I Want That Record!
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I'd love for you to respond with your favorite record store, past or present, and maybe a memory or a purchase that changed your life.
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Terri Hemmert
As a life long lover of music, it warms my heart to show up to teach my Rock and Soul on the Radio course Monday nights at Columbia College and see students with record store bags. There is hope for the future. They are buying vinyl and supporting local, independent record stores. I’m so proud of them! One of the special limited releases for Record Store Day last month was the documentary dvd I Want That Record! It’s interviews with well know music geeks about the importance of a meeting place for people to build community and buy more music. Well that dvd sold out on Record Store Day, but the good news is, they will officially release it July 27th.
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It will be a bit ironic to purchase this on line or at a big box store, but what’s a music fan to do. It looks like a worthy addition to your collection. After watching this clip, I’d love for you to respond with your favorite record store, past or present, and maybe a memory or a purchase that changed your life. I had some of the best experiences of my life at Wax Trax Records on Lincoln Avenue.
How bout you? We music geeks have to stick together.
Barb Young
May 6, 2010 4:48 pm
It just so happens my oldest son turned 18 recently and he wanted a turntable for his birthday! After hunting around and getting him a nice Denon, I was desperate to find some vinyl to go with. On his birthday I was driving through Geneva IL remarking to my sister that I had to find a second hand store to get this done. Lo and behold I spotted a true “record store” and pulled a U-ie. Kiss the Sky was awesome and I’m happy to report Teri that two of the 3 albums I purchased: Abbey Road (my FFR – forever favorite record) and Yellow Sub. I was so excited to find this place and couldn’t wait to tell my son about it, but when I did it was old news to him… he’d been there already but was thrilled for my discovery and even more thrilled about the purchases! 5 stars to Kiss the Sky and the good men that own it!
A.C. Parrilli
May 6, 2010 5:18 pm
As a youngster growing up In SkEvanston I have fond memories of walking to Record City in Skokie afterschool with my cousin. While we weren’t buying LPs, we were purchasing CDs in old fashioned longboxes, which we would them meticulously cut out and tack onto our bedroom walls. Some favorites were De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising and Nitzer Ebb’s Ebbhead.
Long live record stores. Shout out to all 3 Reckless locations and Lauries Planet of Sound in Lincoln Square.
Cathy W.
May 6, 2010 9:38 pm
I had one of the best days ever at Record City when Ultravox had a in-house signing. My good friend with a car drove there and we arived early to get a good spot in line. Not many people were there, so we browsed. As I flipped thruogh the import records, I noticed the coolest black boots standing next to me and it was none other than Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie; I had a nervous conversation and then got autographs from the whole band. Meeting Midge and the guys was a highlight and put Record City on a to-do list for Saturday’s to come.
Cathy W.
May 6, 2010 9:22 pm
Round Records was my church; no, really, I often ditched 5:00PM Sunday Mass to flip through the bins at the North Sheridan Road store. Downstairs they always had the latest releases front and center as you entered. Supertramp’s Breakfast in America was the first record I ever bought with my own money, but my fondest purchases were The Police’s Zenyatta and Ghost albums. I wandered upstairs to upgrade my jean jacket button collection and I have kept them all. By 6PM, I would swing back by church, pick up a church bulletin and head home for dinner.
Craig Payan
May 6, 2010 10:31 pm
There’s nothing more memorable than your first time. It was 1967 and my twin brother Clark and I walked to the Goldblatt’s department store in Markham, IL intent on buying our first album. We were 11 years old. We did everything together and would pool our cash to purchase many albums over the years. It made sense too until we decided to attend separate colleges. After thumbing through the stacks that day, we settled on Cream’s “Disraeli Gears.” Why? Because we liked the cover. Needless to say, that fateful purchase opened a whole new world for me. Some 700+ albums later, I’ll still throw it on the turntable from time to time.
Mike F
May 7, 2010 11:04 am
When I was a young lad growing up in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, on my 8th birthday, my Grandmother took me to the Sears Roebuck on South Western Ave. to buy me a present. I knew exactly what I wanted. I told my Gram I’d like to buy my first ever record. It was a song that I had heard a few times on the radio. The woman at the record counter asked me what I’d like. I responded, “Honky Tonk Women please”. The lady said with a bit of amazement, “Really!”. My Gram asked, “Is it not an appropriate song”. The lady said, “No. It’s cool.” My collection began right then & there. Little did I know at the time that this particular band would become my favorite & the greatest Rock & Roll Band in the world! Every once in a while, I’ll queue the song up, repeat the story about my purchase to my two college age daughters, then hit the volume as I loudly play the song that I’ve never grown tired of!
