Cheap Thrills, San Luis Obispo, CA. May 14, 2011

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For Thanksgiving week 2009 we were down in Atascadero visiting my wife Liz's family. One day during our visit, Liz's Uncle Eric and I decided to go down to SLO to see if we could find a music shop so we could jam on guitars for a while. Eric is a really good guitar player and we share very similar tastes in music and have jammed together on a few occasions. On our trek through town we came upon a music store called Cheap Thrills, and decided to go in and kill some time. It's a big place. It had cds, dvds and games on the first floor. I saw stairs going up. I followed and found racks and racks of vinyl! At the time I was still turntable-less and in escrow on a new house, so I couldn't spend any money. I filed this place away in my memory, "like"d it on facebook and vowed to one day return.

This weekend was our first trip down that way since then, and with money in the bank and a new turntable on my bookshelf, I was all but salivating thinking about getting back to this place. So as soon as we arrived and the kids started playing with the cousins, I got the OK from Liz, so Uncle Eric and I jumped in the car and were off!

On the way there Eric said that he had a bunch of old vinyl that he would be happy to let me go through. What?... Again?... Maybe all I need to do is tell everybody I know that I am looking for vinyl and I can end this hunt real quick. Well, we continued on our way, but agreed I would plow through his records later.

The store did not disappoint. We spent probably somewhere between 1 1/2 to 2 hours there. I was trying to stick to a budget so I didn't go too nuts and I considered my selections carefully. They have their vinyl all graded, priced accordingly, and stored in plastic sleeves. Some lower grade stuff was stored below the shelves. They have a ton of stock. I did, however, notice that certain artists are not very well represented in the used record market (if this store is any indication). Zappa on vinyl was non-existent in this store. This is distressing to me because I had planned to try to track down a lot of Zappa. I was all set about a year or so ago to download some Zappa from iTunes only to find out that his widow Gail had pulled his catalogue off of the site. So going back into this vinyl thing I thought I would try to get my Zappa fix. Looks like it won't be so easy. Oh well, not giving up yet!

Anyway I left with 11 new acquisitions. Some key items are a brand new pressing of Velvet Underground & Nico, on yellow vinyl, a bit expensive but totally worth it, such a great album, also Rush- Hemispheres, Rainbow-Difficult to Cure, Jeff Beck- There and Back, Carol King- Tapestry. Joni Mitchell- Ladies of the Canyon and Mahavishnu Orchestra- Visions of the Emerald Beyond. Still spinning it all. Not a skip yet, pretty accurate grading. They also gave me a bunch of plastic sleeves to store them in when I checked out, very cool. A great experience. Can't wait to go back soon.

So back we went to Uncle Eric's. We headed for the garage and he brought out 3 dusty green bins. I started flipping through. Holy shit! Well, I may have gotten about halfway to my goal in one fell swoop! Damn! I left with two of the three bins. I would estimate somewhere between 150 and 200 records and some 45s! No way I can list it all here but I will post about key items as I start plowing through this bonanza. Basically a lot of classic rock from the late 60s through the 80s, lots of blues, and some jazz and country. I asked him about 20 times, "Are you sure about this?" He said "Yeah, yeah go ahead. I replaced it all on cd years ago." I told him that it isn't going anywhere and he knows where to find it if he ever wants it back.

Well, that was my vinyl hunting experience for the weekend. A very nice haul. I think I am set for a while and have a lot of records to listen to. For the next few installments I think I will probably focus on some reviews and other bits of info as I don't see the need to head out shopping for a while.