Your record shop clerk stories

Typical scenario: Alex in NYC enters self-styled bohemian indie record store and approaches the counter.

ALEX in NYC: "Say, do you have the new Firewater e.p.?"

SMUG CLERK: (without glancing up) "Uhh...lemme check. (turns head towards stock room) Hey Frank, is there a new Firewater e.p.?"

(Alex in NYC starts to turn bright red and clenches fists. The discernable scent of brimstone fills the room).

ALEX in NYC: "I didn't say 'Is there a new Firewater e.p.?', I asked 'Do You Have it?', goddammit! Just because you work behind a counter at a record shop, that doesn't make you some sort of omniscient music oracle! I can tell you what's on this e.p., I can tell you the label, I can describe the cover art, and I can practically give you the fucking serial number. Now, you fat Nick Hornby wannabe, the question I put to you is: DO YOU HAVE IT? YES OR NO?"

- fin -

Now, while the above exchange has been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect, it is indeed representative of a frustratingly frequent occurence.

I read this as an abbreviation of Carmine Appice.

A: Down the road appice.

So, I'm friends with a guy who is a clerk at the preeminent local independent record store. On a Monday, I call him up at the store, and I say, "Hey, do you guys have The Streets' Orignial Pirate Material and the new Camper Van Beethoven Box Set?" He makes fun of me for a little bit, indicating that he thinks nobody in the U.S. is gonna buy "that English rapper thing," and then finally says that they don't have either one, but both are on order, so "call me on Wednesday."

So Wendnesday rolls around, and I'm really busy, so I figure that I'll stop by the store after work instead of calling ahead. When I get there, my friend is nowhere to be found. Instead, there's this six-and-a-half foot tall phish-head behind the counter, eating a pizza with this girl. I have been a customer at this store for years, and I've never seen either of them before. Oh well.

So I walk up to this guy, and I say: "Do you have he Streets' Orignial Pirate Material?" He looks at me like I have a skin virus. "Uh, I dunno." Then he looks at the girl next to him, his mouth full of pizza. "Do we got that?" He looks back at me. "What kind of music is it?" I tell him it's a new garridge release from England, and he looks back dumbly. Then I tell him that my friend had told me it was supposed to be shipped in on Tuesday, along with the new Camper Van Beethoven boxset, which I also wanted. "Who are they?" At this point, I'm starting to get that this guy is either stoned or breathtakingly stupid. "Look, Jerry told me that they were going to be here. Are they here?"

He looks back at me. "Man, I just got here 45 minutes ago, and I'm eating. You're just gonna have to ask him."

"Is he here?"

"No."

Big silence after that. He stares at me, pizza sauce dribbling onto his shirt. Fuck it, I say to myself. I split, get in the car, and drive to Border's, which has both CDs and a very funny and helpful behind-the counter staff to boot.

The next day, I wander into the indie store to see my friend, and both CDs are displayed prominently in the "new release" section.

old dude with garlic breath: "which track skips on this bon jovi cd? put that shit on!"

(beardy fellow puts cd on. bon jovi's "you give love a bad name" booms from the behing-the-counter speakers, playing over the mariah carey already wailing away on the in-house speakers.)

o.d.w.g.b: (trying to imitate the electronic sound of a skipping cd)
"dit dit dit dit ... see what i mean? it's skipping!"

b.f.: "no. it sounds fine."

o.d.w.g.b.: "no! hear it? dit dit dit dit ..." (there's an audible skip in the cd.)

b.f.: "nope. there's nothing there."

o.d.w.g.b: "ahhhhh ... fuck it. that cd player sucks shit. put the '$7.99: TRACK 7 SKIPS' sticker on there and someone will buy it."

(in the same store, there was an obvious bootleg copy of napalm death's "harmony corruption" with a '$16.99: OUT OF PRINT' sticker.)

I don't know whether I'm a bigger asshole for actually considering the issue important enough to bring up with the clerk or whether stores that can't distinguish between two completely different band (or are purposely trying to confuse the issue in an attempt to boost sales of another band) are the problem instead.

