the demise of the record store

while record stores have been disappearing the whole of my life (ragin records in fresno & visalia, no life in hollywood, rhino in westwood), the two that we are losing this week leave me especially sad.

ozone in portland,or was a regular tour stop back when it was across the street from powell's and since moving here, it's less-moddy offshoot on e. burnside was a common stop for new releases. i s'pose it wasn't terribly special, and we still have jackpot, but still...

sea level records, in echo park, on the other hand, was less like a record store and more like an extension of my house. a trip there was not unlike a trip to the livingroom. like the record store in the movies, this one, more than any other, was blood. i could walk behind the counter and flip through todd's endless piles of advances or help myself to a beer from the fridge. nites would often begin there and, often times, end there, too. fireworks from the roof, sweaty dance parties, the lotus parade, dodger games, bbqs, art shows, instores...oh man...the instores. the first time i ever saw dios was at sea level. we ate hot dogs. i burned my stache on a pipe when little wings played. radar bros. silversun pickups. pine marten. kaito. daaaang!

i played once. sat on an ice chest and was brought to tears the one and only time i played "the goodthings," a song i wrote for pikul after he died. so emo. roddy from imperial teen/faith no more was there. i was so embarrassed.

as recently as my last visit, a random afternoon not too far back, i ran into no less than five old friends in the course of half an hour. granted, one of them was cutting hair in her makeshift salon upstairs, but still, how cool is it you could get your hair cut upstairs???

the end was inevitable from the get-go. days after they signed the lease amoeba announced the opening of their hollywood store. and then came all that downloading. i s'pose five years is actually not a bad run. and now that i no longer live there i've had to find other ways to fight the lonliness from noon to nine. i'm so ecstatic that todd is going to get his life back, tho i guess i'm also fearful that he'll have no idea what to do with it now. that scene from shawshank redemption flashes thru my mind, but i think he'll fare better than that old man dangling from the rafters. sea level, the institution, however, is leaving us for good and i just wanted to take this space to say so long and thanks and i'm lucky to've had you.

r.i.p.