The First Time I Got a Button and a Sticker That Were Older Than Me

This weekend I was bored and so I went out and did something about it. I found out that a place called Rockaway Records in Silverlake was having a 99 cent sale and decided to check it out.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ME GOING TO RECORD STORES IN LOS ANGELES.

When I was a student at USC, there was a sub-par chain record store across the street, but I did patronize it and remember purchasing such notable albums as "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" by Genesis and the Strokes debut, "Is This It?" My desire for a real record store led me to discover Aron's Records in Hollywood, and specifically, the mega-sales they had twice a year which featured thousands and thousands of CDs for a dollar or two (or three) each.

And then in 2001, I visited the Bay Area and stumbled upon Amoeba Records. I was astonished. It was easily the best record store I had ever seen. And then I found out they were opening a store in Los Angeles within a few weeks. And then my head exploded.

I had little need for any other records stores once Amoeba arrived, and then I left the state for quite a while anyway. Between Amoeba and the new digital music climate, most other independent stores were driven out of business. Aron's closed in 2005, and I was quite sad to realize I would never have another chance to go blind and throw my back out from peering over a profusion of forgotten plastic discs for several hours.

ANYWAYS, I didn't know what to expect from this Rockaway place, and I certainly didn't want to get my hopes up. The sale was in an annex, and was probably about 5% of the size of an Aron's blowout. But it did have a greater variety of merchandise: buttons, concert tickets, posters, promotional photos, stickers, in addition to the standard tables full of CDs and LPs. And everything was 99 cents.

My first attention was the CDs, where I was able to unearth a decent Britpop album, "Love Is Here" by Starsailor, as well as the self-titled debut of Wilson Philips, which is simply the finest recording by a female vocal group descended from members of the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas in human history.

I'm not normally interested in memorabilia, but for 99 cents I thought it might be worth browsing. And I'm glad I did, because I discovered two gems that appeared to be older than I. The first was a button that declared "Beatlemania Is For Real!" In the process of writing this post, I discovered it was actually promoting the soundtrack of a Beatles-inspired Broadway revue, but it's still cool nonetheless.

The second item was a Strawbs sticker that turned out to be from 1974. There's a part of me that wants to use the sticker, although I'm not sure where a good place for it would be, and I also feel like a bit of a poser since all I have is a 2-disc compilation (which I've been listening to a lot in the past few days) and really need to pick up some of their actual albums.

Wait, you've never heard of Strawbs?? Well let me rectify that. Here they are "performing" on Top of the Pops, which unfortunately means they are only miming while the recorded version of the song plays (standard TotP procedure). This song is "Lay Down," and I'll have you know it's based on the 23rd Psalm.



In conclusion, I was quite pleased to find Rockaway Records. I visited the main store afterward, and the whole operation had a homey sort of atmosphere. It offers a pleasant change of pace from Amoeba. And I'm totally going to go back there sometime.

P.S. Here's my 3 dollars and 96 cents plus tax haul: