Aaron and I have returned safely from Toronto, with treasures in hand! He has posted to the KMA a non-spoiler update regarding the trip. We both did very well. As a “Taranna First” I was providing live photographic updates of the trip via social media.
As I did on the previous two trips, I took plenty of photos and video with the intent of creating another great trip video! With that in mind, we don’t want to spoil too much about our adventure, so this is just a brief preview. Of note, Aaron bore gifts, and one of them is a book that I am just as happy to get as I am some of my musical finds. Aaron also helped add to my 6″ Stormtrooper army!
The sad news: Even though I was quite confident that we would find at least one item from somebody’s KMA Holy Grail list, we did not. I was sure that we would at least be able to find one of Sarca’s, such as the Ray Lyell CD. I was surprised that we didn’t. I might have an easier time finding it locally.
Having said that: I encourage you to check out the KMA Grail list and add your own long-sought albums to it. Though we did not have luck with it this time, we did look hard. The more people who participate in the Holy Grail list, the better, so as my buddy Aaron would say GIVE’R!
Enjoy the photo gallery, and if you missed the videos from the 2012 and 2013 trips, you can check those out below.
LeBrain (who, I am glad to say, did not fart once in Aaron’s car this time.)
I don’t shop in the big corporate record stores that often anymore. Hell, I don’t even really shop in stores anymore! I used to, even at the big stores. When I started working in Cambridge, my buddy Chris and I would go to Future Shop once a week at lunch time to check out the new releases. I would typically buy a new movie and a new CD release at least once a week, sometimes more. I’d stock up on blank CDs, or just impulsively buy a guitar there. It happens!
We would do the circuit around the store. We’d start with the new releases up front, then head to the movie section. I would detour over to CDs while Chris would look at electronics and computer games. We’d meet up at the bargain bin as we left. It’s there that Chris and I acquired two copies of Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield on DVD for $4.99 each. The girl at the front counter was jealous and asked if there were any left! She always knew us as the “Tuesday new release guys”. We sometimes wondered if she thought we were a gay couple since we rarely went in without the other!
Sometime in the last few years, both Future Shop and Best Buy (which are the same company) really started to change. They moved the music and movie section to the very back of the stores, providing more room for cell phones and tablets. It was a sign that things were getting worse for people like myself who enjoy owning physical product. Chris is similar to me. He likes to own “whole collections” of movie or TV series. Some of us are just like that. He always likes to own the ones he really loves. (Such as the Police Academy series. Yes Chris I just outed you.)
So, we stopped going to Future Shop at lunch. In fact we haven’t been in ages. Same went for Best Buy. Strangely enough, a Best Buy soon opened in Cambridge, right next to the Future Shop. Even the new Best Buy store didn’t have much in the way of music and movies, so we just stopped spending our money at lunch time.
I can tell you exactly what CD it was that I purchased the last time I bought one at Best Buy. It was the 2 CD/1 Blu-ray/1 DVD version of Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day (2012) which was a brand new release. And even a release that monumental was hard to find at Best Buy!
I walked into the store a few days after the initial release. I saw that all they had on the front “new release” display was the DVD combo sets. I went over to the Zeppelin section in music – nothing there. I checked the same in the movies. Nada. Then I found a Zeppelin display at the side of one of the aisles. All they had there was CD and DVD; none of the 2 CD/1 Blu/1 DVD.
I found a customer service person that wasn’t chatting up her co-workers, and asked her where they kept the brand new Zeppelin Blu-rays?
In the back room, apparently! She found one for me and I purchased it, a little confused why a Led Zeppelin new release on the hot newest format would be in their back room.
So I bought the package; the very last CD set I have purchased at Best Buy. Best Buy have really abandoned the physical music releases, and that’s too bad. I used to enjoy buying music and movies at that store due to the prices, two nearby convenient locations, and the fact that I could usually find everything I was looking for. No longer. Sorry Best Buy: you and I are no longer besties!
While a certain percentage of readers know me as “LeBrain” on 107.5 Dave FM, my first radio appearance was actually a decade ago. Back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, we used to get interview requests from a lot of students. Some were in business, some were in broadcasting, but they all wanted to talk to someone at the record store, usually the owner since he founded the whole operation on his own.
In this case, I was approached by a broadcasting student. He asked me if I’d like to do a radio interview over the phone regarding Napster, downloading, and how that was affecting the music business. Normally in the past all interview requests were passed on onto the owner. I thought that I could handle this one myself.
Even though I had serious doubts about the health of physical music sales at the time, I put on the brave face. There were still positive things happening.
“We haven’t noticed a decline in sales,” I said. “At least not a major one. The industry is responding to these concerns. I fully agree that $20 or more is too much to pay for a CD. I can tell you that if anybody is getting rich off the price of CDs, it’s not independent chains like ourselves. The markup we make on new CDs covers the shipping of the product to us and our overhead, and that’s about it.
“As I said though, the industry is responding. They’re putting bonuses inside the CD that you can’t get by downloading it off Napster,” I continued. “You’ll notice lots of bands, System of a Down for example, putting bonus DVDs or CD-ROMs in the package for virtually the same price.” Metallica too. Lars has obviously learned something from all this: Inside the then-new Metallica CD you got a free full length DVD plus a free concert to download on mp3.
I wasn’t optimistic about the future of physical CD sales, but I didn’t let on. I’d heard the buzz from customers and even staff members, downloading more and more, where they used to hunt for songs in brick-and-mortar stores. Some staff members of a certain generation refused to download on principle, but we were a shrinking group.
“Since I sell used discs,” I continued, spinning it positive, “a lot of the downloaders are selling off their collections to me. For us it’s turning into a winning situation since I have more, and better, stock than 5 years ago.”
The interview aired a day or two later. As it happens my boss happened to hear the interview and liked it. Although it might not seem like a big deal to all readers, I was just proud of myself for taking the initiative and doing it myself. He was surprised to hear the interview, since I hadn’t told him about it. I was confident in my experience and communication abilities, and I wanted the opportunity.
It wasn’t the last. The next one was a TV interview, for the local cable access channel. I don’t know if my boss ever saw that one, but he wouldn’t have liked it as much – all my facial piercings were visible! The idea of a dude with a labret stud and nose ring representing his store on TV might have been too much for him to handle!
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