The mighty Antone’s Records in Austin, Texas does NOT disappoint. Don’t be fooled by the modest exterior in this Austin strip mall, or the (comparatively) smallish space this shop takes up. Much like Doctor Who’s Tardis, this store seems to expand from within as the stock gets larger. And what a collection of fantastic records Antone’s has! This unassuming (and friendly) shop has an excellent assortment of rarities and more common titles. Behold:
by Joe Wallace
The weekend was full of interesting diversions–I took a side journey into the world of flea markets–the Texas vinyl collector’s old reliable alternative to the indie record shop. People who collect vinyl in Texas know flea markets very well and there are many bargains and rarities to be found. I’ll post a report on that soonest. I still have two excellent Austin record shops to write up and a look into the San Antonio market, too.
A good deal of Saturday was spent combing the flea markets, but the nighttime was spent watching Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, which I can’t find ANYWHERE as an LP and while Amazon was offering downloads of the soundtrack when the DVD remaster came out, a rights dispute forced the tracks offline. Continue reading Vinyl Road Rage Update
by Joe Wallace
Brain fried from far too much driving. Here’s a gallery of images I’ve collected along the way, with some snarky commentary free of charge. I have gathered these images between Springfield, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas–and I’ve paid the price, let me tell you–my retinas are seared for life in some cases.
The name of this John Denver Album, in case you can’t read the type, is “I Want To Live”. Sorry matey, but you should have taken the bus.
I love this album cover. He looks like one of those plastinated dead bodies currently causing all the fuss on the museums. The bananas don’t look plastinated, though. Just very ripe.
by Joe Wallace
I blogged about the Springfield, Missouri record emporium Stick It In Your Ear a few days ago, but I wanted the shop to have its own entry here, so to recap:
Stick It In Your Ear is a delightful hodge-podge of vinyl, CDs and music-related ephemera. The store has its share of fun finds (Devo’s Greatest Misses and TuxedoMoon were two of mine) and it has to be said, there’s no telling what the dedicated collector could find rifling through the stacks here.
There’s a big collection of metal (not my thing at all except for the bad album covers) and a lot of soul and disco comps–never a bad thing.
Any record shop that bothers to categorize the albums in any fashion beyond genre makes me happy, and even better in this case is the breathless way those records are filed–note the exclamation points on every single band title in the photo below, as if every last one of these bands is both a rare find and the store owner’s favorite of all time. I LOVE that for some reason. Don’t ask why, I have no idea–but it’s endearing. Continue reading Stick It In Your Ear Springfield Missouri
