Record Store Day: Rain Edition.

I stumbled into the Record and Tape Traders in Towson on the second Record Store Day back in 2008, unaware of the event. The clerks filled me in on the details and I excitedley purchased a Dead Weather single. I've been wanting to hit up Soundgarden in Fells Point -- a participating store, which R&TT technically isn't -- ever since. But for the last two years, circumstances have kept me away. I don't remember the details; it's the kind of nonsense that married people have to deal with. My wife would know.

Yesterday, I was determined. I'd primed wifey with the idea that This Was Going To Happen. I'd budgeted the cash. I'd printed my Amazon Wish List. All was ready for me to breath record store air.



'Course the Mum-in-Law was in town, and wifey had a play to do at night. Not a problem. And it was raining. Kinda hard.

But I rolls with the punches. We take MiL to the local Cracker Barrel and gorge. We come back. I check the weather: Tornado watch. Wifey and MiL are having girl time. I do one or five other things. Pretty soon it's four o'clock. Wifey's call time is 6:30.

I suspected that we should have left earlier, and I was right. I-95 is a parking lot. We crawl from Bel Air to White Marsh, as Wifey falls silent so as not to disturb my irritation, as I contemplate trying to find a Parking spot in Fells Point in this weather. I realize I'd left my wish list at the house. When TomTom can't find an alternate route that gets me there before 5:40, I give up, exiting I-95 at White Marsh,  lamenting my fate as gentlemanly as I could manage.

Wifey chimes in "would we have time to hit up Record and Tape Traders?"

This is why I married her: I'd been thinking the same thing.

So we rode the beltway to Towson and landed exactly where I'd stumbled in three years previously. I breathed record store air. I had half-an-hour to grab what I could remember:

1. I may have mentioned that I've been trying to learn the guitar. As I am currently 34 years old and counting, becoming a guitarist for a rock-n-roll band is unlikely. But in order to practice, you need a goal. So I've got it in my head that I can become a jazz guitarist, which you can do as an old fart. So I picked up the only jazz guitarist I'm familiar with: John Scofield's album with Medeski, Martin and Wood.

2. I don't know what it is, but of late I've been digging some metal. One of my Pandora stations is devoted to The Sword, and this band keeps popping up. I'm a big fan of Moby Dick, so Leviathan was the go-to choice.

3. You can't go to a record store on RSD and not buy vinyl. After grabbing the first two on CD, I was looking for a nice vinyl purchase. I'd picked up the chatter about the Feelies and their influence, and listened to some iTunes samples, and liked what I heard. R&TT wanted $19.95 for Crazy Rhythms on vinyl, and $14.95 for the CD. Wifey says "It's five bucks. Get the Vinyl." She even stops me at the counter to point out vinyl copies of Kill City, which I pass on. I reward her awesomeness with an Adele CD she wanted.




We made it to the theater with ten minutes to spare, even after stopping to get food. In the process, I had discovered the secret to life: Determination, and an understanding wife.