As I mentioned in last Friday’s post, Saturday was Record Store Day. In celebration of the day, CC (of the blog Pink Candles at Ridgemont High) and I went on our “Record Store Crawl”. We combined indie record store shopping with good eats inbetween and had a fab time doing it! I’ll start off with our finds, and part two will be about our food adventures. Just as a teaser, below is a picture of how we started our morning: coffee and donuts from San Diego’s Donut Bar in Downtown, along with publications and maps of how we would plan out our day of record store hopping. Also pictured are my 45 RPM adapter earrings (original post here) and my wallet from PopKiller. I wore the earrings with my Sub Pop t-shirt. Coincidentally, CC wore her 45 RPM adapter necklace (her post showcasing her necklace here), and we both received compliments throughout the day on our accessory choices. Part of the reason that this trip was fun was because CC and I both discovered that we used to frequent the now defunct Blue Meanie Records back in the 80’s, which was one of the few places one could get imported records, magazines, pins and memorabilia because the owner used to travel to Europe on a regular basis. I’m sure we were in Blue Meanie at the same time at some point in our teen years.
Because we started our day off so early (7:30am to line up for Donut Bar), our first stop was the San Diego Record Show at The Center. The doors opened at 9am and we paid a $5 admission to get in. The San Diego Record Show is a collection of independent vendors (some are store owners) selling or swapping their musical merchandise under one roof. Most of the items are vinyl 45s and LPs, but we found CDs, DVDs, shirts, pins and even video and cassette tapes.
My first purchase was at the Record Show was from Akashic Records. I had a wonderful and interesting discussion with David, the vendor and owner, which led to him recommending some reading material about blogging. I ended up purchasing that Wire Train album pictured for only $4!
My next purchase was five badges (pins to us Yanks) and that fantastic piece of vinyl: Joy Division’s second album, Closer from Gary (who owns Third Eye Record Shop). The label says “1st US press on translucent brown vinyl”. Now I have to find Unknown Pleasures. CC found some pins to give to her daughter, and if I recall, she also bought a New Edition album for her nephew.
We saw an old school cassette tape player, and I think we used to have that when I was in elementary. I then bought those Joy Division DVDs from Steve, who is an independent vendor.
My final purchase was from Mr. Skid Roper. If you remember, he and Mojo Nixon used to make beautiful music together back in the 1980’s. The vendor a couple of tables before Skid’s had a bunch of oldies, and I asked if they had anything by Timi Yuro (for my mum). They said no, but when I came to Skid’s section, I found a 45 within about five minutes, and only for $1!
Our second stop was Groovy Records, which was probably just a few blocks away (I’m directionally challenged, so it may have been more, but it only took us about 5 minutes to get there by car). When we parked, I didn’t even see the building, but CC pointed out that it was in an odd intersection, so we decided to park on a different block and walk there. Once inside, we hit the dollar bins, then I hit up the New Wave/Punk section (I have found that these genres often get lumped together). I loved the juxtaposition of the Public Image Ltd and Cramps posters next to the Country & Western section. My dollar find was Live and Let Dance by The Untouchables. I have the 45 single to “What’s Gone Wrong” which is from the same album. As we were making our purchases, a camera man from KUSI walked in to shoot some footage. I completely forgot to watch the news that day to see what they had filmed. Also, the very first image in this post is from a sticker on Groovy Records’ entrance door.
Next, we attempted to go to M-Theory Music, but saw that the line went around the block. Not willing to wait that long, we decided to head to Pacific Beach to Cow Records, because CC knew where we could grab some lunch and dessert within walking distance. Have I mentioned how fantastically awesome it is to have a food blogger as a friend? I’ll go into more detail about the food in my next post. After lunch, we headed over to Thrift Trader, which I thought was just a thrift clothing store. Inside, I saw they also had records, CDs and DVDs as well. I didn’t look through the music as much as I looked through the clothing. I found a couple of t-shirts and CC found a couple of shirts, so we pulled our finds together to make the $20 for four items. It’s great that she loves a good vintage or thrift store find as much as I do!
We when walked next door to Cow Records, where I found many of the Record Store Day exclusives that were on the list on their official site (a few of them are pictured below). I also found a bootleg Depeche Mode live album called Innocent and Vain (pictured above). That title truly made me laugh. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it, so I browsed through what they had in their Depeche Mode section, and found I had everything there except for the bootleg. I decided against the bootleg album and instead looked around for the Sub Pop RSD compilation, which they didn’t have. I ended up buying two Depeche Mode stickers for my car and I believe CC bought a DVD.
Still wanting the Sub Pop compilation, I checked Lou’s Records Facebook page and they mentioned that they still had quite a few RSD exclusives, so I posted a comment asking if they had the Sub Pop compilation still available. They responded that they did, which then prompted a phone call to their store. I asked them if they could save me a copy and that I would be in the following day to pick it up. By the time this posts, I should have a copy in hand. Ah Lou’s Records, you never let me down! The last couple of pictures are all my finds for the day. Hope you had a great weekend!
