Let's hear some cool record store stories from the 70s!

We had Peaches, Musicland and Specs down in So. Fla.

Peaches had the most widest ranging stock, but I preferred Specs, though it was quite a bit smaller, because they actually had a ticket outlet in the store.

I'll date myself here, but they actually allowed you to pick your own seat, and would dig out a map and ask you where you wanted to sit, and ring 'em up if they were available. None of this best available at the price range you've selected jazz......

 

I bought my 60s records mostly at department stores like Sears, Unimart, Kmart, White Front and Zody's. There were some chains like Sam Goody but their prices were far higher than the department store so I didn't buy much from them.

My first encounter with an independent record store was in 1970 when I started at SDSC, before it was SDSU. It was a very small shop located just off campus and they had outdoor speakers. Just about every time I walked by I heard something I liked and ended up buying most of them.

Also about that time some of the chain stores were starting to open up, such as the Wherehouse. They had records on sale usually for $2.44. That was too hard to resist and I usually bought a handful of lp's everytime I went in.

There was also Tower on the Sunset Strip. To me, this was the largest record store I'd ever seen. They had so many records that nobody else had and I spent a bundle there as well, even though it was quite a drive to get there. I'm pretty sure the my first purchases there were made in the late 60's.

I probably only had about 100 lp's at the end of the 60s but bought well over 100/year in the 70's.

I should also mention Music & Memories in N. Hollywood. Over Labor Day weekend in 1977, KRTH played all the LA #1 hits from 1955 to the present. I stayed up the whole time recording the whole weekend on my Nakamichi 700 casssette recorder. That led me to a search to buy as many of these as possible. It also put me in touch with their DJ, Brian Berne who traded a few rare titles with me and told me about Music & Memories. This was a little place on Ventura Blvd near Universal Studios.

It was quite a drive but every time I went there I found lots of rare recordings that I could not find anywhere else. These were the first 'used' records I ever bought but they were basically in new condition. I never figured out how used records could be in such good shape but they were. These were the only used records I ever bought but I may have bought 100 of them. They were not inexpensive but well worth the money and time invested.

I also made a deal with the local Tower, in Buena Park, about this time. They gave me a substantial discount and I started buying about 200 lp's per year. That went on for quite a few years until I got dissinterested in the mid 80's. After moving here in 1992 I reestablished a similar deal with the Tustin Tower and started buying a lot of product again. That lasted until their demise a few years back.

Since then it's been mostly Amazon and other online stores.

 

Late 1970s in Ann Arbor, Michigan--a great record store scene. Schoolkids Records had a lot of punk and a lot of jazz, in addition to a selection of maintream records. The jazz section was deep and full of obscurities, including the Horo label and many other small indie labels. It was truly a great store, with music lovers working there. It was a scene for music fans.

Wazoo was a great used music store, upstairs, with a lot of obscure stuff in all genres, ever changing. The owner was pleasant and knowledgeable. He had a set of really odd records up over the cash register, like Dennis McLain at the Organ.

There were other really good stores there at the time too, but I can't remember their names!

 

Mid to late 1970s in Madison, Wisconsin was another great scene. There were two great new record stores a few doors apart on State Street--Discount Records and Record World. Chuck Nessa had managed Discount Records in the early 1970s and his influence was still there. The jazz and classical sections were huge and deep. You could get just about any rock or pop album too.

Charles Lunde owned Record World and had a large classical section, that was his passion. The rock took up one long line of cabinets down the length of the store, jazz and other music was on the other side of the line of cabinets down the length of the store. Classical was in lines of cabinets all around the outside of the store.

You could return any album there if you did not like it.

Then the used stores included Wazoo, a smaller store on State Street, and Rave Up, a large used store on University Avenue next to the Church Key bar (where I saw John Lee Hooker, Emmylou Harris and others in the mid-1970s). Rave Up was one of the larger used stores I have ever found.

Lake Street Station was a great little store on Lake Street in a older house, very informal, off State Street but closer to Lake Mendota. There were boxes of records on the front porch and in the front rooms of the house. Then the house was bought, torn down and an Arby's was built there. Talk about destruction of charm and character. Lake Street Station moved onto State Street and had a kind of glitzy decor which did not fit with Madison then at all. But they had an excellent selection. So there were three excellent new music stores on State Street within a few blocks.

 

I had the poster in my room in the 70s for quite awhile. If I recall correctly, that photo was taken at Woodstock.

 

Aron's Records in Los Angeles. Lined up every Saturday morning for the new promos.

 

Here are a couple of record store stories for you from the early 70s.

In St. Louis Missouri, there was a music store called Music Village. They only sold new albums and 45s - no used stuff.

In about 1972, Humble Pie came out with their album Eat It. The record label and Music Village sponsored a pie eating contest with prizes to the top 3 finishers. I don't remember what was first prize, but second price was a sealed catalog of all of Humble Pie's albums. Third place was a copy of the new album.

No I did not enter.

