For the record . . .
I left my heart in San Francisco — and most of my wallet, thanks to rare vinyl.
It was, for a vinyl obsessive like me, akin to having died and ascended to a very particular sort of heaven, with record bins stretching as far as the eye could see across the clouds, and angels restocking the soul and funk sections every few hours with fresh gems.
I was in San Francisco with a credit card, a list of the best record stores and a map. In the driver’s seat, Andrew Boak, former guitarist with Auckland punk legends, No Tag, and now a local. Andrew had volunteered to be my driver, and he was in no hurry. I was encouraged to take my time, dig deep and find the good stuff.
Hallelujah, was all I could say. This is by far my favourite way to explore a new city. Others might head for cathedrals, art galleries and famous landmarks, but my first impressions of Dublin and Glasgow, Melbourne and Paris, London and Bogota, have all been formed en route to their local record stores.
In taxis, on foot, by train and bus, I’ve found my way to the farflung corners of foreign cities with a singular mission in mind: to find the best record shops, comb through the crates, and take home treasure.
After all, what better excuse to see those areas of a city you might not otherwise visit? The best record stores are often tucked away in basements and side streets, down scuzzy alleys and in corners of street markets in the more colourful, low-rent parts of town.
And the stores themselves offer an important window onto the local culture; a repository of the music that’s been made in that place or washed in from outside, soundtracking the lives of the resident population then passing through many hands until it ended up here, in front of me, covered in dust.
On the fated Saturday, Andrew drove me to Amoeba Records in Haight Street, blasting a demo recording of his current band, Blank Spots, as we punished his clutch waiting for the lights to change on assorted unreasonable hillsides.
Conveniently located beside a medical marijuana dispensary, Amoeba was a former bowling alley, and I bowled out of there with a dozen rare Jamaican 12’’ singles under my arm, as happy as a boy could be.
Next, we hit a second-hand joint called Stuff, tucked under a motorway overpass on Valencia. Andrew drew my attention to a rare LP called Unexplored ,a compilation of early 80s music from New Zealand, released on San Francisco label, Strange Weekend, in 1986.
Blam Blam Blam, Screaming Mee Mees, Androidss, Ponsonby D.C.s: It was strange to stumble across the spiky post-punk output of Aotearoa so far from home. Stranger still that the record also featured an early song by Auckland’s Sonya Waters. The guitarist? Andrew Boak.
The following day, San Francisco was sweltering with the hottest spring temperature since 1954. It being Sunday, I headed out to my own sort of church: a record store named Rooky Ricardo’s on Lower Haight.
Aloof and drily funny, proprietor Dick Vivian made a name for himself as a tidy little mover in the early 60s, doing the Mashed Potato, the Washing Machine and The Jerk on TV dance shows. Later, he bought 35,000 45s from a bankrupt wholesaler, rented a store and started slinging vinyl out into the world.
Three decades on he’s still here, specialising in soul records, drawing collectors from all over the world.
I spent several hours sifting through rare 45s, spending money I didn’t really have, then Dick sent me to his other store across the street where he had even more.
At nearby dance record specialists Vinyl Dreams, a lunchtime party was in full swing. DJs took turns playing records while patrons lounged around, nodding their heads.
A huge jar of dank pot buds sat on the counter, with patrons rolling up between beers. ‘‘I’m coming out to New Zealand later this year,’’ said the genial proprietor through a smoky haze. ‘‘You guys got much of a dance scene down there?’’
In San Francisco’s oldest neighbourhood, The Mission, the wretched and the mad shambled around the intersection of Mission and 14th Street, begging for loose change just a few blocks from the spot where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $10m mansion overlooks Dolores Park.
There were records here, too. A few doors down from a store selling Mexican wrestling masks, we found a few bins of LPs in a corner of a family taqueria where Spanish is the language of choice. I imagine they don’t get much browsing, either; violence between rival Mexican street gangs have ensured this areas still a little scary for your average hipster.
The following day, I hit Records 101 in North Beach. This time, the haul was tiny, but tasty, as I scooped up a moth-eared copy of BT Express’s winningly suggestive 1974 funk classic Do It ‘Til You’re Satisfied and a mint 7’’ single of Luv N’ Haight by San Francisco natives, Sly and The Family Stone, the latter an ode to getting righteously wasted at Haight-Ashbury, just up the road.
And on it went, with visits to Rasputin’s, Recycled Records, Groove Merchant and many more. For the next four days, I was a cultural archeologist, digging in the record bins for precious relics. Everywhere I went, my bags got heavier as my bank balance got lighter. I left my heart in San Francisco, and most of my wallet as well.
On my final day, I realised I was going to have a problem transporting hundreds of albums and 45s back to New Zealand. I headed for Chinatown, in search of cheap luggage tough enough to survive the rugby passes of the Air NZ loading crew.
‘‘This bag very strong!’’ said the sales woman. ‘‘Forty dollar only.’’ Yeah, but the handle seems a little flimsy. ‘‘This handle very good. What you carry? Rocks?’’. No, I am carrying gold, I told her as I handed across two $20 bills. Pure gold.