I am ashamed to admit this. I was scouring the net this evening looking for online vinyl shops for a new feature I’d like to start on Turntabling.net…basically a regular spotlight on vendors selling albums online and in local shops where I find them in my travels. Here in Chicago, there are more stores than I can count, all selling albums of every description, and I know plenty of other shops across the country also in the business of catering to obsessives like me.

Hell–I even looked on Amazon.com to find vinyl–admittedly just for laughs–but turned up a 180 gram repressing of a couple of Velvet Underground records and some new pressings of Beatles albums. Not that I’d buy THAT stuff–the Velvets sound just as low-fi as ever on CD and while I’d love to hear em on wax, I would be more intrigued by an original pressing.

Tonight I found an online record store claiming a massive collection of albums…but they failed to pass my acid test. It’s not elaborate, it’s NOT that snotty “Oh, you don’t have the infamous Beatles “butcher cover” Yesterday and Today in stock? How sad for you” attitude. Quite the opposite really…but I just couldn’t take them seriously–any record store that stocks more Ted Nugent than Gary Numan just doesn’t have the right obsessions for me.

I realize this sort of thing is pathetic and sad. Why should I care that this shop had KISS in abundance, but no KLF? Still, I felt the contempt of the hopeless album addict rising within me. And me, a GROWN ADULT! Allegedly. This shop has more Elvis than you can shake a pill bottle at, but no Hawkwind. When you stock so many Monkees records that it takes an effort to scroll through them all but don’t carry the Mystic Moods Orchestra, I just can’t carry on. I am filled with shame to display all the worst qualities of the uber-album fanboy.

I didn’t think I was THAT far gone, til I ran across this site (which I won’t name)…but now I know that I am doomed to live in the land of the vinyl nerd-boys forever even if I don’t consider myself one of them. I buy records to PLAY them, so at least I’m not fussing over collector’s items or nicks and dings on the cover art and all…