IT SUCKS THAT ARONS is outta Business!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sun_Fortune
1,374 Posts
I was stir crazy earlier today at my parents pad (refer to quitting smoking thread) and thought I would pop into Arons for a few. On the way there, I realize they dont exist anymore. Okay, I'll just pop into aomeba. Of course there's a line around the corner for their parking lot. I wind up having to park on the seventh floor of the Arclight lot in the pouring rain. Aomeba is totally picked through, with every art queer douchebag in the city mulling around. I pick up a few christian records for seven bucks each. The fifty year old rockabilly buffont hairdo converse ripped jeans clerk calls me "guy," without ever actually looking at me. I spend twenty minutes on the top floor in the pouring rain looking for my brother's grey Corolla. Then thirty minutes waiting in line to pay for parking -- the price doubled while in line. Man, Aomeba is the worst fucking thing in the world. What would have taken 45 minutes at Arons and cost nine dollars, took 3 hours and cost 50. Goddamn all you LA strutters who abandoned Arons for Aomeba. You could always park at Arons. It was always cheap. And I always felt relaxed in Arons. I ran into friends. I saw all the LA digger celeberties. It was as LA as Chavez Ravine. Yeah, sure there were problems, but nothing close to the gigantic walmart of a catastrophe that is Aomeba. Arons was the only thing that made LA tolerable. Now, its just parking garages, traffic and douchebags.
Comments
not the biggest fan of Amoeba either.
Go past the Amoeba parking and turn right. There's always a spot open at the parking meters.
Sunfortune youre in LA?
hit me on the PM
I dunno know if I'll go there again for another year. That place gives me axiety attacks. All the clicking and the colors and clutter. Oh man. But thanks for the tip.
yea, it's kinda crazy in there sometimes.
I don't live down there anymore and although I did shop at Aron's, I always thought that the employees were a little on the abrasive side which made for some sourvibes shopping.
I figured Aron's had enough of their 'own thing' to survive w/out the behemoth Amoeba sucking the life out of them, but then again, who knows? I haven't really had good luck at LA Amoeba. Forget about hiding records there- that store is so pored over that if i stash something away, even if I come back a few minutes later it's long gone.
My (former) rule of thumb: when in doubt: go to Long Beach!! Good shopping, e-z parking. Torrance is good for that too.
I went to Arons today and they has signs saying it was open until February.
Aron's always had that shitty little parking lot where you have to wait for people
to leave or double park against the wall. When parking is tight at Amoeba's all you
have to do is park one block west (other side of the CNN building) on Cole where
there's always a few parking meter spots open.
Step your parking game up!
Even Amoeba parking lot sucks. It is not nearly big enough, which especially sucks when you have a big box of records to trade in.
Of course, I'm sure all you L.A. peeps have your spots that my out of town ass wasn't privy to...and the guy I stayed with, who plays in a heavy metal band and isn't exactly a collector of funk (or vinyl for that matter) didn't exactly know the spots to find vinyl either.
Worst thing about ameoba is you cant listen to any records.
But still l.a. people need to realize that they are spoiled as hell and most people in any other city besides NYC and the bay area would kill for a place like ameoba.
For some reason, I found more stuff the one time i visited the Berkley Amoeba...
har you percussion for 60
melody nelson for 60
various strata east's
really good afro beat stuff
They always put their best stuff on ebay so check that first, you can save on shipping by just visiting their store.
I might have been there before they were doing the ebay thang. My best score that day was a Nancy Priddy LP for 7 bucks....also a handful of private folk and rock LP's all in the $10-$15 range.....but I did sense the staff was just as you describe.
I remember back in 96-97 when a visit would aways be worth it; not just because the selection/staff was better but there were a few other spots in the area that were still decent at that time. You had the marginal spots on melrose (STA) and that gay house music spot on Santa Monica which had a lot of dope hip-hop on the cheap. Also if you knew Rob One his apt was in the middle of all that...another spot.. Now its like a trip out to Hollywood now mainly consists of a stop at Arons/Amoeba and a few other spots, depending on how much I find that day.
I still do well on the regular out at Record Surplus-- I'm from the westside though and for Hollywood heads I know its not the easiest place to get to often.
http://popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?searchtext=melody+nelson&x=21&y=10
without having to wait for it to arrive on ebay and pay for shipping from france...yeah I would say that's a good price.
Well, I don't want to beef about it, but most of the recent copies on eBay have sold for around $30 - and even if they were still $50-60 I really don't see finding something in a store for the eBay price as a "steal."
Not trying to hat though, just seemed a bit of a stretch to me...
all right paying more than 30 on melody nelson and you're overpaying.
Basically if I find a record at a price below what I normally see it for, I would call that a steal. Since you don't have to worry about shipping, condition and other baller (japanese or french) bidders throwing crazy money around. I've never seen that record around Cali let alone for $60.
finally something we can all agree on
have people been shopping at DON'S records in eagle rock? super solid dude, too bad he collects soul and funk so his used vinyl reflects his good taste |:{| his shop has mucho good selection though- and he'll play you tunes on his system.