When I was eighteen I went into the same record store I always go to to just glance around and check if there is anything worth picking up. There was always this gorgeous clerk who worked there that I checked out all the time. I caught her checking me out too on occassion. So I couldn't find anything I liked and walked out. As I was getting in my car she came out and said "Hey". We ended up going out for a year.

I explain all that because I wanted to tell a great story about this customer named Judy, but then I realized it just wouldn't work without a picture of her.

when i worked at a store in LA, there was a palm reader across the street. this whole gypsy family (mom, dad, three under-10-yr-olds, and the grandparents) used to come in regularly and act all rambunctious. the kids would run around screaming and grab cds and blatently put them where they didn't belong. meanwhile the adults would come to the counter and ask us to play the worst cds for them (mariah carey, celine dion) and they would pretend they didn't know how to read. they pretty much just wanted to be catered to like they were royalty.

so we would put on the loudest, most abbrasive music to try and force them out of the store. most of the time it was either the early boredoms or some digital hardcore.

But we step inside, and sure enough, the place has a couple token top ten records and the rest of the place exclusively stocks Phish, GD, Dave Matthews Band, and Moe(???) bootlegged concerts. But my buddy's a DMB fan, so he asks the clerk if they have some show he went to. The guy comes over to us and he's dressed in some filthy t-shirt and a pair of boxers. Ugh. And as he's answering my friend's question, he keeps picking at his balls the whole time! Which is really nasty 'cause there isn't even the buffer zone of pants here! Just some boxers and his diseased genitalia.

So, he tells my friend he'll check the inventory, but before he does, some ten year olds walk into the store and ask if he's got some glass bongs, so he takes them into the back. I think that's when we split, never to return again.

this gives me an idea

Aha! Y'know Dylan Posa? Drew Wilson? Man, I know a lot of Reckless current and ex-employees...

We gave her a gift certificate to shut her up.

For the brief time it was in existence, this was a good place to go since interesting used stuff didn't get picked over as quickly as similar things at the other Reckless stores (in hipper neighborhoods). I remember they had such a hard time selling the Kevin Coyne/Dagmar Krause LP that when I finally brought it to the counter, Dylan Posa sold it to me for $1 because he was glad to see someone take an interest in it.

Was there any sort of interesting story behind the demise of this branch of Reckless? I had always presumed that the owners had misjudged the hipness of Northwestern students, WNUR notwithstanding.

A number of the current Reckless clerks are really cute. But there's a bottleneck by the counter at the Belmont branch, such that you can't make sidelong glances at them without being completely, embarrassingly obvious about it. Cute record store clerks are really a must; they encourage business. The ones who are most effectively blasé really intimidate me, though. Incidentally it's increasingly difficult to find an opening act in Chicago one of whose members is not an employee at Reckless.

I could have a week-long conversation about the cuteness of various female Reckless employees -- there's one former Broadway employee I would happily write odes to -- but we'll not start that.

I think the problems with the Evanston Reckless were two. The first problem was location: it was two blocks farther from campus than four other record stores, and tucked down a street few students travelled. I went to Northwestern, and didn't actually happen across the store for a month or two after it opened.

The other problem was a sort of difficult market, as Evanston had a ridiculous number of record stores at that point -- and Reckless's niche, so to speak, got a little lost. Dr. Wax, for instance, was more reliable for obvious indie releases: people went in knowing for sure that every Tortoise or Guided by Voices album would be stocked up and available. Whereas the Reckless model is a bit more for searchers -- more stuff and more interesting stuff moving through, but without the assurance that those standard back-catalog things would be available. There was a Wherehouse turning over the pop and hip-hop; Borders and Chicago Compact Disc drawing in the classical and jazz; and Vintage Vinyl, possibly the most evil place ever to exist, eating up the collector and rarity market -- it was wonderful and astounding how much great stuff he could keep stocked up and available, but he did that by charging up to $50 for records we'd have sold at Reckless for $4.99. From most directions, these things were on the way to Reckless, so I think a lot of people found what they wanted fast enough that they never even walked down the street and noticed Reckless was there. This was especially the case with Dr. Wax -- for most of campus, a trip to Reckless meant passing Dr. Wax on the way, and like I said, they were always well stocked on The Obvious Stuff the Bulk of the Kids are Going to Want.

