The sense to come in out of the rain

New Order - Get Ready

I'm in love with weather.

How boringly Canadian is that? I classify days according to weather type, so that when I get up in the morning and look out the window I think 'This day is like a day so many weeks/years ago. That means I'll feel this particular way and these particular activities are appropriate.' It's not that literal or intentional, but upon seeing the outdoor air for the first time each day some unconscious part of me makes a decision or takes a first step down a pre-trod path with stops at given moods and actions.

Today in Kitchener it's not raining, but it's misting. Tiny beads of water buzzing around in the air. The grass is a wetter green. The tops of the office buildings downtown are half not there. It's cool enough to keep your hands in your pockets, but you keep rubbing your fingers together because the air makes your skin warm and smooth. On days like this I want to move to Ireland or England and live in a small village with two pubs, a castle ruin, a few friendly stray dogs and a lot of wool sweaters. Shit, every day I want to move to that village. Or that small town in the south of France that's bursting with colourful vegetation, has a section called the medieval village, a bunch of old men playing petanque and stone walls that are pinkish-beige from all the heat they've absorbed over the ages. But I'll put my tourist idealism away for a few minutes.

The actions appropriate for a day such as this include hiking through the gloom of anything manmade now sprouting with weeds, ferns, and the general greenery of reclamation. Also mixing the fumes of an outdoor laundry vent with what you can recall of age three. Also drinking wine far too early in the afternoon and listening to Van Morrison. Also watching a dog dream. Also frequenting places beneath more than the sky, like basement apartments, underbellies of overpasses, concrete drains, subway stations, caves if you can find them.

Today I have a sexy To Do list that includes items like 'Do taxes' and 'Clean AXMT'. (AXMT 263 is our car. When he lived in New Brunswick he was Gil, flame of Anne of Green Gables. Now he is Axmit, long-haired guitarist of the Norwegian band Valhalla's Vengeance.) Was 'Write stuff' on the list? No! I flout thee, itemized controller of my life. I fart in your general direction.

Awhile back I wrote about my music collection, and about the tie-in of albums and memories. Music collections these days less frequently occupy shelf space, and more often are hosted in devices that look like sticks of gum or small calculators. Or fat, pastel-coloured beans, in the case of Shauna's, which she left on the couch here beside me. 'Album' is to 'playlist' as 'horse and buggy' is to 'car'. While I have a significant amount of mp3s on my computer, I am faithful to the discman, the stereo, the cases---pleasing square plastic units, slim building blocks of the tower of song. I call myself a collector, though I'm not as hardcore as the vinyl-heads. Music doesn't need added imperfections in my mind.

I estimate between 300 and 400 CDs in my collection. Did I buy them all brand new? Heck no. If $25 is the average cost of a new CD and I have, say, 350 CDs, that's $8750 shelled out for CDs in the past ten years. Jumpins. The only time I buy a CD full price, brand new is when it is a new album of a band I really like or when I feel like throwing cash around because I'm a complete fool. Aspiring CD collectors listen up, I will fill you in on the secrets...

Hit your local used-CD store. Many years ago, like when I was in grade six, I remember how kids considered it terribly gauche to shop at Charlottetown's primary used-clothing store, Froggy's. This was the late eighties, decade of the materialistic and fashionistic. These values were cast aside in the early nineties when grunge scorned the new and polished for the slack, the well-worn, the worn-out and the dirty. I haven't seen the receipts, but I'm sure business picked up at Froggy's, and I do know that several other used-clothing stores and even a few 'retro' boutiques opened up for a cut of the market. The about-face in attitudes was startling, even in PEI where trends arrive at the speed of a rowboat crossing the Northumberland Strait. Anyway, in the music world, used-CD shops never suffered the same scorn. The oldest one in PEI is Back Alley Discs, which, though it no longer resides in a back alley, is still in operation. Back Alley is operated by a well-known figure of the Island music scene, and the merchandise you'll find there is more for the discerning collector; it's a small boutique and there's no place in the bins for twenty copies of Third Eye Blind's debut album. Instead, you'll likely find artists you've never heard of and the less common albums of artists you have heard of. I bought The Police's Zenyatta Mondatta and Neil Young's Zuma at Back Alley, for example, among many other albums over the years. The prices there are reasonable---usually $8 to $10, or slightly more for really rare goodies. Every trip home entails a stop in at Back Alley, even if just for old time's sake. In other cities I've found similar stores; small, discerning, always with intriguing music playing on the stereo, maybe a little incense burning, and often operated by a musician or feverish collector with a striking similarity to John Cusack's character in High Fidelity. Fredericton has Back Street Records (what is it with good music and out-of-the-way thoroughfares?); Toronto has similar places about once every two blocks. I usually leave these places with one or two harder-to-find albums of bands that I already know and like.

