Took my first digging trip to New Orleans with my brother and label partner around '91-'92. This was pre-private label madness and we were just hitting stores and scooping up the private press stuff no one cared about at the time. Goldmine was a small chain of stores and was our first stop. The shop in Hanrahan was dimly lit and unorganized. All the LP's were shelved on walls and you had to read spines to see what was there, my least favorite way to dig. Within an hour we had turned some amazing private rock stuff....Iron Lung, Philosophers, Third Estate, etc. We were told that this was just the tip of the iceburg as most of their LP's were at the Gretna location. We hauled our asses and crooked necks to Gretna ASAP.
The Gretna location was a large house, between 12-16 rooms, with every one of them packed with records. The owner, Roger, was impressed at how much we bought at his other location that he allowed us to go "upstairs" to dig. Apparently not many people were allowed upstairs and Roger assigned us a chaperone, a mousey little guy we nicknamed Fwancis. Fwancis would watch our every move and report back to Rog...."Roger, they're mistreating the records"....."Roger, they're cursing".....It became apparent that Roger didn't care what the hell we were doing and annoying Fwancis became our second priority.
The three of us spent 12-14 hours going through about 3-4 rooms that first day. Found amazing stuff like Rayne, Haymarket Square, Goldenrod, etc. Most of the LP's were between $4.00-$8.00 a piece. That night we hit some places off of Bourbon St. for Crawfish, Rabbit Stew and Beer, got pretty loaded and wound up in a sleazy Pool Hall. This very pretty young lady walked in by herself, put her quarters on the table and played the winner of our game. About 10 minutes into her game she excused herslf, turned around, puked her guts out, and disappeared into the night.
On the second day at Gretna Goldmine we tackled a room that was stacked wall to wall with about 6 foot piles of LP's. We literally had to shimmy up onto the LP's to enter the room and then tunnel down one stack at a time to see what was there. Truly the definition of "digging". By the time we were done we had turned up 5-600 solid psych LP's....major label and small label stuff. I can only imagine what kind of funk and soul LP's we left behind as we were only tuned into psych and rock at the time.
We hit a couple of the other well known stores in town but nothing compared to Goldmine. I will admit we must have been pretty burned out on digging as 3 weeks later legendary digger Carl Weiss hit one of those latter shops and scored a Damon "Song Of The Gypsy" LP that we obviously left behind.
Good stuff. I have been on some day trips and all before and I am myself from a small town so I know that you can find out a lot just by asking around even when there does not appear to be an actual outlet for records in a town. It is amazing what you can scare up if you just get outside of major cities a bit. The heat - I think I'll only be 2-3 days south of TN and the rest will be NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, etc. I can't wait to hit places up north since my friend there always has the greatest finds (around Buffalo and before that Wilmington DE) and he is like a twice a month record digging kind of guy.
Knowing that I can't resist cheap records that may or may not be good, I definitely foresee packing and shipping boxes home along the way.
I still need some ridiculous stories, encounters with the locals, falling asleep at the wheel, etc.
1994 Somewhere between Hickory & High Point North Carolina
Taking a trip to hit worn out Used Record Stores and sleazy Flea Markets can be a crap shoot. Back in the day we would pull into a small town and hit up the local Barber Shop. We'd tell the barber "I heard there was a guy here in town with lots of records" and we'd get a lead 50% of the time. On this particular trip we were gonna hit Greensboro, Raliegh and Charlotte. The month prior to the trip we prepared by going through an old radio Trade magazine, calling Radio Station owners and DJ's at random asking if they had or knew anyone with records to sell.
One old radio guy in High Point told us there was a guy in a small town about 30 miles from him that had a barn filled with records. He didn't know his name, where he lived other than the town or how to get in touch with him. After a couple of days in Shops and Flea Markets and some nice scores(7-8 Justice label Garage LP's, lots of local presses like Kallabash Corp., Zaharas, etc.)we decided to try to find the barn full'o records.
We drove out to the small town and it was smaller than most.....gas station, Post Office and small grocery store. We hit each one asking about the mysterious record barn but everyone we spoke to was clueless. Even the folks in the P.O. had no idea what we were talking about. Just as we were pulling out of town, giving up on the lead, we saw a cop car. Looking like me and flagging down a cop car in the back woods of Carolina can be a questionable move, but we were searching for records!!!! So I flagged him down and sure enough he says "You're looking for Ol' Walt's(I think that was his name) place....follow me".
