mu[sic]
a column by B. Jone

Low Times in a High Fidelity World

"What is it with you people who work in record stores?" a customer asked one day while completing his purchase of a hard-to-find Ozark Mountain Daredevils The Car Over the Lake album, complete with the bonus flexidisc. It cost him all of seven dollars, a king’s ransom which obviously entitled him to harass me.

Feigning innocence and incomprehension, as well as suppressing the flood of expletives leaping through my brainpan, I calmly chirped, "What do you mean?"

"You all have these attitudes…you seem to think you are superior people," he continued, without a shred of decorum.

"Try working at one for a while and see what happens to you," I gently snapped back, thus ending our conversation.

He’s both right and wrong. I’ve been working at record (as in vinyl records, LPs, the finest musical media ever produced) stores for the better part of a decade, and shopping at them for nearly twice as long. I’ll be the first to admit that most record store clerks have piss-poor attitudes. But this condition is decidedly not because we believe we are superior people. And it’s not, as my valued customer implied, that we ride the high road because we possess a greater wealth of musical knowledge; nor is it the fact that our record collections put yours to shame. No, the reason we have attitudes is that we’re forced to endure an unbelievable amount of crap on a daily basis. And my tactless customer is just the tip of the iceberg.

We have customers – a generous term, considering that most people who come through my door believe I’m running some type of library or museum – who apparently didn’t learn the same alphabet as did myself and the bulk of the populace. My store, like most record stores, alphabetizes its stock meticulously. Then people come along and screw it up. Robin Trower comes after Pat Travers, and they both come after Pete Townshend. But not according to the brainiacs who paw through my goods. I’ve found Dolly Parton lodged behind Johnny Paycheck, Carole King wedged in with the Limeliters, and – and this one still puzzles me – John Lee Hooker in John Coltrane’s spot. Christ, they’re not even in the same damn section of the store.

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