There are also used-CD stores with less ambience, less atmosphere of discernment, but a lot more volume. We're talking bin upon bin. While you will have to wade through twenty copies of Third Eye Blind, Britney Spears One More Time, Hootie and the Blowfish Cracked Rear View and other albums people have realized are crap and shed like pestilent blankets, you will come across the occasional goodie. I call this process sifting, and while doing it I usually carry a metal pan and mumble through missing teeth about the mother lode that eluded me at the Klondike. Don't bug me while I do this and definitely don't cut in front of me in the alphabetical rows, pardner, or you'll see the business end of my 'coon musket!

Anyway. As compared to the Back Alley boutiques, these places are warehouses, and while you might not feel as cool shopping there, they definitely serve a purpose. Usually the prices are slightly lower, between $5 and $8, making it possible to purchase more than one or two albums at a time. The Cash Converters chain is a good example of this type of CD store, though they require patience as the staff spend little time on inventory management so the bins are often spilling over into boxes on the floor, the place has the sad atmosphere of pawn/junk shop desperation, and they will accept anything, so you have to be prepared for even more copies of Hootie's Shitty Album #3, or whatever. (Or REM Monster, an unexpected presence among this shameful crew...don't know what happened there.) You won't find Pink Floyd's Ummagumma there, but if you're missing a popular classic like The Wall, you might come across it. Granted its case will be scratched and the liner notes may be water-damaged, but the album should still be playable.

My favourite of the warehouse stores is unquestionably Digital World on Dundonald St. in Fredericton. DW is a great store, and I spent many a sifting hour there. Several features make it stand out. Like Cash Converters, it sells used musical instruments, video games, computers, movies and CDs; however, the staff keep the place clean and in order, and the merchandise is in general of much better quality---they will not accept John Doe's broken junk and try to sell it back to their customers. The place is staffed by a bunch of happy young long-haired guys who all play in local bands, know their music and clearly enjoy working there. Usually when you bring a stack of CDs to the counter they offer a few comments on a gem or two you've picked, boosting your collector ego. (If a hip musician approves, you must have taste.) Conversely, if you select a complete groaner, they don't point it out or even give you a scornful eyebrow raise unless you ask for their opinion. Remember the scene in High Fidelity where Jack Black's character will not allow an average square father to buy a silly record for his daughter and ridicules him right out of the store? Don't worry, this won't happen at Digital World.

When it comes to the actual CDs, they have tons and while there is some crap, a lot of it has been shuffled off to the $2 bin. Most times I go there I manage to find 5 to 10 CDs of solid quality and middling rarity. I've only found one other store that manages to successfully combine volume and discernment, which I'll get to in a minute. This combination, and the reasonable $5 to $8 prices, makes DW the best store to try out new artists, whether it's bands you've heard of but never heard or bands that are completely foreign but have a cool name or an artful album cover. I didn't amass my collection by only buying the work of bands I was already familiar with; you have to go out on a limb and follow a hunch every now and again. This pays off sometimes and burns you others; case in point my trials of New Order and Pet Shop Boys. I will probably never, ever play that Pet Shop Boys album again (but will not get rid of it, that's collector folly) but now own three New Order albums, am looking for more, and am in fact listening to Get Ready as I type, which they released in 2001 and all out rocks. Those of you not interested in foppish British bands from the eighties might ask 'what's the difference between New Order and Pet Shop Boys?' I shake my head in sadness at your philistinism.

The other quality/quantity store I referred to is Sonic Boom, which I recently discovered in Toronto. It actually edges out Digital World in terms of both; you could park several school buses in the store space, and its merchandise is extensive, constantly updated, of highest discernment (I have seen many CDs I've never heard of but look so very cool there) and meticulously classified according to genre and artist. It is also staffed by a bunch of guys who look like musicians, or at least they sport all the usual trappings---long/messy hair, tattoos, intentionally grubby clothes. They don't have the welcoming exhuberance of DW's staff, though, and there is a slight element of Toronto-ism to them---if they let you into their coolness club, it might dilute it a bit. But they're not snooty waiters, either, so don't worry that they'll sniff if you bring a Madonna album to the counter. Sonic Boom truly is the Cadillac of used-CD stores in my experience, but in a couple of ways I still prefer Digital World. One: their pricing is much better; Sonic Boom's prices range from $6.95 for used CDs marked 'scuff' (small scratches that aren't really noticeable in playback) to upwards of $20 for new, rare stuff. I would say the average price is $10.95, so buying several CDs still hits the wallet harder...and it's hard not to haul a pile to the counter every time you visit. Two: I can't believe the management of Sonic Boom, whom I assume are collectors and connaisseurs par excellence, have not come to the realization that it is much easier to please your CD junky clientele if you STORE YOUR DAMN CDs WITH THE SPINES FACING UP! Back Alley Discs gets this right, as does Digital World, but Sonic Boom prefers them with the spine to the left, so that to see all the titles you have to flick through with your fingers, a process that not only takes much longer, it also fills the store with a headache-inducing clack-clack-clack noise that drowns out whatever good music is playing and generally reduces the pleasure of sifting. If it weren't for Sonic Boom's redeeming qualities, this would be enough for me to never darken their doorway again. Frustration aside, I do love you, Sonic Boom. Just the other day you provided me with...