Anyway so it wasn't doing so hot. I actually thought it could have been turned around if they'd put some actual money into advertising, sort of waving their arms around and saying "we're down here" -- and by focusing on students more, who I think some of the people there were a little sour and dismissive toward. But the London owners didn't seem really engaged with things. The plan was to move the store downtown, actually, and there was some progress in terms of reopening somewhere in the Loop -- but it's been a long time now, and now that Dylan's gone I imagine the idea's faded completely away.

Girl: I'm trying to find who ever did that song in Office Space, you know, gangster something.

Clerk: Ummm, why don't you give us a call if you find out who it is.

Me: *under breath* Geto Boys!

or...

Guy: Umm, I heard this band at a friend's place, they sound like Weezer, starts with a D...

Clerk: I have no idea, why don't you call us if you find out who it is.

Me: Um, maybe the Dismemberment Plan?

Guy: Yes! You have my undying love.

Clerk: Maybe we should give you a job, ha ha ha.

Me: Ha ha ha. (to self) Oh very funny except they didn't hire me even though I clearly know a lot more than you, asshole.

Weirdest record store clerk story I have is, I went into Record Time in Ferndale, and this black guy (which is rare, since 99.9999% of record store clerks are skinny white guys) who had weird dread locks that sort of looked like the predator was there, and he commented on the VU shirt I was wearing or something and was nice, so I remembered him. In that month I saw 3 concerts after that, and he was at all of them, just standing behind me, like he was stalking his pray (you know, he's the Predator!)

Oh and then he jizzed on me.

God, I cant compete with the jizz story.

More likely they're fur fetishists. And the police may call it "bumping," but the practice is known to psychology as "frottage." At an Afghan Whigs show several years ago both my friend Jacki and I got shoved against the stage by a pair of random sleazoid humpers. *shudders at the memory*

And this isn't even an exaggeration. I bought a Peggy Lee LP at Reckless for exactly $4.99, and later found it downstairs at Vintage Vinyl with a $50 sticker.

I'd like to hear more about why you think VV is the most evil place ever to exist. It does seem like the store exists only to provide a showcase for the proprietor's record collection. The prices are so high that the rate of inventory turnover is virtually nil. It's hard to believe but he's had a NM copy of the Walker Brothers' 'Nite Flights' sitting in the bins for years. I can't decide if he doesn't *want* anyone buying his stock, or if he just has very broad definitions of 'rare' and 'desirable' and is willing to wait 10 years for some sucker to willingly spend $70 on a TV Personalities LP.

To get a little closer to our topic, the clerk (aka the proprietor) of VV would not let me judge the quality of a particular piece of vinyl myself. He took the record out of the sleeve himself, and then held it up to my face for my inspection. He's also, when I've inquired about preordering an item, asked me to make a deposit that turned out to be higher than its list price (selling new CDs above-list is a Vintage Vinyl specialty). He also has the annoying habit of rushing over to a record bin after you've been perusing it, to make sure you didn't dislodge a particular album 1/8 inch.

I suppose a certain kind of rabid collector with very deep pockets would cream their jeans upon walking in to this place, but except in two cases where I couldn't find the LPs anywhere else, I've given VV a wide berth.

That's Lavell. Lavell is cool.

(I can't count how many black dudes, fat white dudes, and females I worked with when I was in retail -- though that Record Time does tend to have a high percentage of underfed emo-looking clerks.)

That's it. Usually there's no interaction at all when I buy something. The folks at Kim's, Other Music even the Virgin Megastore are invariably completely inoffensive.

No, no...wait this was worse: I was already in a foul mood that day for some reason, and the cashier at this chain store kept trying to engage me in flirtatious conversation when all I wanted was a pair of headphones, then *mocking* me for visibly getting angry with him. Sometimes I wonder why I don't mouth off at assholes like that -- when I get into ranting fury mode I cannot be stopped and it fills me with utter delightful!

