Institute of Contemporary Arts

Bargain basements

Date: 7 February 2007

Purveyors of music they might be, from leftfield indie rock releases, to the most obscure vinyl recording of an instruction manual detailing how to teach your parrot to speak - in German - but the local record store owner also has a wealth of eclectic and remarkable information up his/her sleeve. Whether discussing the spiralling adventure of a recent 'pick up', explaining the origins of a store name, or recalling an anecdote about the local area, the mere experience of spending extended time conversing with a record store owner has made for alarming, fascinating, hilarious, and downright weird stories coming our way.

We've been fortunate to have met an amazing array of characters on our travels, and as we near the end of our trip, I've not only learned a huge amount about the business of selling records, but received a brilliantly entertaining, informal education on the side.

For example, at Val's halla record store in Oak Park, just north of down town Chicago, we spent a couple of hours in the company of Val Callimetti, who used to work for Capitol Records in the 60s, before setting up her shop which has now been in business for over 40 years. A real character and great storyteller, Val also described the origin of the store's name - taken from Norse mythology, valhalla was the 'great hall of immortality in which the souls of warriors slain heroically were received by Odin and enshrined.' Val's halla, in turn she explained, was her version of this hall - "the modest hall of mortals in which the 'soul' of music lovers seeking contentment is welcomed by experts and fulfilled." Halla was also the name of her dog.

Ray, who runs Grooves on Market Street, San Francisco used to do the light shows at the Filmore concert hall during the 1960s, so had plenty of anecdotes to recall too, but it was also he who explained to us that record labels used to issue different coloured vinyls for different genres of music: "red for rock, blue for musicals, green for world music..." These same 12 inch circles of colour emblazon the glass front of Ray's store - "the poor man's stained glass", he laughed: "the yellow ones are all Mormon church services... but I've covered up the labels as I don't want to scare customers off!"

At Groove Merchant up the street, owner Chris, who specialises in rare soul, funk, Brazilian and more told us about the recent tragedy of SugarPie deSanto, who had just lost her husband and all her possessions to a house fire, and for who Groove Merchant were hosting a benefit to try and raise some money.

And Dick, who runs Rooky Ricardo's Records across the road, also offers dance lessons, reflecting his amazing array of soul and disco 45s on sale in his store. "I mainly teach first dances for weddings now," he says. "We used to hold in store dance parties, but we had to stop after a gun went off on the dance floor once, and the police were called! Everyone ducked, ran out of the store, and this mysterious gun was just left on the middle of the dance floor."

Our interview with Wade Wright, who runs Jack's Record Cellar, a historic San Francisco store which specialises in 78s and vinyl from the turn of the 20th century onwards, led to a conversation about local filmmakers, including Kenneth Anger. It turned out Anger had once lived in a house known as the Russian Embassy on Fulton Street, and had bought it from the previous owner, Anton LeVey, who just happened to be the founder of the Church of Satan. Anger had filmed various scenes from his films inside the house, but it also turned out he had been a follower of Aleister Crowley, and lived in the house for a period with Bobby Beausoleil, who was eventually connected to the Manson Family murders.

One of my favourite encounters though, was with Larry, who runs The Thing in Brooklyn, and who we ended up visiting twice. The Thing is a thrift store based in a district called Green Point, home to a large Polish community, just up from trendy Williamsburg, but which still feels like a comparatively 'local' neighbourhood, not yet a victim of the rapid transformation of much of New York, due to hyper-speed gentrification - something Larry was particularly articulate and passionate about.

A miniature city made up of boxes and boxes of 'stuff' - one man's junk is another man's treasure - from piles of books and comics, to glassware and crockery, old VHS players, pairs of shoes, rails of clothes, stacks of videos, DVDs, lampshades, picture frames and furniture (all this sitting above a chaotic yet seductive basement filled with vinyl crates, so close together you have to hold your breath to move down the isles and get Biblical with anyone you happen to pass) - Larry's stock is generally accumulated through visiting people selling off collections, estates, and unwanted belongings, for a host of different reasons.

He told us of widows selling their husbands' suits and collections of LPs, at a loss to know what to do with years of accumulated possessions; young couples having moved into a new house, ready to transform it, but for the obstacle of 30 heavy boxes of books and records left in the attic or garage; crack addicts desperate for cash, who had come across an abandoned collection of vintage magazines, Larry jumping in the back of a van with them to exchange cash for stock, no questions asked, on the side of a remote stretch of freeway.

An excitable storyteller, he relished in animatedly describing his very first collection, a response to an advert he'd placed in the local paper, which after a phone call involving heavy breathing and a man offering some magazines - "I have some things I think you'd be very interested in" - led him to a family home.

Relieved that the breathy voice was due to the man being on a respirator rather than the lure of a deviant murderer, Larry was nevertheless invited into the house, and subsequently offered a selection of valuable comics, rare books and a smattering of hardcore S&M porn magazines, not to mention a collection of photographs of the gentleman's daughter - who brightly showed him out once the deal was done - performing unspeakable acts on the family's dog.

I fear you might not learn quite the back story to that first pressing Stevie Wonder LP that you just found and bought on eBay.

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