He led us out of town and then onto a dirt road. About 1/2 mile down the dirt road he waved us on and said "It's just around the corner" and left us there. As we turned a big corner ahead we saw an amazing sight. There were about 500 of those large glass globes on pedestals that folks used to use as lawn ornaments totally engulfing the front lawn of a house. Just to the left was a large barn completely shingled in LP's(I still have a photo of it somewhere). The doors of the barn were open and there were 3-4 cars parked out front.
As we entered we were greeted by a good ol boy in overalls who asked us if we were looking for records. Then he pointed us towards 20-30 tables filled with boxes of records with a few guys digging through them. Looked like a little Record Show going on in this dude's barn. We were pretty excited and just knew we were gonna score big. About 3 hours and NO records later we came to realize that EVERY SINGLE RECORD in this barn was C&W....not folk....not bluegrass...C & Friggin W....Tennessee Ernie Ford for days.
i want the iowa story! what did you find in my state?
Decorah, Iowa 1992
Ever wonder how the "Big Dudes" make all these amazing scores while you're out there scraping the Goodwill.......research and hard work, plain and simple.
Long before us dumb Americans figured out we had vinyl to mine, many Euros, especially Brits, were hitting up our Juke Box Dealers, Radio Stations and old store stock for pennies on the dollar. In the 80's a couple of UK soul dudes told me a few of their secrets. They had been contacting folks via trade magazines and hauling back literally tons of music. They came here with a friggin BUSINESS PLAN!!!
In the late 80's I started using their advice. I found an old C&W radio trade rag and started calling people, really hoping to score some Rockabilly. I spoke to a bunch of very cool characters, but only one lead to records. His name was Verne Koenig and he lived in Decorah, Iowa. Not only did he have records to sell, he sent a computer read-out of his library for me to check out before hitting the road.
The list was amazing, basically every Country, Folk & Bluegrass LP recorded for a major, and many minor labels between '52-'67. Not North carolina Charlie Pride Barn Full 'O Records C&W......friggin REAL C&W....everything on Starday, King, Audio Lab.....everything.......we drove up that weekend with only condition a concern.
There were 6,000 LP's.......Verne was the owner/only DJ at the Radio Station. The LP's were all pristine....just amazing condition other than some expected cover deteriation. Verne was also a musician and you may come across his LP's while you're out there diggin....I have. We rented a U-Haul and headed back to Dallas with every country lp ever worth listening to.
For the next year my living room was a nightly whiskey and smoke driven hillbilly heaven.
Verne's son Jody made an early punk 45 which is cool....we got a few of those too.
as far as the heat...search for shaded parking during the day. refuse to park in sunlight.
shipping for a box of records media mail is about $13. great deal. go to a liquor store, get some boxes and tape em up right. put some balled up newspaper for padding.
stay off big highways. there aint no records on em at all. stick to the secondary roads.
stay off big highways. there aint no records on em at all. stick to the secondary roads.
too true, plus its a better way to see america if you are going on a long distance roadtrip. im taking one on thursday, hope i find some illlll records
Thanks....next story I'll throw in some racism and liberal bashing to insure more than just a couple of responses.
Thanks for the stories, good times.
I really can't wait to go, I'm just marking time now.
Longest drive / Most days on the road??
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Gretna, Louisiana early 90's
Took my first digging trip to New Orleans with my brother and label partner around '91-'92. This was pre-private label madness and we were just hitting stores and scooping up the private press stuff no one cared about at the time. Goldmine was a small chain of stores and was our first stop. The shop in Hanrahan was dimly lit and unorganized. All the LP's were shelved on walls and you had to read spines to see what was there, my least favorite way to dig. Within an hour we had turned some amazing private rock stuff....Iron Lung, Philosophers, Third Estate, etc. We were told that this was just the tip of the iceburg as most of their LP's were at the Gretna location. We hauled our asses and crooked necks to Gretna ASAP.