Once I surmised that, oh, you can use the SCHWINN catalog to order things not actually in the Roosevelt Field Mall Record World, I became something of a menace, always needing salesperson assistance, and my random encounters with these guys showed to me that no, they were not some Godlike musical know-it-alls as I initially thought, and instead maybe not as obsessive as into music as I was. One guy thought the idea there was a record company called Mango absolutely hilarious; another fella who worked in the classical music section had to be explained who John Cage was.

One thing that always pisses me off at chains is the store-mandated friendliness. I can't stay in the store for a minute without being accosted by someone. "NO! I DO NOT want to be helped. If I wanted to be helped, I would have COME to YOU."

Other Music isn't so bad, if selection, price and convenience (not to mention just browsing space) don't mean anything to you.

Hah, I hate it when they say "Let me check..." and you see them walk up to the computer and you want to say don't bother but never do.

Then at the checkout, there's the obligatory, "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Well, first of all, I've NEVER been in a store that has everything I'm looking for, so do you want to go over by wishlist together or did you mistake me for someone who doesn't know the order of the alphabet? And second, if I didn't find it and I thought there was any chance your establishment had it, would I be up here to make my purchase and leave without asking anybody where it is? Sheesh!

Other than Reckless, are there any good stores in Chicago? Dr. Wax got shitty ... HiFi - sells fucking CDRs as "imports" for $25 ..

I wish I got out to Hard Boiled more often.

Sad to say perhaps but the Tower Records on Clark and Belden has a very good classical and jazz selection, although everything is overpriced in familiar Tower fashion. But not necessarily a bad place to redeem a gift certificate as I have done on occasion.

Crow's Nest on Fullerton stocked some unusual things sometimes; it was not a bad place to shop because the DePaul kids were usually oblivious to the gems that could be discovered with a bit of searching. I believe this branch went out of business recently. They had a ridiculous sale earlier this year--all CDs $10.99 or under, including imports. All box sets half-off. I bought a whole rack of Shirley Collins CDs on Fledg'ling, which are very hard to find in the US (even Twisted Village and Other Music have difficulty keeping them in stock), and a few of those JSP boxes for $12 each.

Jazz Record Mart used to be much better. I always wonder how they're doing financially, since they have a huge amount of vinyl and cassettes that they are still trying to get rid of from the '90s, most of it not very good. They have a very ugly stack of 78s in the back room. Most are cracked, all seem scratched beyond redemption, but it's fun to read the labels.

***

Anyone from Boston reading this? Any explanations as to why the Other Music in Cambridge closed so quickly?

***

So to address this thread's ostensible topic more directly: do you all think that the internet has crippled or at least hurt the chances for success of indie music stores? Anyone have any experiences to share?

I wish I got out to Hard Boiled more often.

Sad to say perhaps but the Tower Records on Clark and Belden has a very good classical and jazz selection, although everything is overpriced in familiar Tower fashion. But not necessarily a bad place to redeem a gift certificate as I have done on occasion.

Crow's Nest on Fullerton stocked some unusual things sometimes; it was not a bad place to shop because the DePaul kids were usually oblivious to the gems that could be discovered with a bit of searching. I believe this branch went out of business recently. They had a ridiculous sale earlier this year--all CDs $10.99 or under, including imports. All box sets half-off. I bought a whole rack of Shirley Collins CDs on Fledg'ling, which are very hard to find in the US (even Twisted Village and Other Music have difficulty keeping them in stock), and a few of those JSP boxes for $12 each.

Jazz Record Mart used to be much better. I always wonder how they're doing financially, since they have a huge amount of vinyl and cassettes that they are still trying to get rid of from the '90s, most of it not very good. They have a very ugly stack of 78s in the back room. Most are cracked, all seem scratched beyond redemption, but it's fun to read the labels.

***

Anyone from Boston reading this? Any explanations as to why the Other Music in Cambridge closed so quickly?

***

So to address this thread's ostensible topic more directly: do you all think that the internet has crippled or at least hurt the chances for success of indie music stores? Anyone have any experiences to share?

I don't think the internet has crippled stores, actually for those who have used it well, it's helped sales and whatnot.

