New CD special orders were something we did, but not frequently, because often the person wouldn’t pick the disc up. At one point in 1995/1996 though, we got this new distributer who had the most insane shit in his catalogue. Our own stock improved dramatically because of this. Suddenly we were carrying the Japanese import Hormoaning by Nirvana in our regular stock.  We were also getting in these UK-issued Iron Maiden imports with bonus discs of B-sides.  They are rare and highly coveted today.  Trevor and I oversaw the stocking of this stuff.  Trevor was made store manager of this first location in 1996, and I was given my own store a few months later.

For me personally these were the peak years, when Trevor and I had the most creative control over the store.  For example I remember we had a “forthcoming releases” board, that Trev and I updated every month.  As a joke, we always had Guns N’ Roses on the board as coming “in 6 months”.  This is because even back in 1996, the new GN’R album was constantly being announced and then delayed.

It came out for real in 2009.

We were also alble to use this new distributer to add to our own collections.  For myself, I ordered a complete set of the afforementioned Maiden collections, 10 albums altogether.  I also got all the new Maiden singles as they came out.  It was a great time to be a collector, and if Trev and I thought something was worth stocking, we had the freedom to do so.  We were starting to carry Oasis singles, where they had always avoided that kind of stock before.

Trevor had his finger on the pulse of what was coming out.  He tweaked onto Oasis very early.  He got me into it very quickly.  In a time when good new rock bands were few and far between, Oasis were a breath of fresh air to me.  For a change, a band inspired by the classics like the Beatles and Stones, not another punk or grunge band. 

One thing Trev and I tried to special order for ourselves, but never managed to get, were the Japanese imports of the first two Oasis discs.  They each contained bonus tracks:  “Sad Song”, and “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” respectively, both great tracks.

Sometimes a customer would special order something, and you couldn’t wait to see it come in.  I remember a guy ordered Twisted Sister’s Live at Hammersmith, back in a time when it was absolutely impossible to find any Twisted Sister in any stores, let along a double live.  I couldn’t wait to check out the tracklisting.  My buddy Aaron special ordered the Sloan 2 CD edition of One Chord, but we failed to hook him up.  He bought it elsewhere.  No hard feelings Aaron.

I probably special ordered stuff for myself more than Trev did.  Trev had a saying:  “Don’t buy it new.  If you buy it new, it’ll come in used a week later.”  And he actually had a pretty good batting average with that saying.  I would say a good 75% of the time, when Trev or myself bought something new like a special order, we saw a used copy come in within the next 7 days.

It was almost like magic. 

Nowadays, there’s never a need to special order anything.  Amazon and eBay are both happy to do that for you.  New or used.  And the collection grows….