New Order Get Ready - already discussed, am very pleased with.

Sleeping Lords of Iona We Found A Love In The Streets But It Was Not Ours - never heard of them but I bought the CD because it was really cheap, I love the band name and album title, and the album cover bears an appealing photograph of a below-mountain village in Japan. The music: pretty good, trip-hoppy, kind of like recent Radiohead with a female singer.

Everything But the Girl Temperamental - everybody knows "Missing" ('And I'm missing you/Like the deserts miss the rain') but I think this duo deserves to be much more than a one-hit wonder. This is a good album; catchy beats and electronica mixed with a really nice voice and decent lyrics. Sadly, I also suspect that they never became more popular, at least in North America, because Tracey Thorn, the singer, isn't very good looking.

Run Lola Run Soundtrack - have been looking for this since seeing the movie several years ago. It's a decent, if repetitive, collection of mid/late nineties techno and listening to it makes me want to run around the city like Franka Potente. Man, she must have been in shape after filming that movie.

So there you have my latest purchases. Gee, there's a lot of synthesizers and drum machines on those albums and nary an acoustic guitar. Must be Toronto's urban hipness rubbing off on me.

Okay, so I've filled you in on used-CD stores. They're all you need to know about in order to start building a good collection, right? Wrong. Used-CD stores are key, perhaps central, but there are other important resources you should not neglect.

Your local library. 'Ryan, you're suggesting I steal CDs from my library and keep them for myself?!' Never. Don't be foolish. Borrow them. Pop them in your computer. If you have a program like Real Player, it will coyly suggest that you save the songs to your library. Why say no? You have a copy of the songs, and the CD goes back to the library for another patron to enjoy. You can then leave the songs on the computer or burn them to a blank CD.

There are pros and cons to the library resource. It is obviously the cheapest way of obtaining new music, so there's zero chance that you'll get burned by chancing it on an album that appeals to your curiosity in even the slightest way. Purely for the silly name I once signed out Shekkie II Electric Boogaloo by deservedly unknown Canadian band Dig Circus. It sucked but I payed nothing save a few minutes of aural pain for it, so no biggie (and no shekkie). Again, the flipside of this is that you can chance it and come across something good, like the time I signed out The Bravery's self-titled debut because I thought the cover was pretty. The Bravery is another contemporary throwback to eighties pop, like The Killers, but what their album lacks in soul and substance it makes up in catchiness. Obviously you don't get to keep the original CD and liner notes, which I would prefer to have, but I'm not so much of a purist that I won't include burnt CDs in my collection. Also, every so often I get thirsty for a different sound but none of my favourite bands have a new album out; the library is a great place to place to go and randomly select some new bands and hopefully uncover at least one or two worth adding to the List Of Bands I Like And Therefore You Should Too.

The library does have its limitations. Back in Fredericton the public library only lets you sign out four CDs at a time. This can be a blessing in disguise as their collection isn't that large, so you can't exhaust it very quickly. I was bowled over when the nice lady at the Kitchener Public Library told me I could sign out as many CDs as I wish. However, their collection isn't much larger and I think now, after having made about five mass sign-outs, I might have exhausted the supply of CDs that bear any interest to me. Also, as libraries are not for profit you won't find the newest releases, and the nice librarians don't select CDs with the same eye for quality and rock 'n roll as the staff of my favourite used-CD stores. Library collections seem to be mandated for Can-con, which is a notion I support, but it's probably only thrilling to actual Canadian artists and devoted Tom Cochrane fans. For some reason, these Tom Cochrane fans never seem to make it to the KPL, as his CDs are never signed out. I wonder why. Also, libraries try to cater to all demographics so the Pop/Rock section is rivalled in size by snores like Gospel, Adult Contemporary and World Music. This is great if you're a Richard Clayderman fan, but again, these fans never seem to come around...

Finally, not every CD in the new-CD stores is prohibitively priced. MusicWorld has always been my favourite chain because they frequently sell new CDs for less than $18, or 2/$25, or even as cheap as $9. HMV has similar deals. The one thing you have to ask yourself is "Am I buying this because I really want it, or is the low price making me overlook the likelihood of crappiness?" Sometimes these CDs are cheap because, face it, they suck. I once bought a David Gilmour album on the premise that it was cheap and hey, he's the singer from Pink Floyd so it must be good. Well, I've heard worse, but suffice to say I haven't taken that album off the rack in years. But, again, taking the risk can pay off---I don't know how many times I've seen Esthero's Breath From Another for $9 at MusicWorld and I assure you, it is a very good album.

So, to sum up, CD collecting is like any other form of investment; if you select your risks wisely, they are more likely to provide good returns. I hope you have enjoyed the Ryan Conway Seminar On...shit, that's so cheesy. I can't be bothered ending with a flourish, so I'll just stop typing now and you can put up with it.