New vinyl was impossible to find back then. I, fortunately, worked at our high school radio station, which was still on all the lists to get promotional albums. Back when stations actually MAILED you promo disks. That's how I got copies of Primus' "Frizzle Fry" and The Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head" -- everyone else at the station was into CDs and found the vinyl to be an annoying space-waster. Plus, being in the upper-middle-class suburbs, the Beasties were mostly ignored in favor of Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey... or there was a small contingent who wanted to rebel against Dad's job as regional sales manager, and opted for Sepultura. Those kids are now CPAs.
Once I got my license, I started going to Quonset Hut, a record store near the mall. Apparently, The Black Keys worked there. And here I was, playing bass and tuba and experimenting with tape machines. Looks like we just missed eachother.
Along with a huge CD section, Quonset Hur stocked a lot of vinyl. I can still remember buying Rage Against the Machine's first two albums there, as well as Beck's "Odelay." I also remember NOT buying LPs of the Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" and "Adore," because they were $12.98 -- or about 10 percent what those albums are worth today.
I have three other weird memories of Quonset Hut.
First, it was next door to Ohio Sound, a snooty stereo shop that is also long-gone. I always thought it would be cool to buy an LP at QH and then take it next door to test the equipment. Alas, Ohio Sound was always closed on the nights I went, and this never happened.
Second... in 1992, as "Wayne's World" exploded, we all went scrambling for Queen albums. Unfortunately, the band hadn't been very popular in the U.S. for a decade, AND they had just switched to Hollywood Records. So there was little product out there. I had a 45 of "We Will Rock You," as well as the LP of 1984's "Works" (since I loved the video for "Radio Gaga" as a kid), and a friend copied me a hissy cassette of 1981's "Queen's Greatest Hits." It did not, however, include "Bohemian Rhapsody," which he lopped off so the album would fit on one side of a C-90! So I asked the clerks if there was a CD or vinyl (or even cassette) of Queen's Greatest Hits, and they almost sold me the then-new compilation with "Bohemian Rhapsody" and a bunch of 1980s (post-"The Game") songs. But I was wise to their little game!
Third... in 1997, I saw a video for Wyclef Jean's "We Just Trying to Stay Alive," and went to Quonset Hut to ask if it was available as a 12". The clerk said it wasn't, and then confidently added that it never would be. He wasn't being condescending, he just seemed so sure of himself. Years later, I learned it HAD been released as a single.
That was what I did for new vinyl, since the other option was mail order... not easy for a teenager with no credit card. The one time I called Acoustic Sounds, Chad Kassem himself got on the phone to get rid of me. Hooray?
So basically, I bought a lot of used albums (which was fine, since I wasn't really into "modern music" and grunge).
In the early '90s, Spin-More in Kent was the only used record store close enough to trick my parents into taking me. The staff there (a middle-aged couple and their 20-something son, if I read the situation correctly) had their albums priced right out of the Goldmine price guide. No late-80s Zappa album in decent-but-unspectacular condition should have been $40 -- then or now. The store was dusty and dark, and probably a fire hazard. It closed in 2012, and since then it seems everyone in Northeast Ohio has come out of the woodwork with a weird story about Spin-More. My favorite: a friend went in during a night of heavy drinking, picked up a rare German Rolling Stones boxed set and asked the clerk if he could take it outside and convince his brother to buy it. The clerk agreed, and my friend ran outside... forever. (The thief in question now owns a store of his own, by the way).
When I went to Spin-More, I would trade-in CDs that no one wanted (from the school radio station) for vinyl. My best trade was for a sealed copy of Elvis' "That's the Way It Is." In 1995, I asked them to special order me a copy of "Beatles Anthology I," which they said they would do, and then call me once it was in. I'm still waiting.
By the mid-90s, Spin-More's remoteness and high prices drove me to the Record Exchange, a Cleveland chain that sold new and used music. They finally started branching into the suburbs, opening near Chapel Hill Mall in 1994. My first trip there was that April, and I was blown away. I remember pawing through the albums that day and finding a near-mint copy of "Exile On Main Street," while two middle-aged guys near me found a near-mint "Moby Grape." The problem with Record Exchange back then was that the records had no prices... you'd take them to the front counter, trembling, so a clerk could price them. He or she would decide by examining the disks, the jacket and YOU. I can remember another visit during which I had two copies of "Beggar's Banquet" to choose from, and had to decide which one looked worse before approaching "The Judge." I also made sure to look a little pathetic by removing my hat to display the messed up hair beneath.
On that first visit, I paid a grand total of $4.50 for "Exile." Another visit netted Derek & the Dominos "In Concert" for a dollar. And these are just a few of the hundreds of albums I bought there over the years. Who says records are a bad investment? As the '90s wore on, the vinyl selection at Record Exchange dwindled. More and more useless 12" singles started popping up, along with umpteen terrible '80s albums (Air Supply, Loverboy, Journey). And the "Exchange" developed a new scheme: a small black sticker indicated a record was 50 cents (by 2002 or so, the black sticker had dropped to 10 cents). At some point in the 2000's, I think The Record Exchange split in two: some stores became "CD/Game exchange" and others were "The Exchange." All still sold mostly CDs and DVDs, plus lots of gaming hardware and software... and a bit of vinyl. They even opened locations in Chicago, which I frequented. About eight years ago, I visited "The Exchange" in Kent for the first time in a decade, and scooped up numerous copies of "Rubber Soul" and early Pink Floyd albums from the bargain bin (the black stickers were gone by this point, and their baseline became a buck). Slowly, new vinyl crept in, mostly thanks to Record Store Day, and now there's enough of THAT around that I can find marked-down or used albums released just 3 years ago. Kids today don't know how good they have it when it comes to vinyl shopping.
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