Kansas City Blog

Needmore has mostly used CDs, with some used vinyl and a smattering of new vinyl, plus used DVDs. It's a fun, laid-back place to shop -- the kind of place where if you overhear the owners talking about something at the counter, you're more than welcome to join in for a couple yuks. I did, however, manage to work up my typical Record Store Back Sweat (RSBS). Call me gross, whatever, but when I go to record stores, I get so worked up trying decide what to buy that the small of my back turns into a slip 'n slide. I settled on a newer pressing of Marquee Moon by Television and a used copy of Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story, and thus I congratulated myself on no longer being a poseur about saying I love those albums when I didn't even have physical copies of them. I also got two CDs of African music, one Afrobeat (Fela Ransome-Kuti) and one Malinese (Salif Keita), both awesome. I like African music. I also still like CDs. It's been on my mind quite a bit lately that while my digital music collection continues to explode with heroic proportion, my CD collection cuts off right around 2003 and contains a lot of purchases made when I was in high school. Unfortunately, the display of CDs features prominently in my apartment. Gotta freshen that shit up or hide it away.

A Chinese-restaurant-saturated blocks north, Vinyl Renaissance was winding down a reported great day of business. Earlier in the day, Lee Dresser of the Krazy Kats had performed, but when I rolled in around 5, the kats at the kashier were bumping indie/electro remixes of MGMT and other trendy shits.

VR, by the way, is huge. And clean. Very clean. Right when you walk in, you're faced with the used vinyl collection, immaculately plastic-sleeved and alphabetized. Next to it are a few rows of new vinyl, and next to that: the rarities section. There was some special going on that day where if you bought a Beatles rarity album you got a such-and-such, but it was too complicated for my non-collector mind to fathom. In fact, I picked up a record in the rarities section, and I don't even remember what it was -- all I remember is the $300 price tag searing into my brain. For the budget-conscious, VR also has cheap used vinyl and used CDs aplenty. They also sell turntables and stereo equipment, including this crazy thing:

VR owner Dan Phillips referred to it as a "70s schlong." Those are actually ESS Transar AMT Heil speakers with a Gauss sub-woofer. German-made speaker set. The thing on the right produces sound, somehow, from that central, vertical array of crystalline objects. And then you got the sub on the floor. "We're never going to sell this to a guy who's married," Phillips remarked. He's got two of them, priced at $2,500 each.

Phillips' partner in crime is Frank Alvarez, the courteous and helpful grown-up punk who worked at Recycled Sounds back in the day. "We couldn't be happier," Alvarez told me when I asked how business was doing, adding that the down economy doesn't seem to have hurt vinyl sales too much. VR participated in some of the National Record Store specials, offering up limited-edition 45s of bands like the Stooges, the MC5, the Decemberists and a split single with Sonic Youth and Beck. They were only $5 each, but I couldn't bring myself to buy one. After a nearly debilitating RSBS, I left instead with Lou Reed's The Bells and Autobahn by Kraftwerk -- more records I have all this time purported to know without owning.

Thank you, Needmore Discs and Vinyl Renaissance, for keeping me honest.