56K Boston Blogging

My sister let me use her AOL account after I installed the crappy AOL software on my laptop and so here I am, blogging from Boston. So let’s review…

Saturday – The loaf dropped me off at the airport. I was expecting a giant hour-plus line to check in, but it took 5 minutes, there was like 6 people ahead of me in line. Southwest changed it so when you check in, they give you a boarding pass then so you don’t have to wait in a second line at the gate – smart move and about time if you ask me. So after gong thru security, which took 4 times as long as the check-in, I found myself with a lot of time to kill before my plane would board. So I ate at the Potbellys in the airport! Yes, Midway airport is perhaps the best airport on earth, for it has POTBELLYS! I had only the 3 course meal and sat around reading a magazine for awhile. The flight was uneventful. I sat next to a fairly attractive woman who talked to me for about a total of 5 minutes. The rest of the flight I fired up the laptop and watched one of the beavis and butthead dvds my dad got me. I had to cover my mouth at some points when I was laughing. That shit is still funny. My plane landed and my sister and brother-in-law was waiting for me just past the security. We got to Welch Manor and I set up shop in my room there. The bed was far too uncomfortable and I couldn’t sleep, so I ended up going downstairs and sleeping on the living room couch, but was up most of the night.

Sunday my sis had to work part of the day, so I laid around and watched a lot of TV. I felt like crap from no sleep the night before. When she got back we went to the mall so I could get some last minute gifts. I was a good boy and didn’t buy anything for myself. Mainly cuz I knew I was low on funds and would probably spend money the next day at the record stores. Which leads us to today…

Today my sis had to work, so I went with so I could hit all the record shops in the city. This worked out well because my sis didn’t have to sit around while I flipped through records while she sits around bored and tired, like what happened last year. So my first batch of stores was near her work, in Cambridge.

Phase Four was first. They didn’t really have much. Anything remotely interesting (ie: punk) was priced at 15.50 regardless of how easily available the records were. I mean, if there wasn’t the sticker stain on the cover, selling The Stains LP on SST would be a fair price, but when you are charging the same price for something like Scream – Banging the Drum which you can still buy new for nearly half that, then something is wrong. They had some fair priced old Atari 2600 games, but since I couldn’t remember what I had at home, and the fact that I was feeling a bit cheap, I walked out with nothing.

Stop two was to be Second Coming Records. Last year this was the best place of all I went to so I was looking forward to buying some pricey items from K1ngM1ke. I get there and they are closed. I look at the hours and notice they say they open at noon. It not being quite noon, I head to the next store and plan to come back. Well, when I came back, they were still fucking closed! Upon closer reading, they are CLOSED MONDAYS! Fuck! This was the one I wanted to go to more than any other! I am going to somehow swindle my sister into taking me on thursday before the airport. I already mentioned this to her and she doesn’t really want to, so it is going to be a tough fight to get her to do it.

Loony Tunes was the next stop. This place is a pretty good size but the records are so packed in that it makes browsing difficult, not to mention that they mix in any punk stuff with the regular rock records. Note to any record store owners – PUT THE PUNK RECORDS IN THEIR OWN SECTION! I hate that shit. So I flip though them, and I come across an album from The Not. I did not have this particular record but I did not feel like paying 10 bucks for it either, so I passed. I did find a copy of Crime – Hate Us or Love Us We Don’t Give a Fuck for only 6 bucks, and I have always wanted that record, despite it being a bootleg but didn’t want to pay the 15 bucks I usually see it for so I was pleased to grab that for a good price.

I went back to my sister’s work and she treated me to lunch at the restaurant part of the club (she works at house of blues) and she hung out with me while I ate it up in the green room while we watched TV. After that she showed me another store I didn’t’ know about. Actually I knew of this store, it used to be in a different part of the city and I was going to skip it as it was not walking distance from anywhere I was going today, but turned out I got to hit it since they moved.

In Your Ear had a lot of used LPs, but since moving they had no 7″s that I could find anywhere. I didn’t find anything of interest there at all, and the stock looked to be the exact same stuff that I saw at their old location last year, just sans the 7″s. After this, I took the bus down to Boston, Newbury street to be exact.

The infamous Newbury Comics. Now a chain, in the early days of punk, this was of of THE places to get your punk fix. They sell only some new vinyl. They had a decent selection for the most part, but nothing I needed. I figured they would have that Big Boys – Wreck Collection reissue LP but no such luck. So I walked out of there with only the new issue of Maximumrocknrolll, in which the guy who does the Netpunk column, plugged my website and said nice things. He had done this years ago when i still did the printed zine. Since revamping the site I dropped him a line in hopes that he would mention it in his column. It worked. When I get home, I’ll drop him an email and thank him for the mention.

Mars Records was the final stop. It is a decent store with a good selection. I didn’t find anything used I needed, and the only 2 new things of interest to me I didn’t feel like buying because I knew I could find them back home easily and not have to worry about dragging them home, or spending money on them now when I am low on funds. I see them sell used/rare shit on ebay so that might have something to do with why I didn’t find any good scores. So I walked out of there with an empty hand, and a heavy heart because my day of shopping was a total bust for the most part, and the one store I really was looking forward to was closed on the day I had allotted for my journey. I took the bus back to Cambridge and hung out in the green room watching TV and reading the MRR until my sister was done working and we drove home. My monday nite ritual remained partially intact as I was able to watch raw in my room here while eating some take-out. So that’s my story so far. Tomorrow nite all daveinlaw’s immediate family is coming for a feast and then we go to one of his relatives house where I end up sitting around not saying much because I hardly know anyone, and try to get in on some games of foosball.