BAD INDIE STORE:
Massive Records in Oxford gets voted UK Record Shop of the Year by Mixmag and other such folk-in-the-know. Before they were that big, however, I thought they might need a little support, so went in to buy the new Beck LP there.
- Beck? No, mate [slight snigger]; this
is a dance shop.
- Right. [Thinks: then you won't be needing
those Paul Weller slow-jazz-funk 12"s
you've got on the wall. I'd take 'em off
your hands, only...] Well, I was also
looking for some Si Begg.
- "*Si* *Begg*"?
- Yeah, he does stuff on Noodles Records;
also calls himself Buckfunk 3000?
[I get a Blank Stare. As if I'm making these
artists up, because if Mr Cool behind the
counter hasn't heard of them, they can't
exist, right? So I do start making them up.]
- Okay, never mind. Do you have any remixes
by the Monged Collective?
[Fixed grin.]
- DJ Spasm?
[Nervous sideways glances.]
- What, you haven't got *anything* by DJ
Spasm? The guy from the Kookie Squad? Ah,
never mind, I'll get them in London.

[Postscript: I like the shop now. I think things changed when I called in for some JBs on the way to DJing a friend's parents' party and they asked to look through my bag. It was mainly parents' music: Joni Mitchell and Motown and stuff, but with some modern cool stuff I was taking to lend to a friend. "Wow," one guy remarked. "You're laying down some pretty whacked-out stuff there." Now we understand that we don't understand each other, and all is well.]

BAD CHAIN STORE:
Borders in Oxford last month. Asked if they had anything my Richard Youngs or (embarrassing to ask for) his other project Skullflower. Pretty girl looks on a couple of computers. Nothing comes up. Never mind, I say: I think they're both on fairly obscure American independent labels.

Pretty: "Yeah, but they should still come up on the computer. This has got everything." [Calls over to a senior employee.] "This has got everything, hasn't it, Keith?"
Keith: "Yeah, this has got everything."

Conflicting feelings: it's slightly touching that anyone might believe that their database would have "everything" in it. But it's peeving, the suggestion that since the Borders Database has "everything", I the hapless punter must have made a mistake. Maybe it wasn't Richard Youngs, but rather Richard Young? Or Will Young?

GOOD SHOP:
I notice a lot of American posts. Maybe I don't belong here. But the Americana-knowing man in Amoeba Records in Berkeley was the best clerk I ever chatted with. Just to restore the balance.

Admiral John Poindexter to thread!

Hello, ECHELON!

http://www.darpa.mil/iao/index.htm

Indepenedant dance shop in London, a place I sell records too quite frequently. One day there was a new guy behind the counter. I always feel a bit daft in there because the counter is really high and I'm not very tall or very strong so hoisting a big bag of mediocre vinyl up to counter height is always problematic. First off guy let me struggle for ages and didn't help, much to amusement of both him and the bloke behind me and then, when he finally started sorting through stuff he said:

"So are these yours then?"

NO YOU FUCKING FOOL, I'M JUST CARTING ABOUT THREE TONNES OF BLOODY RECORDS FOR THE LOVE OF A LAZY MAN.

It seems like an over-reaction in print, you needed to see the facial exression.

in a store like amoeba that's sooo big, i learn who works in what section and become friends with them, always asking questions and what not. some of them even start putting stuff aside for me knowing what my tastes are.

but the best is (and i think i heard it mentioned above) is when the employees trust you enough to let you borrow merchandise and bring it back later to buy it or not. (Recycled Records on Haight does this to all SF posters)

They also never seemed to have what I was looking for. To support them I tried to buy the Clientele (import version) and Fall (Marshall Suite) discs when they first came out, no dice. I walked down the street to Newbury's and there they were. Same thing with Lift To Experience, the clerk at Other Music at least looked it up on allmusic and said "this sounds good." These seemed like basic new releases that any hipster record store should have. Also tried to buy some Hrvatski, any Hrvatski there and they had nothing ... Newbury Comics down the street had several to choose from.