The Gretna location was a large house, between 12-16 rooms, with every one of them packed with records. The owner, Roger, was impressed at how much we bought at his other location that he allowed us to go "upstairs" to dig. Apparently not many people were allowed upstairs and Roger assigned us a chaperone, a mousey little guy we nicknamed Fwancis. Fwancis would watch our every move and report back to Rog...."Roger, they're mistreating the records"....."Roger, they're cursing".....It became apparent that Roger didn't care what the hell we were doing and annoying Fwancis became our second priority.
The three of us spent 12-14 hours going through about 3-4 rooms that first day. Found amazing stuff like Rayne, Haymarket Square, Goldenrod, etc. Most of the LP's were between $4.00-$8.00 a piece. That night we hit some places off of Bourbon St. for Crawfish, Rabbit Stew and Beer, got pretty loaded and wound up in a sleazy Pool Hall. This very pretty young lady walked in by herself, put her quarters on the table and played the winner of our game. About 10 minutes into her game she excused herslf, turned around, puked her guts out, and disappeared into the night.
On the second day at Gretna Goldmine we tackled a room that was stacked wall to wall with about 6 foot piles of LP's. We literally had to shimmy up onto the LP's to enter the room and then tunnel down one stack at a time to see what was there. Truly the definition of "digging". By the time we were done we had turned up 5-600 solid psych LP's....major label and small label stuff. I can only imagine what kind of funk and soul LP's we left behind as we were only tuned into psych and rock at the time.
We hit a couple of the other well known stores in town but nothing compared to Goldmine. I will admit we must have been pretty burned out on digging as 3 weeks later legendary digger Carl Weiss hit one of those latter shops and scored a Damon "Song Of The Gypsy" LP that we obviously left behind.
My friends and I used to get our parents to drive us to Goldmine during the early 80's to buy baseball cards. If my memory serves me correctly, it was pretty much out in Westwego (really far out on the West Bank Expressway) rather than Gretna. At any rate, the store was stacked to the gills with records and upon a couple return visits we grew to really appreciate the music, mostly glden oldies 45's, that we'd hear while we were there.
Took off from Dallas with my partner Mark for a 7 day trip that would take us through OKC, Tulsa, Springfield, St. Louis, Little Rock and Texarkana, with stops in various small towns along the way. First stop was the legendary Memory Market in Oklahoma City. This place still operates today and is a large metal building filled with antiques, junk and back then, tons of vinyl. This was the 2nd or 3rd visit for us to the MM and the pickings were slimmer than the initial trips. We hit a Flea Market around the corner and scored 40-50 sealed LP???s with multiple copies of the Bob Markley LP and Michaelo on Tomorrow. By early afternoon we were on our way to Muskogee where this crazy woman ran a Comic Book/Record Shop???.found a few things there, the most notable a 60???s Italian Beat LP by The Rokes.
Day 2 took us to Tulsa and Gardner???s Book Store. For those who have been there recently and seen their paltry offering of LP???s, this place used to be a GOLDMINE. We talked the owner into letting us go through a few pallets of LP???s they had in the warehouse but the best stuff was found out on the floor. Local Okie LP???s like Lyra, Sage, Kammerzell and Totty were easy pickings. We spent most of the day there and then hit a store called Starship which was a total bust. By day???s end we headed to Stillwater to see ???Leather Man???.
Leather Man was an amazing character that would show up at ARC and the Dallas shows always, and I mean ALWAYS, dressed in leather, and what appeared to always be the SAME leather, from head to toe. He was a big tall dude that looked like Napoleon Dynamite with long hair. His hygiene was questionable but his records were top notch. He had a shop in Stillwater for a while and on this our one and only visit, we did pretty well. Lots of major label obscurities. Then it was on to Springfield.
Springfield has always been one of my favorite cities. It has(had?) an amazing strip of old school Motels all with great animated Neon Signs. It was also home to the original Pro Bass Shop which at the time was a big deal. We hit a few stores and one local dealer who had a basement full of records. This is where I scored one of the most amazing 45???s I???ve ever heard. It was a local KC? Release by The Beast titled ???I???m Going Back To The Back Of The Back Of The Woods??????..Imagine Hasil Adkins and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy rolled into one.
