'tude from record-store clerks: myth or reality?

Yeah, I have to say, I've never experienced this, either.

I definitely remember when I was younger always feeling the cold shoulder from clerks when I would try to chat about what was playing, etc. But they were probably just bored of talking about that shit all day. Anyway, now I never bother trying to start a conversation with clerks, so maybe that bad taste is still left in my mouth.

yeah, i don't get this claim at all. kim's in nyc seems to get this rep especially badly but no one there has ever treated me with any kind of disdain that i can remember and i've shopped there tons of times. (they don't mind when i pop in to put down the occasional flyer for my job either.)

Haha strangely the rudest music store guy I've ever dealt with another poster on this same board thinks is really super friendly so it's probably all depends on catching someone at the right moment.

dudes have been cool to me for the most part.

I've never had a clerk look down his nose at anything I was buying though. I suspect that's probably a myth (or at least definitely not widespread in any way.) But general rudeness or just plain distantness? That's definitely a reality. Hell when I worked at an indie record store I was occassionally rude and distant to my fellow employees, so I sure as hell wasn't always going to be nice to customers.

I've never gotten any outright rudeness - mostly just indifference. The enthusiastic clerk is a rarity.

if you are cool people will be cool. for the most part. or at least ignore you in a non-offensive way. and by cool i mean just acting cool and not being a jerk. but if you are a jerk, you will get treated accordingly. or ignored in a really rude way. lots of people are intimidated as soon as they walk in a record store. same with video stores. and they act strangely. and they imagine things.

I definitely got the "are you sure you belong in *this* record store?" treatment from one of the women at 33° in Austin (which, for the record, isn't even that great a record store) when I lived there. I'll never forget the look she shot me when I asked about the Badman Records John Denver tribute; when I finally got her to look it up (oh!-so-begrudgingly), she seemed genuinely disappointed about the loss of the story to tell her cooler-than-thou record shop pals about the square fellow who came to *her* record store of *all places* to inquire about a John Denver record!

Nah video store clerks are definitely rude.

video store clerks are rude because people who walk into video stores suddenly become RAGING ASSHOLES for no reason. i've been there. i never want to go back.

Haha I'm not saying video store clerks don't have their reasons (I definitely did), I'm just saying that it ain't no MYTH. VIDEO STORE CLERKS HATE YOU!

for the most part, people who go into record stores and hang out forever and ask 400 questions and never buy anything will be treated with disdain.

greatest record store customer = me. head down. silent. spends $$$. leaves. all they see is a cloud of dust. who was that masked man? (with impeccable taste)

i lost my job and went to work at my friend's video store in philly and i didn't do it very long because i immediately started to look for work elsewhere cuz i wanted to KILL on a daily basis. and, yeah, i hated everyone.

video store clerks are rude because people who walk into video stores suddenly become RAGING ASSHOLES for no reason. i've been there. i never want to go back.

-- scott seward, Monday, 23 July 2007 23:43 (5 minutes ago) Link

otfm

Yeah well unlike record stores where most of the customers just go silently about their schtick, a VAST % of video store customers seem to have the sole stated purpose in life of driving video store clerks crazy.

there was one guy who would do this to me every night at the video store:

him: so, did you see this?

me: yeah, i saw it.

him: what did you think...?

me: i liked it. it was okay.

him: OH GOD I HATED IT!!!! IT WAS HORRIBLE!!!! HOW COULD YOU LIKE IT, BLAH, BLAH...four hour scathing review of everything wrong with it...

me: oh, okay.

EVERY FUCKING NIGHT. finally, i wouldn't admit to seeing ANY movie. he would try and try and i would feign ignorance no matter what it was.

Anyone posting any image at this point from a certain Kevin Smith or two deserves a beatdown.

"When is that movie coming in. . . can you call me when you get it in. . . can you call me at this # first and then try this #. . . I'll be in within the hour to pick it up. . . oh I have a late fee. . . how much is it. . . can I pay it next time. . . oh I already deferred it twice. . . I don't have enough money for the movie and the late fee. . . I swear I'll pay when I return it. . . have you seen this movie btw. . . is it good. . . oh nevermind. . . I'll just get something else."

All of the Pier Platters people were really nice and I used to hang out there and chat all the time but I do vividly remember one nearly verbatim High Fidelity moment when someone came in to buy an Anita Baker album.

Thing was, they really only HAD good records so there would have been no way to come up to the counter with anything that sucked.

R.I.P.

Much respect to Pier...

i've never really experienced this either. however, there was a shop in glasgow now long gone called echo records that was run by two 50 something brothers who were notoriously grumpy, almost to the point of parody. they had run various record shops in scotland for a couple of decades and had long since ceased to ever speak to each other. on several occasions i saw one of the brothers ridiculing customers who asked about records that offended his sensibilities and once something offended him so much that he threw the customer out. what made this odder was that it was a fairly mainstream record shop except for the fact that the ruder brother and another guy who worked there (who had also mastered the art of extraordinary rudeness to customers) were massive industrial fans so it had an amazing industrial selection. saturday afternoon shoppers popping in to purchase 'now that's what i call music volume 237' would be subjected to muslimguze records at ear shredding volume and unparalleled levels of abrasive rudeness and scorn.

i loved that shop.