And the cute girl there wouldn't converse with me when I tried to chat her up about Simon Joyner. I think she might have known who he was and was just witholding her opinion so she wouldn't have to talk with me. As compared to your typical cute Newbury employee who wouldn't have known at all and would gladly tell me so. So in that respect Other Music was better. Otherwise, there was precious little reason to go there instead of Newbury's.

keith

Naw, because at the very least, I don't work in a record store. That's like the pot callin' the kettle black.

maybe this should go in the "how do you know you spend too much on music" thread

Fair enough, nabisco, but couldn't those very same people behind the counter find more lucrative positions elsewhere? I don't know anyone who ever broke the bank from working in a record store. It's barely above "dish washer" in terms of high-ambition jobs. Thus, Stencil's right.

There was this one especially annoying "audiophile" customer who collected any and all Quiex vinyl pressings. One day he came into the store, walked over to the audiophile vinyl bin, pulled out the Quiex version of The Cars Heartbeat City and walked up to the counter. He then produced from his bag the regular version of said album. The ensuing conversation with the store owner went something like this:

Customer: I just bought this record a few days ago and would like to exchange it for the Quiex one.

Owner: ??? Um, that's not how it works.

Customer: But I will give you the two-dollars in price difference as well. What's the problem?

...etc, etc. for about five minutes of pointless arguing, culminating in an order for the customer to get the hell out of the store and please never come back.

There was also the time when someone managed to make off with our entire order that month from Drag City, which UPS had just left in the middle of the floor without getting a signature. We called all the other stores to see where they ended up ("Hi, did someone just try to sell you ten sealed copies of the new Silver Jews record?").

There was a guy that came into Exile on Main Street where I worked with a fucking hat with a blue light on it (i've seen other losers with these at record fairs) to check vinyl quality. King loser.

Another time, I was playing Blonde on Blonde and this yuppie Dylan freak (you know the type - farm foreclosures by day, idiot wind by night) was like, trying to guess what year the 'bootleg' was from. I waited for him to make an ass of himslef, before I produced the record jacket, and was like "actually, this is the RECORD, man."

And it's not so funny but we had a shitty comic book / action figure store next door (not Optic Nerve / Hate / porno comix etc - dude trafficked almost exclusively in Pokemon cards and baseball memorabillia - for rich, lame-o westchester kiddies) and EVERY DAY people would walk into our store, look very confused, and turn around and walk out. After a while, you could tell before the door opened who was staying and who was leaving.

I hated people who asked me to play dollar records.

and, while working at Gimme Gimme, I once fought off a pigeon that somehow got into the store for about a half hour.

most famous person I have met working at a record store: Tim Robbins. Digs Clash singles.

Also, the tramp who'd come in just to shit in the shop - that was a nice one. After the fourth time, security banned him. Quite a shop-clearer, that was.

So, it's a small thing, but one of my chief gripes:

I went into a certain record shop in Camden yesterday, bought my purchase, and the sullen, tattoed young man behind the counter thrust my item and receipt right back at me without even looking.

I hesitated.

"You want a bag?", he finally says, as if it's the most effeminate, decadent, uncool thing in the world, daring me to say YES and signal my obvious unsuitability to be acquiring THAT item in THAT store. Fucker.

And it's good to know that other people besides myself help random people at record stores across the country. I think of it as missionary work.

Already hyperventilating, I blurt "what is it, what's wrong, what's the problem ?" but the cop just drops his calling card on the counter and says, "I'm the new policeman assigned to this block, when there really is a problem just give me a call".

*whew*

-the really surly jazz doodz who leave stacks of records on the table, wander off ten feet, and then yell at me if i go to put their records away (dood; there was no sign !!!)

-the people who spend 20+ minutes at the listening station when there is a line.

i really like it when the retarded guys come in with their caretaker/volunteer friend. they're super sweet.

as someone on that line, I hate...

People who really listen to the record, like entire songs. People who listen to really obvious things. Like at Rock-n-Soul where the listening stations play out loud and people come in a put on like, Missy Elliot. Oh, you've never heard that? Better check it out and see what it's all about.

This was about a decade ago, before customer turntables became "the thing" again (at least in Chicago). Even now, you can't escape it. Ever wait to hear something while a house or techno DJ is in front of you at the turntable with a scary stack of 12" singles? You're gonna be waiting a long time, bro - you could read WAR & PEACE twice in the time it takes those deejays to get through, but at least they usually buy the stack anyway.