Camden Merchants Co-op, Camden,Maine

Tom writes:

The engaging thing about shopping for vinyl is in the exploration. Whether it is finding a rare LP, a new store, or wandering around the town where the store is located, this search and discovery is the best part of getting vinyl, and the most welcome side-effect for me in this age of instant gratification via online merchants, downloads, and whatnot.

Back in the early 1990s,  I was a newly graduated composer slinging coleslaw at a traditional deli in my hometown in New Jersey by day, and studying improvisation and haunting clubs in Manhattan by night. Even with Tower Records both uptown and downtown, my favorite place to check out new rekkids was a place called "Crazy Rhythms' in Montclair, NJ.  I would spend many hours riffling through the bins looking for all the music I had been learning about from my teacher and the downtown jazz scene in NYC(second to Crazy Rhythms was a place in the  Village called "Lunch for Your Ears").  Having studied exclusively classical music, this was a rebirth or sorts, with a whole world opening up in front of me, literally at my fingertips as I flipped through this treasure trove of music looking for my latest fix. Mingus! Bird! Oh shit! Here's a Monk big band record! Gimmie! (this same year, the owner of the store gave me a calender and thanked me for being such a good customer all year...the way I saw it, I owed him)

Today really put me back in that place.  I found myself pulling out recordings that I had neglected previously (Sonny Rollins "The Bridge"), or that I wanted but had gone out of print (World Saxophone Quartet "Dances and Ballads), or that were old pieces of my history (Jethro Tull "Living in the Past").  I realized that I had not considered a lot of these in my shopping excursions on Amazon, and that the novelty of the vinyl had sent me in another, and altogether welcome direction. Just like in 1990, a world opens up in front of me. So you can go home again. How about that.