by Joe Wallace

An outsider might not be able to tell the difference between Cincinnati proper and Pleasant Ridge, Ohio but one thing’s for sure–if you’re at Everybody’s Records looking for vinyl, you won’t care WHERE it’s at as long as you’re there.

Everybody’s Records has a nice collection of vinyl that looks like a typical pile of titles–at first glance. But look closer. There are plenty of the usual suspects lurking in the stacks–a dedicated crate digger will likely note the Alice Cooper new wave record “Flush The Fashion”, the occasional Gary Myrick and the Figures album, Our Daughter’s Wedding, and other fun titles. But look further still.

On my visit to this shop, I scored not one, but THREE albums by The Legendary Pink Dots. These titles are sought after by a certain rabid type of collector and are not what you’d call readily available simply lurking in the record shop stacks. But there they were, waiting just for me, it seems.

All this stuff was hiding in, if memory serves, the “Rock” section–one reason why it’s important to give those bins a closer look. “Rock” to me says AC/DC, Aerosmith, and a lot of other crap I don’t have much interest in. It’s a real stretch to call Skinny Puppy or Coil “rock”, but more often than not, they get lumped in to that category.

I can’t REALLY blame the shop for this–who wants to spend endless hours creating new categories to fit all these bands?

“Bands That Sound Like Erasure But Who Worship Satan” won’t fit on a category card unless you write REALLY SMALL, and there are only a handful of groups that would fit into “Electronic Performers Who Enjoy Semi-Consensual Buggery In Public Places But Only While Wearing Goat Horns” or “The Ghost of Brian Eno Eats Peanut Butter”.

Back to Everybody’s Records–they also have a healthy collection of oddball titles–one of my favorite sections in any record store–and some REALLY tasty finds in the soundtrack bins. I wound up dropping a nice chunk of change at this Ohio record store.  Final verdict? No trip to Ohio is complete without dropping by Everybody’s Records. Recommended.