From Springfield we wanted to go to Sedalia to sample one of the legendary Guber Burgers at The Wheel Inn but time was tight and there was a Record Show the next morning at the Armory in St. Louis. The St. Louis show seemed to be mostly 45???s but we did score a few goodies. The stores in St. Louis proved to be much better than the show. Gene Haffner???s Record Exchange was always good for some obscure digging and we knew Gene from his days in Dallas so he let us into ???the good stuff???.
We spent two days in St. Louis and then it was south for some fishing on the Missouri/Arkansas border around the Buffalo River Gap area. This is truly one of the prettiest places in the U.S. and is as laid back as it gets. Fishing was good and some local Flea Markets yielded a few raers.
We had one day left, had to be back in Dallas that night, so we hit up Little Rock as our final stop. We went to a shop on University and scored some nice Christian psych like 3 different Wilson McKinley???s. Then it was on to the well known Arkansas Record Exchange with only about an hour to dig. We hit the LP bins and when we wanted to, we could dig pretty damn fast. We were pulling out stuff left and right when the owner came over and asked what the hell we were doing. We explained we were in a hurry and digging as fast as we could to which he responded. ??????No one can look through records that fast, you???re obviously on drugs and I want you out of my store???!! We actually got kicked out for digging too fast!!!
Final count 7 days???. about 600 LP???s and handful of 45's??????some pretty good food???. and some decent fishing but never made it to Texarkana.
Comments
Took my first digging trip to New Orleans with my brother and label partner around '91-'92. This was pre-private label madness and we were just hitting stores and scooping up the private press stuff no one cared about at the time. Goldmine was a small chain of stores and was our first stop. The shop in Hanrahan was dimly lit and unorganized. All the LP's were shelved on walls and you had to read spines to see what was there, my least favorite way to dig. Within an hour we had turned some amazing private rock stuff....Iron Lung, Philosophers, Third Estate, etc. We were told that this was just the tip of the iceburg as most of their LP's were at the Gretna location. We hauled our asses and crooked necks to Gretna ASAP.
The Gretna location was a large house, between 12-16 rooms, with every one of them packed with records. The owner, Roger, was impressed at how much we bought at his other location that he allowed us to go "upstairs" to dig. Apparently not many people were allowed upstairs and Roger assigned us a chaperone, a mousey little guy we nicknamed Fwancis. Fwancis would watch our every move and report back to Rog...."Roger, they're mistreating the records"....."Roger, they're cursing".....It became apparent that Roger didn't care what the hell we were doing and annoying Fwancis became our second priority.
The three of us spent 12-14 hours going through about 3-4 rooms that first day. Found amazing stuff like Rayne, Haymarket Square, Goldenrod, etc. Most of the LP's were between $4.00-$8.00 a piece. That night we hit some places off of Bourbon St. for Crawfish, Rabbit Stew and Beer, got pretty loaded and wound up in a sleazy Pool Hall. This very pretty young lady walked in by herself, put her quarters on the table and played the winner of our game. About 10 minutes into her game she excused herslf, turned around, puked her guts out, and disappeared into the night.
On the second day at Gretna Goldmine we tackled a room that was stacked wall to wall with about 6 foot piles of LP's. We literally had to shimmy up onto the LP's to enter the room and then tunnel down one stack at a time to see what was there. Truly the definition of "digging". By the time we were done we had turned up 5-600 solid psych LP's....major label and small label stuff. I can only imagine what kind of funk and soul LP's we left behind as we were only tuned into psych and rock at the time.
We hit a couple of the other well known stores in town but nothing compared to Goldmine. I will admit we must have been pretty burned out on digging as 3 weeks later legendary digger Carl Weiss hit one of those latter shops and scored a Damon "Song Of The Gypsy" LP that we obviously left behind.
i want the iowa story! what did you find in my state?
Thanks Thanks Thanks
Good stuff. I have been on some day trips and all before and I am myself from a small town so I know that you can find out a lot just by asking around even when there does not appear to be an actual outlet for records in a town. It is amazing what you can scare up if you just get outside of major cities a bit. The heat - I think I'll only be 2-3 days south of TN and the rest will be NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, etc. I can't wait to hit places up north since my friend there always has the greatest finds (around Buffalo and before that Wilmington DE) and he is like a twice a month record digging kind of guy.
Knowing that I can't resist cheap records that may or may not be good, I definitely foresee packing and shipping boxes home along the way.
I still need some ridiculous stories, encounters with the locals, falling asleep at the wheel, etc.