Story number 2 which I have told here before -

Around 1973 one of the FM rock stations in St. Louis (KSHE95) started playing Side 2 of The Ultimate Prophecy by J.D. Blackfoot. Listeners went nuts over this album which was out of print and hard to find. Music Village "found" 400 sealed copies of the album in a warehouse, bought them all, and sold them for $2.99 each. I saw the rack of them with my own eyes. I had heard it on the radio a couple of times but for some stupid reason held off buying a copy. When I went back a couple of weeks later they were sold out.

 

That's funny, I don't remember . . seemed to be just a blank box with maybe a dozen LPs in each . . he'd just pop the top and hand me one!

@ Saint Johnny - then you know what I'm talking about! The two places were magic in a music-geek kinda way.

 

Did your Peaches have the hand prints out front? Do any of the old buildings that used to be Peaches still have the handprints in front, besides the Tulsa location. I read horror stories of how the handprints at the Atlanta location were destroyed

 

In the late 60's my record store was the local Valu-Mart. Like most 60's single floor 'five & dime' department stores it had - what else - a department that was just records and tapes including blank tapes and a sub section with stereo components. White painted standing stair step racks or bins for LPs and 45's, a Top 40 section of 45's, and one to three open tray table 'cut out' bins filled with a colorful mixture of LPs and singles. I remember seeing many now hundred+ dollar obscure psychedelic LPs like Silver Apples or Morning Dew or boutique label Hendrix obscurities with big 99 cent or 1.99 stickers on them.

Meanwhile my girlfriend was a teenager and was over in the big city of Seattle.... hanging out in the University district (U of W) on the 'ave' as its still called. Now a drug & graffiti & homeless laden area full of criminal mischief after dark, but before the '90's, a great place to hang out. She remembers the smell of incense on the side walks and the head shops, the curtain of beads in the doorways to different sections, and of course the records and colorful posters and displays.

In the 70's I was frequenting several local indie stores and eventual chains like Peaches. Some of my best memories were hanging out at sole proprietorships, often run by card carrying counterculture vets or hippies, talking away the time about things that often went beyond music; the Vietnam war, the generation gap, cop stories, the slowly vanishing countryside, old people we had met in our lives, and so on.

Even if I was sated by recent purchases it was fun to kill some time browsing the LPs and music paraphernalia, listen to whatever was playing, or chat with other music nuts about shows or artist trivia. Some of the stores had an Import section which I was attracted to, not for the sound of the LPs but the beautiful laminated covers and different artwork. Watching the demise of the record store in the 80's as they converted to CDs and cassettes was pretty hard.

 

They let you eat popcorn and then let you browse around touching everything with greasy hands (I know most albums in the US are shrink-wrapped but anyway!) ????

 

They did shrink wrap it but if you were not satisfied they would make a refund.

 

I grew up in South London - and was fortunate enough to work in a great little record shop called A1 Stores - 281 Walworth Rd, SE17. It was just a Saturday job - and the summer holidays of course - from 1979 to 1982, but boy what a great place. Used to be a supplier for local juke boxes too, so every week, we'd get a shipment from Walker Freight, with literally hunderds of copies of 'Dinked' singles from the USA.

The Promotional items were amazing - I bought as many as I could, but like an idiot, I sold them all prior to emigrating to Vancouver eight years ago.

We live and learn - I kept a few Peter Gabriel gems etc, so they feed my nosalgic yearnings.

Had some great customers too - Joe Jackson used to pop in, and the reps would bring in their new stars - met Kim Wilde, Darts - good times.

We were also the only UK distributor for Jimmy Rosselli albums, making us a mecca for his fans......

The store's sadly closed now, or at lease just sells lighting and greeting cards (the front of the store sold the tat, the records were sold at the rear)

 

That's too bad. I lived down the street from CDepot for a year, until last week when I moved to Annapolis. They have a nice selection, and good prices on most items.

 

In the early 70s, when I was about 13 or so I would frequent a local Woolworth's type store (Barron's) and that's where I bought some of my Beatles' albums. I'll never forget asking the clerk if they had the Beatle's 6 album. She told me that they didn't have one called that. I kept telling her...yes..they did. I then found the album and told her that's the one. She told me "Oh, that the Beatle "vee" "I" album...d'oh.

Anyway, in the early 80s I worked at a short lived Wherehouse off-shoot, "Big Ben's Records" in Pasadena, CA. They were supposed to handle the imports and esoteric, i.e. New Wave, etc. music coming out at the time. It was a great store as it had a center "DJ" tower, which housed a couple of record players and some nice sound equipment. Unfortunately, due to "Wherehouse policy" we had to play the top 40, unless a record came back that was damaged. Luckily we had a nice "stock" of damaged records, EC's "Get Happy", Buzzcocks "Different kind of Tension", Split Enz "Waiata".

I got some great promo stuff. Extra large poster of John & Yoko's "Starting Over" cover. I still have that. The Who's "Face Dances" cover poster, plus a bunch of smaller promo posters and a single holder for "You Better, You Bet".

