This past weekend ended up being much more of an emotional trip into my past than intended. After a pretty awesome mud wrestling party on Saturday, the wife and I decided to walk down to Melrose Ave and do some shopping. I needed some new punk vinyl, so Headline Records was at the top of my list. For those of you in the Los Angeles area (and like Punk and it’s many related genres) that have not been to Headline, I can simply say you are missing out. Sure, Amoeba has much of the same stuff, but for those of you that haven’t routinely experienced the joy of browsing the racks at a niche indie music store, it’s not just shopping, it’s an experience.
My sheer love for shopping at indie music stores started in Las Vegas. Around 1990, well before Amazon.com, torrents, and Ebay, people had to actually leave their house to acquire new music. For those heavily into punk like myself, your options were quite limited. The awful mall stores had all the latest garbage and some of the classic releases, but if you needed an original Misfits 7″ or the latest Crass bootleg a store called the Underground was a sure bet. When I was in high school (on the other side of town) I usually had to beg my mom for a ride or find some other way down there.
You’d walk in and it was a dark store, a rack of vinyl running down the center, CDs taking up maybe 1/4 of it. Posters, shirts and cassettes along the walls. Some scratchy slab of wax blaring through the speakers, usually something in the Cramps/Meteors/MC5/Gories worlds. It was rock and roll shopping heaven – it was so heavy my mom would always wait in the car.
What a time it was when you could browse vinyl racks and find Exploited first pressings, original Sub Pop color vinyl, import bootlegs, and Misfits and Samhain colored vinyl LPs. You could always rely on them to have the best new thing you’d never heard of and almost any record you’ve been thinking about getting next. You could spend $4 on a used record, listen to it as long as you wanted, and then go trade it in for $2 credit. This endless recycling of records introduced me to many of the bands I still collect to this day. Obviously I kept those instead of selling them back.
Except that one time I bought an interesting looking record by Suburban Nightmare. Garage trash with stupid but funny lyrics and a certain swagger. Liked it, eventually traded it in for something. A few weeks later bought and fell in love with a Dwarves record. Instant fan, bought anything I could find. Not too happy when I check the Trouser Press Record Guide and see that Suburban Nightmare was the Dwarves before changing their name. Then find out it’s a $75 dollar record. Took me a long time to find that again (but did get a bargain at $35).
Of course there was the case by the counter with damn near any rare record that mattered – first pressings of Minor Threat, Black Flag, Misfits, Damned, Buzzcocks, The Jam, etc… Browsing that was one of my favorite things on the planet. Still is I suppose.
Never walked out of there empty handed. Plenty of amazing music, and also the best shirts anywhere. Some official, some bootleg, all awesome and near impossible to get anywhere else. Cheap too. My friends and I bought and traded shirts almost as much as vinyl.
Sunglasses. They sold $6 plastic sunglasses with color lenses. I usually bought purple. Wore them most of high school. Loved them.
This music experience wasn’t unique to Underground – Benway Bop was another amazing record store that was a similar experience, although the niche there was “good underground music,” not just punk. Meaning in addition to all the above, you could get a PJ Harvey bootleg or hang out with Ween.
Anyway – my point of all this. These stores are a dying breed. And it makes me very, very sad. It’s partly a function of the music industry as a whole – sales are down and they have been year after year for a while now. The resurgence in vinyl is helping but isn’t enough to keep most of these stores going. The economy isn’t helping either. It’s never been easy to successfully run an indie music store, but when you see how many other types of stores are empty on Melrose it says something about the bigger picture.
But it’s other things too. People are still spending money on music. The Internet has made it so easy – too easy in my opinion – to find anything you want anywhere. Yeah, I love the instant satisfaction too but I sorely miss the thrill of the hunt. It’s so hard to find really good stuff locally because people can get more money (or a quicker sale at least) using Ebay, GEMM, or one of the many other places.
Of course I do encourage online music spending, it’s a big part of what my company does. Ahh, the duality of a music man.
So I am left feeling that one of my favorite things in the world is almost dissolved. I’ve watched it unravel over the past decade but now it really seems thin. When the Underground in Vegas closed it was like a death in the family. And so many Los Angeles institutions are memories. Remember Vinyl Fetish? They even had two stores! How about when Taang was on Melrose. At least they still have San Diego. Of course there was the west coast Bleeker Bob’s – as overpriced as the NYC one and equally rude staff, but they had some of the rarest goth around. And what about the Rock Shop – first a big store on Hollywood Blvd, then a smaller one on a side street, and then… nowhere. And Green Hell. And Rhino. And Arons. And…
There are still plenty of great stores, especially if you’re into the niche. This leads us back to Headline. I love this store and hope it stays open for years to come. I should shop there more, and so should you. Prices are right, selection is top notch, John knows his music well, lots of shirts and posters and patches and buttons, and you get the experience. More info at headlinerecords.com
