Part 283: Shopping at Other Stores

RECORD STORE TALES Part 283: Shopping at Other Stores

Straight from my old journal:  This is what can happen when Record Store guys go shopping at the competition!  Keep in mind these are 2005 prices, not 2014 prices.

Date: 2005/12/12 21:34

Forgive me for praising the “competition” tonight, but I just got home from HMV.

I have no idea how it’s possible to have titles like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Ummagumma, and Ben Harper’s double Live From Mars, all on sale at 2-for-$30. Ummagumma has a regular price tag of $46.99 on it! Yet they were selling them at 2 for $30! INSANE. I could buy three of ’em for less than it would cost to buy ONE. That is so…fucked up! So I got one of those, and A Collection Of Great Dance Songs remastered. (Strictly for the “new” version of Money.)

And then I sent an email to a co-worker:

I was at HMV tonight, and they have a CRAZY 2/$30 sale on. Check this photo
out. That’s right, Pink Floyd UMMAGUMMA remastered for $15. If you buy
one, it’s $46 bucks. If you buy two…it’s $15 each. Crazy. BUT they had
a bunch of Beatles and a few Stones as well. Double live Ben Harper, all
kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t know what you still need for yourself or even
gifts, but that kind of sale is worth taking advantage of.

Cool huh? I still have those albums too.  I kind of like that I will always have a record of the exact date and circumstances of purchase.

Picture 383
Original photo from that day

12 comments

  1. Mike -You remind me of a fisherman posing proudly with a monster catch of a giant salmon. Except you ain’t releasing these puppies- great catch!

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    1. Thanks Wayne! I did not release them! Ummagumma is a hard album to love but it’s good to have for sure.

      Used, I would have paid a lot more, and you can’t always count on the box and posters being intact when you buy used.

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  2. That’s all that’s left here in Tbay is a HMV…man they have and always will suck.
    Of note the only good things that I ever did get out of HMV was the print edition of Bravewords and they had had a double live Who Bootleg Cd from there 1982 tour for $20 which I did not have a problem buying!
    As I typed this I did buy the 30 anniversary edition of Screaming For Vengeance as well at HMV as it was only $17 for both the audio and US festival dvd included!
    That must have been a pricing mistake on there part!!
    Hahaha….
    Seriously though there located in a mall and I hate malls so it’s once in a blue moon I go there…..
    I miss the Actual record stores in this town……
    Tbay sucks for that …..the only ones around are the vinyl stores which is cool if that’s your deal…..
    Me,well it’s amazon now if I want something bad..just preordered Paul Stanley’s biography and Keith Sharps book on his yrs with Music Express……..
    Look forward to those…..

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    1. Just placed an Amazon order myself Deke. One CD I’ll keep secret for now because it relates to an upcoming review I’m working on. I added in The Winery Dogs and the Dio tribute (not the Japanese version).

      That’s too bad about T-Bay. But at least you got the internet and can order stuff. Amazon has that free shipping deal and you can’t really beat that.

      HMV here sucks now. The store that I purchased these Floyds from doesn’t exist anymore. It catered to the students but the students were also the first to make the switch from CD to ipod.

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  3. Yeah man, I’m a great one for remembering where I bought certain things. I can’t tell you anything actually useful, or that will forward life on this planet, but I can tell you where I bought this or that CD and (probably) how much I paid for it. It’s how I roll.

    We have one grimy old used record shop here (gloves recommended for while you search). And we have an HMV at the mall, which, as you guys have noted, sucks ass unless you want the new release. And there’s Wally World too, I suppose, but we’ve already had that conversation.

    Yup, it’s online mostly, these days. Until Taranna. Oh baby look out, I am SO looking forward to getting back down there and digging around. Hm… I’ll be there in May for the Gojira/Mastodon show, I wonder if I can convince my buddy to do some looking in a shop or two…

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    1. Trevor used to test me — where did this one come from? How did you buy this one? He always failed to stump me! Of course he had know way of knowing that I was telling the truth, but I played an honest game.

      It became a party trick. Girls would come over to the apartment, and Trevor would be like, “Watch this — watch my savant roommate’s weirdly detailed knowledge of every CD in his collection.”

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