 

sold most of them off years ago...I may have a few left...possibly some America Promo albums...I'd have to check as I still have a few hundred albums hanging around.

 

I started buying records in the early 70s. Some at Peaches, but mostly Streetside Records, a local business in St. Louis. I worked part-time at Streetside for a little while in the early 80s, where I learned a lot about jazz working alongside Gary Sikes, a local jazz drummer.

In the mid-80s I worked as a jazz/classical record buyer for a small audio boutique, that was also the Rega US importer at the time (Import Audio d.b.a. Music Systems). This was while I was working on my B.A. in music history. Much of the import jazz and classical in my collection of some 2200 LPs is from this time. It is also when I acquired my first Linn/Naim system (Rega Planar 3, then LP12, RB300, Goldring GL; Naim NAC42.5/NAP140/HiCap, Linn Sara), replacing the Thorens/McIntosh I had before.

One of the cool parts is that as a buyer, I was able to order all sorts of stuff I wanted for my collection, and brought in many things from abroad via German News and I.B.R. Stuff that Polygram, et al. weren't handling for the chains and big stores. There are a lot of gems in my collection.

When I graduated and went on to grad school I left the record business forever, but a lot of it is still with me to this day. I just got back into vinyl this year and have purchased an entirely new 2-channel system devoted to playing all the vinyl I have from that period before. I've also just started buying new vinyl again.

 

Tower Records, Sunset Strip

I'm working a section at the front of the store, tidying up, when in walks Orson Welles, accompanied by a young, attractive woman. He's puffing on a cigar and apears to be in a hurry. I'm the first person he sees, so, he comes up to me and says (if I recall correctly), "Do you have any flamenco music?" (I'm very serious). I take him and the woman to the international section and point out where they might find some relevant recordings. Still puffing on his cigar, he asks me to assist the young woman in putting together a few albums of flamenco music to purchase. He then walks out of the store as quickly as he appeared.

That's not the best part!

I assist the young woman, we talk but nothing earth shattering or revealing, just two people picking out albums. We take the records to the front, and, complete the purchase.

I walk her to the door while saying thank you. She walks to this old beat up car. Orson is standing there (nobody is paying attention that ORSON WELLES is in the parking lot - people in the store did notice while he was there but they just sort of froze). Now, they both get in this car and you know the man is, how shall I say, overweight, so the car sinks closer to the ground. Then, an unseen third person starts the car. Now, this car starts smoking, literally smoking and bouncing, and, then pulls out of the driveway and that's the first and only time I met Orson Welles.

 

So you had to get all the way home to find the giant scratch in the record?

Lame.

 

Rosebud!

 

Ok, so here's my record store story. I was visiting my brother in New Orleans in 1980 and while he was at school, I went to this record store near his house. I saw that Elvis Costello's "Get Happy" was just out, so I picked up the LP and went up front to buy it. There was a short, skinny guy in a black leather jacket in front of me, so I stood in line behind him, and he was yakking away with the clerk, with a pile of LPs on the counter, and he just wouldn't stop talking. Five minutes go by, ten minutes go by, I flip through some LPs, look back up and this mook is still yakking away with the clerk.

Finally, I say, hey buddy, feel free to keep conversating but could I buy my record and get out of here? So the guy says "no problem, buddy," and he turns around to look at me. It was Iggy Pop.

 

I remember that shop on Murray Ave.
first time down there: bought a Blaupunkt amp/eq for the car, a 3 chamber bong, and a copy of Piper at the Gates of Dawn (which was import..hard album to find back then)
..ah, everything a young man could possibly need - all there at your local record shop

 

Schoolkids Records, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Fall of 1979. Dexter Gordon was there for an autograph signing session. He was just standing in the aisle of the store. He signed a poster for me. He was very down to earth and friendly, chatting with the customers, just a nice guy.

Then a dreadlocked young man came literally running up to him. The young man shouted in his face, "DEXTER! DEXTER! I love jazz so much, but the only gigs I can get are disco. I hate disco! I love jazz! Tell me, tell me Dexter! How can I get jazz gigs and play the music that I love so much?"

Dexter Gordon stared at him for about ten seconds, and then said, in a deep voice, "Keep on swingin'................urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh"--he let out a long, very low gutteral non-verbal sound.

The young guy looked like he was in a daze. That was it, that was all Dexter was going to say.

 

Growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago, there was one record store that everyone was aware of: Hegewisch Records. It was a great little store with a phenomonal selection including many imports. The reason it was so well known was the black t-shirts they would sell. Basically, they had a band name and design on the front and a unique "hegewisch records" logo on the back. My mother thought I was crazy the first year I got to choose my own "back to school" clothes and came home with a pair of jeans and 5 different Hegewisch records t-shirts.

 

I took these pictures of Rush on January 26, 1977 at Peaches Records and Tapes on Morse Rd, in Columbus, Ohio:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150719964155244.706822.862360243&l=7f7caf12e0&type=1

They were very friendly and seemed to be taken aback by all the attention. Times have changed!