There are very few records in my collection that I purchased from stores. All the records by The Cure for example. I remember the exact moment I bought them, the face of the shopkeeper and how quickly I wanted to go home to lock myself in my room and listen to “Wish”, “Faith” or whatever album I had purchased.
I often visited New Record, the best record store in Bari, and in the years when vinyl was sold off I visited all the others. I bought everything I could afford, vinyl copies that no one wanted anymore.
I continued like this until I started listening to things that couldn’t be found in stores.
I, then, discovered the existence of mailorders and I started ordering records by post. I contacted labels and stores in Roma, Leeds and San Francisco. They sent me catalogs of pages and pages and I read and reread them avidly. The stores had beautiful names, especially Just Like Heaven in Roma.
The choice fell on them and I called them always from the same phone booth near my parents’ house. Long distance calls were very expensive and I had to be quick.
At Just Like Heaven I found 7″s by Sebadoh and Guided By Voices, records by Mogwai and Telstar Ponies, Smog and the Palace Brothers… Until one day I discovered Shrimper and tape labels… and Just Like Heaven couldn’t help anymore. They didn’t deal in cassettes.
If only there had been a store in Bari where I could have snatched a copy of “Hot Garden Stomp”.
One day I would like to visit Record Collector in Sheffield. They say it’s very well stocked and maybe it’s the record store I dream about recurrently at night, the one where I find a copy of “The Tragical History Of Dr. Faustus” by Buzzsaw.
The cover above features the Record Collector entry and is part of the series I’m making for Tom Violence.
Listen to Tom Violence “Definite Limits” here.
Order your copy now.
