5 Semi-recent visits to great record stores
Oct.01, 2012
5 Semi-recent visits to great record stores
Disk-Union – Tokyo, Japan
The first time I went to Japan, I could only afford to window-shop, but it seems like free jazz record prices have since plummeted. e.g.:
*3LP Coltrane in Japan box set (with longer Jimmy Garrison solo than what’s on the US Impulse release) for about $10. And that wasn’t even the cheapest copy in the store!
*Japanese BYGs (Archie Shepp’s Blasé, Cherry-Blackwell Mu First Part & Kenneth Terroade’s Love Rejoice) for the equivalent of about $8 US each.
Flipside Records – Pompton Lakes, NJ
Awesome time-capsule style record store. The racks are overstuffed with records somewhere between dusty and just plain dirty. Some good stuff up top, but the five-buck & under bargain bins below the racks are where it’s at. Scored the following:
*coupla gamelan records for $5 each
*$3 Lightning Hopkins side
*Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances of the 1920s and ’30s on Yazoo. The Freeman Stowers track “Railroad Blues” (1929) is fantastically unhinged. If you dig Sonny Terry’s “Shoutin’ the Blues” (see: the dancing chicken scene in Werner Herzog’s Stroszek), you might like this. A LOT.
Steady Sounds – Richmond, VA
I guess I was so elated by finding a copy of Dewey Redman’s Ear of the Behearer for $3 that after I left I didn’t even notice I turned the wrong way down a one-way street and continued on for a coupla blocks. No harm, no foul.
Low – Charlottesville, VA
I had 5 minutes to kill before soundcheck at the place I was playing, so I stopped into a vintage clothing/antique store with a sign saying it also had some records for sale, not expecting much. Hot damn, that was a nice surprise to find some great records nestled among the fancy hats and curios. I walked out with an armful of killer Nonesuch Explorer records* and was 30 minutes late for load-in. Then I went back the next day and picked up some more. There was also a vintage Curtom (Curtis Mayfield’s label) shirt in the clothes section, but like a fool, I passed it up.
*highlights: Turkish Village Music, Korean P’ansori, Witchcraft & Ritual Music from Africa, Burundi: Music from the Heart of Africa, etc…
Angry Mom – Ithaca, NY
More Nonesuch Explorer records, Music and Dances of Occidental Africa on Olympic Records (which is a good, unintentionally wise-ass name for a record label, if you ask me), and a $2.50 copy of Curtis Mayfield’s “There’s No Place Like America Today.”
Chris Corsano, Middle Grove, NY, Sept. 2012