Katie Jones
May 22, 2010 1:15 am
Hi Terri – SO glad you’re doing this!!!!! As with you (we’re of the same era and tastes), pop music became my lifeblood in the 60s, each new record an adventure, a revelation, a gospel! As any vinyl geek of the era knows, the music was just launching point for marvelous things…walking for miles for new music, popping the shrinkwrap on an album, gazing at dazzling photos printed across 12-inch panels, reading liner notes (in something other than 6-point type or less!!!), pulling out the inner sleeve with its addictive crackle, then finally caressing the record out and looking at the label art and grooves, wondering what new wonders lay within – MAGIC!!!!!!!!! As much as I enjoy the convenience and long life of CDs, popping the shrinkwrap just doesn’t have the same artistic or tactile satisfaction. Also, as the record spun on the turntable under the tonearm, the spinning label and variable grooves allowed one to virtually SEE the music – a moving, living presence. With an LP, you got a complete PACKAGE. Singles (um…7″ black plastic, played on a turntable at 45 rpm…) were nearly as magical, especially if they had a picture sleeve. How can we lifelong Beatles folk ever forget buying that first Capitol swirl-label issue of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” with the classic Dezo Hoffman B&W portrait sleeve…before Ed Sullivan!?! What exquisite delight!!!!!!!! Besides that first U.S. Beatles single, the other two records that changed my life were the U.S. albums “Meet The Beatles” (first Rock’n”Roll record in a Classical household!) and most of all “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (purchased June 1, 1967 at Sears Oak Brook IL). Terri, as you have addressed countless times, words are inadequate to accurately relate to someone who didn’t witness it what a life-altering force the whole “Sgt. Pepper” package was. This was an event no one had seen or heard before – from the mind-blowing psychedelic cover art, lyrics on the back, magnificent color portrait of mustachioed (!!!!) Beatles on the gatefold, playful inserts, continuous record grooves…and the music – totally new, instantly changing the course of popular music. Within days of its release, you could walk down the street and hear “Sgt. Pepper” being played EVERYWHERE – transistor radios, car radios, home hi-fis, store speakers, doctors’ offices, the beach…even police and fire stations!!! It really was as if that music united virtually age group and the world for a brief magic moment. And it was 4-track, on vinyl!!!!!!!
As to the other part – the Record Store, a context that changed through the years. Starting in 1964, every day I’d walk down to a tiny little TV/radio shop in Brookfield IL that happened to carry records, first buying many of the Beatles/Stones/Byrds/Hermits/DC5 singles there, taking them home and playing both sides FOREVER, cranking the sedate family Grundig. Many albums I bought on the first day of release (no, I don’t have a Butcher Cover though!!!) either at a small Brookfield record store, Sears or Lyon-Healy. Many of the smaller stores in the mid-60s still featured “listening booths” where you could hear a record prior to purchase, and I discovered many new sounds that way that didn’t make it to WLS or WCFL. My life actually did change upon discovering the many floors of Chicago’s ROSE RECORDS with its incredible selection of domestic music and imports from literally around the world, as I began a weekly pilgrimage to the Loop that culminated in thousands of albums. (Hey…The Stones even made Rose a destination when in town!!!!!!) For sheer variety, and for the hundreds of record stores that I haunted over the years, Rose was the pinnacle. For fab funky factor, though, the Chicago’s Old Town record store at the edge of Piper’s Alley around 1968 was hard to beat. While offering fewer imports that Rose, Peaches Records in St. Louis gets a nod for uniqueness, with life-size album cover paintings and cement blocks impressed by hands, feet and autographs of contemporary artists in the 70s and 80s. Later on, the Crow’s Nest in Naperville IL, although featuring mostly CDs, offered great variety with many imports. Today, kudos to Remember When Records in Westmont IL for keeping the vinyl faith alive!!! Alas, there was only one Rose, now sadly gone, a digital victim, And although sparkling digital remasters of The Beatles catalog ensures immortality, it can be but art imitaing life: NOTHING, anywhere, could compare with seeing, touching and hearing “Sgt. Pepper” for the first time…on vinyl. — Katie Jones