1994 Somewhere between Hickory & High Point North Carolina
Taking a trip to hit worn out Used Record Stores and sleazy Flea Markets can be a crap shoot. Back in the day we would pull into a small town and hit up the local Barber Shop. We'd tell the barber "I heard there was a guy here in town with lots of records" and we'd get a lead 50% of the time. On this particular trip we were gonna hit Greensboro, Raliegh and Charlotte. The month prior to the trip we prepared by going through an old radio Trade magazine, calling Radio Station owners and DJ's at random asking if they had or knew anyone with records to sell.
One old radio guy in High Point told us there was a guy in a small town about 30 miles from him that had a barn filled with records. He didn't know his name, where he lived other than the town or how to get in touch with him. After a couple of days in Shops and Flea Markets and some nice scores(7-8 Justice label Garage LP's, lots of local presses like Kallabash Corp., Zaharas, etc.)we decided to try to find the barn full'o records.
We drove out to the small town and it was smaller than most.....gas station, Post Office and small grocery store. We hit each one asking about the mysterious record barn but everyone we spoke to was clueless. Even the folks in the P.O. had no idea what we were talking about. Just as we were pulling out of town, giving up on the lead, we saw a cop car. Looking like me and flagging down a cop car in the back woods of Carolina can be a questionable move, but we were searching for records!!!! So I flagged him down and sure enough he says "You're looking for Ol' Walt's(I think that was his name) place....follow me".
He led us out of town and then onto a dirt road. About 1/2 mile down the dirt road he waved us on and said "It's just around the corner" and left us there. As we turned a big corner ahead we saw an amazing sight. There were about 500 of those large glass globes on pedestals that folks used to use as lawn ornaments totally engulfing the front lawn of a house. Just to the left was a large barn completely shingled in LP's(I still have a photo of it somewhere). The doors of the barn were open and there were 3-4 cars parked out front.
As we entered we were greeted by a good ol boy in overalls who asked us if we were looking for records. Then he pointed us towards 20-30 tables filled with boxes of records with a few guys digging through them. Looked like a little Record Show going on in this dude's barn. We were pretty excited and just knew we were gonna score big. About 3 hours and NO records later we came to realize that EVERY SINGLE RECORD in this barn was C&W....not folk....not bluegrass...C & Friggin W....Tennessee Ernie Ford for days.
We left empty handed.
Decorah, Iowa 1992
Ever wonder how the "Big Dudes" make all these amazing scores while you're out there scraping the Goodwill.......research and hard work, plain and simple.
Long before us dumb Americans figured out we had vinyl to mine, many Euros, especially Brits, were hitting up our Juke Box Dealers, Radio Stations and old store stock for pennies on the dollar. In the 80's a couple of UK soul dudes told me a few of their secrets. They had been contacting folks via trade magazines and hauling back literally tons of music. They came here with a friggin BUSINESS PLAN!!!
In the late 80's I started using their advice. I found an old C&W radio trade rag and started calling people, really hoping to score some Rockabilly. I spoke to a bunch of very cool characters, but only one lead to records. His name was Verne Koenig and he lived in Decorah, Iowa. Not only did he have records to sell, he sent a computer read-out of his library for me to check out before hitting the road.
The list was amazing, basically every Country, Folk & Bluegrass LP recorded for a major, and many minor labels between '52-'67. Not North carolina Charlie Pride Barn Full 'O Records C&W......friggin REAL C&W....everything on Starday, King, Audio Lab.....everything.......we drove up that weekend with only condition a concern.
There were 6,000 LP's.......Verne was the owner/only DJ at the Radio Station. The LP's were all pristine....just amazing condition other than some expected cover deteriation. Verne was also a musician and you may come across his LP's while you're out there diggin....I have. We rented a U-Haul and headed back to Dallas with every country lp ever worth listening to.
For the next year my living room was a nightly whiskey and smoke driven hillbilly heaven.
Verne's son Jody made an early punk 45 which is cool....we got a few of those too.
as far as the heat...search for shaded parking during the day. refuse to park in sunlight.
shipping for a box of records media mail is about $13. great deal. go to a liquor store, get some boxes and tape em up right. put some balled up newspaper for padding.
stay off big highways. there aint no records on em at all. stick to the secondary roads.
too true, plus its a better way to see america if you are going on a long distance roadtrip. im taking one on thursday, hope i find some illlll records
Thanks....next story I'll throw in some racism and liberal bashing to insure more than just a couple of responses.
