This weekend has been great. I got to spend some time on a gorgeous island with the woman I love, watched the sunrise from above 10,000 feet, got beat up by some coral, and ate some amazing food.
What was missing? The smell of vinyl, filling my nostrils by way of digging for new additions to my collection. In addition to the fact that I hadn’t listened to a record in 4 days; I was going through withdrawals. Which led me to this post.
Searching for a record store on Maui yielded four results; two of them movie rental relics (akin to Blockbuster Video), a recording studio, and Request Music which is closed on Sunday, and having been up since 2:20AM…(to take the picture at the top of this post) this was our last day on the island and there is no denying an opportunity to go digging, (if there were there would be no need for this website).
So I walk in, music playing at a healthy level, a few records on display, some trinkets, CD’s, tapes…but I came for the basement. I found a few images on Yelp, but nothing that screamed…”come down here and dig!” I never needed to hear that though, the records whisper to you if you have the time and desire.
The basement was…full of records, all on shelves. There were hails to the 80’s and 90’s with a Schlitz malt liquor clock, and things familiar to a child of the 80’s like Zima, transporting me to Uptown DC (Northwest Washington, District of Columbia for the uninitiated) bringing thoughts of Chuck Brown, the god father of Go-Go music.
As I’m down in the basement the floor above is being vibrated by tracks ubiquitous to my adolescence from A Tribe Called Quest. I was searching for Jazz today though, Astrid Gilberto in particular.
Heading back upstairs with a single dig in hand, I wanted to see the new titles they had in stock. When I visit record stores I engage the people working there. Converse to get a sense of their level of involvement with the shop and music as a whole, that’s when I met Jeremy, the curator of music at Request on Monday. Turns out he’s been following me on Instagram (@vinylforthepeople) for a little while, we talked about the albums we are holding in the picture below for about 30 minutes, until I asked my lady to snap this picture.
I’m excited to share my digs with you in the next post, and later this week Jeremy tells us a bit about Request Records in a Record Roadtrip Video.
Until next time, keep spinning.
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