Mitchell . . . you are catering to a buyer who will only ever buy on impulse, and generally only out of an underlying sense of irony.  They did it, as the kids say, for the lulz.

Look, I know you’ve got some gems, but you know where most of the gems are?  On GEMM.  I’m not interested in paying $20 for some some obscure soul release from 1964 – it’s not my thing, but it’s also not most people’s thing either.  If you choose to cater your entire store’s selection to only a niche market, you’re going to have a very hard time staying in business.

When I walk in a place that calls itself a “record” store, and I have to ask myself if I’ve accidentally wandered into the back corner of a Goodwill, I immediately give the place a negative mark.  When I look through your “NEW!” or “Just Arrived!” bins and all I find are the same Todd Rundgren and Pointer Sisters LP’s every other failed shop in town has been pushing for the last X-number of years, it really makes me question shopping locally.

Yes, there’s a flipside to this.  If you, as the buyer/proprietor of the shop, choose instead to round out your selection with five or six $20 copies of let’s say the new Connor Oberst, or God forbid some major label release like Franz Ferdinand or the Killers for $30 (corporate mark-up of course) . . . then just forget it.

These, to me, are the sorts of acts that the “average” fan is just going to buy on CD iTunes or download, and I totally understand that those sales, with your 50% markup, are what helps keep your store open.  You’re a business, I know – but what about the idea of record store as Mecca for the disaffected youth looking for counter-culture salvation?  What about the dozens of labels and hundreds, thousands of artists out there still releasing on vinyl only?  Yes, their eps ARE unsellable at $10 apiece – but I can read Tonevendor, I can look at Insound – they don’t COST $10 apiece.  I’d rather buy from you directly, take advantage of your wholesaler discount, take my records home that day, than pay shipping and wait a week.

Anybody who’s ever sat down and ripped records, whether it’s a 7″ or a triple-vinyl release, knows it a labor of love.  A CD takes 5 minutes to get that ratio boost heading up.  No eq’ing.  No worrying about signal path.  No delicate caress of errant dust specks out of grooves.   You want to fight the spectre of downloading, start offering things that aren’t available for download – the stuff the torrent sites never even see.

I have chosen to download because my time is not filled listening to releases I chose to instead buy from you.

Is it fair to say you can’t compete with online stores like Insounds, Tonevendor, or Boomkat?  Maybe.  Is it fair to us to say you won’t compete?  It’s up to you, I guess.  We are the consumers, we can always find it cheaper elsewhere if that’s the tack you want to take on it.  I’m not about to drop $15 for a New Edition full-length just because it has a poly sleeve and “Candy Girl” on it.  Doing that once was enough.

As with any industry,  consumers don’t owe you pity sales.  For a shop like Needmore Discs, or Music Exchange, or Zebadees, or Earwaxx, or a lot of other really great stores around town, I appreciate what you do.  The customer service has generally been outstanding.  I will say this – you’d get a lot more of my money if you were to cater to the dedicated, informed – and by informed I mean past the year 1985, much less 1995 – record buying audience; this seems to be the secret behind a store like Love Garden’s success.

With the number of bands that are starting to choose Kansas City venues over Lawrence, here’s to hoping more local stores start catering to the crowds it seems they’ve otherwise given over to our neighbor to the west.

Oh yeah, and like a free sticker thrown in at the last second – electronic music.  I mean techno and its descendents, not just Kraftwerk or Terry Riley or Vangelis.  Please stock it.  It’s been around for over thirty years.  If you’re so afraid of being seen shaking your ass, please take down all of your James Brown, your rare soul/funk, etc.  Find somebody knowledgeable about it to help buy it into the store.  I’ll do it for a good discount, just let me know.

Had some time to kill at lunch today, so I dropped into the Half Priced Books store in Westport.  Looks like they’ve finally removed the general 12″ section, and everything in that bin is now labeled (and unfortunately correctly so) as “Hip Hop 12″s” . . . not much worth seeing in there today except for three copies of a Dilated Peoples single.  I have a feeling the days of being able to grab the classic Detroit and oddball house releases out without sifting through the whole collection of Jackson Browne and Bonnie and Delaney albums are over with.

I usually start the album flipping at the Z end of the alphabet – it’s just closer geographically to the 12′s.  I immediately saw a Throwing Muses release as the first record in one of the bins – ended up being the Chains Changed ep from 1987 – a solid $4.98.

Immediately behind that was the band’s 4AD Fat Skier 7-track mini album for $3.  Stephanie’s a big fan of the band and has been asking for more female-front indie/punk stuff lately, so these definitely fit the bill.

Initially sidetracked by those finds, I started digging through the tail-end of the alphabet, finding a copy of a Full Cycle split with Die and Krust (“Timing Mechanism” and “21st Century” respectively) for 99 cents.  Turns out this is actually the E/F sides to a 3×12 edition of the Through the Eyes label compilation.  The other two pieces were not to be found.

A couple of bins over was a $3 12″ of Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Wishing Well” single and remixes – happen to flip it over and sure enough, it featured a Francois Kevorkian remix, as well as one from The Human League/Heaven 17′s Martyn Ware.

So I keep digging . . . no Talk Talk as usual.  I make it into the R’s and find a copy of Baby Ford‘s BFord 9 album from ’92 for $5 misfiled and had to do a double-take.  I’ve been hesitant to buy into the Baby Ford resurgence as of late – like most electronic musicians active since the late 80′s, the early/mid 90′s produced a fair share of cheese . . . but it’s hard to pass up a classic like this on double vinyl for $5.

The middle area of the alphabet produced a couple of nice gems – a $5 unopened copy of Barbara Manning‘s 1212 from 1997, laid out across three sides of double vinyl, should catch Stephanie’s attention.  Another front-of-the-bin find was a little black-sleeved 10″ with odd script on the front which read “fins to makes us more fish-like” . . . instant buy.  Red vinyl too . . . I’d been looking for decent prices on this vintage of Liars stuff for awhile – $8, but worth it.

Back to finishing out the M’s and I come across Ministry’s “The Nature of Love” 12″ from 85 on WaxTrax.  Can’t wait to see what the “Cruelty Mix” is about.

The rest of the alphabet in was pretty boring – no Cocteau Twins either, as usual.  I pretty much knew what I kept seeing out of my peripheral vision was going to be the last good thing I’d find, there in the next-to-last bin, again, like the Throwing Muses and the Liars, in plain sight to everyone.

Yep, Brainiac‘s Hissing Prigs in Static Couture.  Stephanie wants more weird stuff, here you go, cause this one’s a classic.  It also draws to close a long, drawn-out chapter in my life, one wherein I just keep repeating the words “Why didn’t I buy this for $2 at Superflea oh so many years ago” for thirty pages.  Glad that’s done, right?

So that’s the haul for today.  Total set back:  $40.