record store day 2013

iwishuwould: Happy record store day 2013!! So record store day fell on 4/20 this year, nice job you bunch of lazy stoners! (j/k) The Friday night before I had a sleepover with my niece and nephew and decided to take them to criminal records in Little 5 Points to get a little culture. Here they go:

 

Criminal has long been one of my favorite Atlanta record stores. When I was a teenager I used to get a ride to L5P with my friend Ry-Yon and we would go to criminal and blow all our piddly little teenager cash on new releases from all the UK electronica artists. Anything ninja tune , aphex twin, bjork, roni size, drum n bass, garage.. way to date yerself...anyway they always had what we were looking for, and that was before the interwebs got going real good and you could just find whatever you wanted on amazon at any given time. so criminal has a special place in my heart, and i was happy to head over for record store day.

HOWEVER once we arrived it became clear that this was not just going to be a fun jaunt through an actual record store with children who have quite possibly never been inside an actual real life record store. there was a super long line, and a totally weird vibe up in there. it was like there was so much hype the whole thing just imploded. so we kinda breezed in and let the kids see it, but didnt actually buy anything, or even browse anything for that matter! we couldnt even get over there to scope it and im not that hard up, so we took off. major disappointment, but we got it all in later, fear not.

we did get these commemorative fans and coozies from the radio stations out front!  It was both the georgia state and georgia tech radio stations out there so i got swag from both.

 

So we took the kids back to melton mountain and  headed off on a long awaited journey to audio alternative in lilburn! i been meaning to get out there for a while but days they are open coinciding with days i am off work have been scant. i actually heard about this spot via the dude that used to run feed your head records in east atlanta. sadly he closed his store, but posted about AA on the facebook one day, so ever since i been trying to get out there, what better day than record store day?

So audio alternative is not so much a record store as a hi-fi store. and i mean really, REALLY fucking hi-fi. i had no idea! when we first walked in we found the used gear section- full of awesome archaic shit!! it was truly dazzling. here is a smattering of things in stock:

I have no idea WTF a DSP-7000 digital processor is, but it looks like R2D2 and it has a mandala on the cover of the user manual, and I probably need that shit.

So then we moved on the the records section: SCORE! all the vinyl was in pristine condition up in here

got me some sabbath!!




totally got this johnny winters album on the freesky-weesky! and its fucking so great ive played it out! i asked the dude if he could wipe it off for me because it was oddly dirty in there (like i said everything else was in great condition). so the dude looks at it and was like "let me clean it in my $4000 vinyl cleaner" (he made sure to drop the price because i had at this point been wandering around the store slack jawed remarking on the prices of all the equipment, illustration to follow) so anyway as it was playing he was like "did you already pay for that" and i said no, and he goes "oh good because i would have given you your money back." so he gave it to me for free. SCORE.



totally just bought this because it looked hella cool. i like sitars. i like brothers. i like brothers rocking on sitar. Then Richie Havens went and died on Monday, right after i got this. crazy....



got this but havent played it much yet.



and this

 

played this vanilla fucking fudge the fuck out though! goddamn this record rules!!!

 

and i been slack and havent even touched this yet either, but all around great scores.
 

So on to the hi-fi shit. So all the sales dudes were on the phone while I was waiting for someone to wipe off my johnny winters record. So we were wandering around and walked into this soundproof room with some speakers, a turntable, and a couch. 

It was looking like some totally critical kinda shit so I got up close to check it out. 

How bout this is a fucking $17,000 turntable!!! WHAT. THE. FUCK.

oh yeah and those speakers? how bout they are fucking $50,000?????? again WHAT. THE. FUUUUUCK.

So we totally had to ask the dude about this shit. Here is like a $100,000 soundsystem when its all said and done. Speakers, amps, turntable. HOLEEE FUCKKK. So we asked for a demonstration and the dude was totally cool about it. He picked out a record and put it on- something acoustic and I swear to fucking god that shit sounded LIVE. I dont know that it would be worth $100,000 to recreate that experience in my home, but it would certainly be for some person, somewhere. In fact it was actually worth it for at least four people in the greater atlanta area, as thats how many the dude has sold. AMAZING. i wanna go to a party at THEIR house.

So Audio Alternative was a total success for record store (and record player store) day. I will return, but next time i need to know what regional delights lilburn has to offer in the way of food, so i can maximize my drive all the way the fuck out there.

area.personality:  Meanwhile at Decatur CD...  I dragged the fam up to Decatur CD after soccer games and Farm Burger.  I like going to Decatur CD on RSD because they have free beer.  That's right, free beer.  Oh sure, they run out of everything all early in the day and you're left wandering around thinking about your amazon.com wishlist and crying that you still can't afford all the stuff you usually want, but there's still free beer.  It's also not the mob scene and it's a lot more chill, which I can appreciate.  I think the El Caminos played there earlier, but I just could not be on a timetable.  Anyway, here's my crew:

PS, it's totally cute that Decatur CD's website is on blogger just like this one.  Here's my best Decatur CD pick:

Remember when I said I would listen to a recording of J. Mascis brushing his teeth?  Fuck yeah.

I also got this crazy bullshit, which I love:

They used to give away flexi-discs in Happy Meals when I was little.  The nostalgia might as well just be foaming out of this box!  So awesome.

I bought THIS beauty later in the evening at Criminal (as described below).

iwishuwould:  So later that evening, dawg and I convened to go see a show at Criminal.  so we saw mood rings play a show for free at criminal with the purchase of our limited edition hand print silk screen blah blah blah 7inch mood rings recording. here goes that along with an impulse buy from earlier (oh yeah we swung back by after audio alternative to pick up the mood rings disc and i got something michi wanted and this lil surfer blood impulse buy):



the show was like afterhours after the store closed down. it was a short set and they sounded a lot like "fascination street"-era the Cure to me. Not sure what the kids are calling "psychedelic" these days, but lets just say that the term encompasses a much larger range of music than one might think. sure it was great, but not what was necessarily anticipated. at least by me. they also put on a great performance and i love the set up at criminal. it was so dope to be able to browse the selections and shit while we were taking in the show. it also sounded pretty good in there as far as i can tell, and i think they were recording the set as well, which is neat. i think they are putting out records of the shows in there now, which is totally cool and i wish they would have done for that dungen instore a million years ago. hey dawg u remember that creepy hare krishna dude at the end of this shit? wtf, man?

Here goes mood rings:

area.personality:  Man, that dude was scary.  As in funny.  I agree with what you said, but frankly, I got lost shopping for records most of the time they were playing.  I remember the dude had a towel on his head for some reason, and then he told everyone his grandfather died in the middle of the set, that was kinda strange.  Not to sound calloused, but a big goal of live performance is to make the crowd have a good time.  I'm sorry about his grandfather, but cancel or play like a boss, dude.  You're not popular enough to lean on your fans yet.  Nice 7" though, Dawg!  Thanks for getting me one!

Oh look, Criminal Records has cassettes.  Neat.

This took away a lot of my attention during the show also:

I kind of wanted to get it, but it was $80 plus I would have had to buy three more record players to play it properly, so I had to pass.  But it's pretty amazing that the 4xLP boxed set is meant to be played simultaneously.  Also this little warning label made me want it even more.  Nice marketing, Flaming Lips!

iwishuwould: yeah man this shit would be totally fucking awesome to listen to AT AUDIO FUCKING ALTERNATIVE on their fancy pants turntables ALL AT THE SAME GODDAMN TIME. omg...i wonder if we could talk that guy into it- i bet he would be open to that....