Thanks for the stories, good times.
I really can't wait to go, I'm just marking time now.
Longest drive / Most days on the road??
My friends and I used to get our parents to drive us to Goldmine during the early 80's to buy baseball cards. If my memory serves me correctly, it was pretty much out in Westwego (really far out on the West Bank Expressway) rather than Gretna. At any rate, the store was stacked to the gills with records and upon a couple return visits we grew to really appreciate the music, mostly glden oldies 45's, that we'd hear while we were there.
Took off from Dallas with my partner Mark for a 7 day trip that would take us through OKC, Tulsa, Springfield, St. Louis, Little Rock and Texarkana, with stops in various small towns along the way. First stop was the legendary Memory Market in Oklahoma City. This place still operates today and is a large metal building filled with antiques, junk and back then, tons of vinyl. This was the 2nd or 3rd visit for us to the MM and the pickings were slimmer than the initial trips. We hit a Flea Market around the corner and scored 40-50 sealed LP???s with multiple copies of the Bob Markley LP and Michaelo on Tomorrow. By early afternoon we were on our way to Muskogee where this crazy woman ran a Comic Book/Record Shop???.found a few things there, the most notable a 60???s Italian Beat LP by The Rokes.
Day 2 took us to Tulsa and Gardner???s Book Store. For those who have been there recently and seen their paltry offering of LP???s, this place used to be a GOLDMINE. We talked the owner into letting us go through a few pallets of LP???s they had in the warehouse but the best stuff was found out on the floor. Local Okie LP???s like Lyra, Sage, Kammerzell and Totty were easy pickings. We spent most of the day there and then hit a store called Starship which was a total bust. By day???s end we headed to Stillwater to see ???Leather Man???.
Leather Man was an amazing character that would show up at ARC and the Dallas shows always, and I mean ALWAYS, dressed in leather, and what appeared to always be the SAME leather, from head to toe. He was a big tall dude that looked like Napoleon Dynamite with long hair. His hygiene was questionable but his records were top notch. He had a shop in Stillwater for a while and on this our one and only visit, we did pretty well. Lots of major label obscurities. Then it was on to Springfield.
Springfield has always been one of my favorite cities. It has(had?) an amazing strip of old school Motels all with great animated Neon Signs. It was also home to the original Pro Bass Shop which at the time was a big deal. We hit a few stores and one local dealer who had a basement full of records. This is where I scored one of the most amazing 45???s I???ve ever heard. It was a local KC? Release by The Beast titled ???I???m Going Back To The Back Of The Back Of The Woods??????..Imagine Hasil Adkins and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy rolled into one.
From Springfield we wanted to go to Sedalia to sample one of the legendary Guber Burgers at The Wheel Inn but time was tight and there was a Record Show the next morning at the Armory in St. Louis. The St. Louis show seemed to be mostly 45???s but we did score a few goodies. The stores in St. Louis proved to be much better than the show. Gene Haffner???s Record Exchange was always good for some obscure digging and we knew Gene from his days in Dallas so he let us into ???the good stuff???.
We spent two days in St. Louis and then it was south for some fishing on the Missouri/Arkansas border around the Buffalo River Gap area. This is truly one of the prettiest places in the U.S. and is as laid back as it gets. Fishing was good and some local Flea Markets yielded a few raers.
We had one day left, had to be back in Dallas that night, so we hit up Little Rock as our final stop. We went to a shop on University and scored some nice Christian psych like 3 different Wilson McKinley???s. Then it was on to the well known Arkansas Record Exchange with only about an hour to dig. We hit the LP bins and when we wanted to, we could dig pretty damn fast. We were pulling out stuff left and right when the owner came over and asked what the hell we were doing. We explained we were in a hurry and digging as fast as we could to which he responded. ??????No one can look through records that fast, you???re obviously on drugs and I want you out of my store???!! We actually got kicked out for digging too fast!!!
Final count 7 days???. about 600 LP???s and handful of 45's??????some pretty good food???. and some decent fishing but never made it to Texarkana.