Scott OTM re:record stores. I worked at an indie for 5 years and must add that if you repeatedly show up just before closing time you deserve the worst treatment imaginable.

hey fellow ex-video store clerks.

im totally fucking with you.

i had a guy threaten to wait for me outside of the store when i told him i couldn't do anything about his $200 late fee.

(xxpost)Haha wait how can you say you've never experienced it and then tell that story!

i used to work in a video shop. customers would come in with a certain faked "zany" attitude that you could always spot, and then they'd ask "got any funny comedies?"

When it happens 10 times a day, it's simply impossible not end up being an asshole to them, unfortunately.

Scott OTM re:record stores. I worked at an indie for 5 years and must add that if you repeatedly show up just before closing time you deserve the worst treatment imaginable.

-- blunt, Monday, July 23, 2007 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

boo hoo try cooking at a bar and getting all those fuxx that order shitloads of food right before the kithen closes!!!

(xxpost)Haha wait how can you say you've never experienced it and then tell that story!

i've never experienced it personally as they were always very pleasant to me. probably because i was into industrial and the other guy who worked there was one of my best friends.

customers would come in with a certain faked "zany" attitude that you could always spot, and then they'd ask "got any funny comedies?"

is this a type?! is it like the uncle who does magic/pull my finger type? i'm trying to picture it.

maybe it was the fact I could never think of any good comedies.

/misery guts

I never get attitude at the indies I go to.

I always get attitude at Cheapo's.

Coolness (ie good curating) of store is directly proportional to coolness (ie "let's swap tapes & have beers") of employees, in my experience.

definitely depends on the store and the day. all the clerks in Amoeba SF were totally unhelpful and rude when i went there. (and also, fuck a record store without listening booths). meanwhile, the guys down the haight at Tweekin, who i'd been told were jerks, were so nice and awesome. they even let me hit their bowl.

Echo? is that the one in Byres road that was impossible to browse cds as they were stacked so high? My mate loved that shop and I hated it. But i don't remember anyone being that unfriendly when I used to go in the late 90s. I only went because of FOPP just up the road and I could get all my funk vinyl there.

Now it's just Lost In Music left.

there was one store in toronto that was a bit lame about this but i've mostly only had good experiences. even, very good. you just have to be chill.

and polite.

it's simple enough. people can have a weird chip on their shoulder when entering these stores. it's strange. or a weird obliviousness when it comes to common courtesy. must be all that bad indie rock that hypnotizes them.

hey I work at a record store... and if you're even remotely normal, I'm as nice as possible.

But if you buy a cd, then complain loudly about the music we're playing, ask us to turn it off, don't notice how surprised we are by the request, then *demand* to have it turned off, claiming that we should do so because you "spent money here," angrily grab your confused girlfriend, drag her out of the store, come in again five minutes later to demand your money back, refuse to believe that we don't do cash returns, start screaming, claiming that we're breaking the law, and then tell us that you're going to call 911, get the police in, and see that charges are pressed, then finally just yell "fuck off!" before storming away, trying to break our door...

then yeah, we'll probably be mad enough retort "where?"

(it was the worst comeback I've ever come up with)

seriously half of the people we deal with are nice, and it's great to talk with them, sell them some music, etc. but the other half of them (it really is that many), seem to be waiting for you to do *anything* that they can through a fit about. It's obviously worse when you're buying product from them. People don't like to find out that their collection of promotional slims/skuffed cds/moldy easy listening vinyl is worthless.
And honsetly you hate to break it to them.

er, the "get the police in, see that charges are pressed part" is what the guy SAID would happen. Not what actually happened.

also through = throw... geez

you sound like a dick

anyway i worked in a record store for most of my teenage years and early 20's i was always nice and happy to be there but people still said i was snotty.

haha you think he sounds like a dick = you were probably the snottiest fuck ever.

I don't really think I am... seriously my coworkers and I try to be really nice, I just wanted to illustrate that there are customers that can kinda push things a bit.
Was it the comment about how there are "really that many of them" that made me sound like a dick? Cuz maybe that was a bit extreme, but it really does seem that a lot of people enter our store angry. And I'd like to think that we are still polite with them, as a rule.

just turn down the fucking music if a dood says its too loud.

Echo? is that the one in Byres road that was impossible to browse cds as they were stacked so high? My mate loved that shop and I hated it. But i don't remember anyone being that unfriendly when I used to go in the late 90s

that's the one. i pretty much stopped going in in the mid 90s when they stopped stocking vinyl. anyhow, they were typically only unfriendly if they didn't like the look of you or if you asked for something they deemed awful. but even at their best, it wasn't exactly service with a smile. i think part of their bitterness and general misanthropy stemmed from the fact that their former outlet - listen records - went bust primarly due to the staff robbing the place blind.

no he didn't want it turned down. he wanted it turned off. because he didn't like it.

(it was pretty quiet)

my bad

Haha strangely the rudest music store guy I've ever dealt with another poster on this same board thinks is really super friendly so it's probably all depends on catching someone at the right moment.
-- Alex in SF, Monday, July 23, 2007 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

HI!

i was a dick when i worked at a record store. the majority of my job was finding new and unusual ways to make the customer feel stupid without them realizing it. i eventually was asked to work at the headquarters of the company doing weird business shit, probably because they could tell i was getting jaded and angry.

but seriously, it was because when you work in retail you realize how fucking stupid most people are.

I went in there once and looked around and laughed at the high prices and then just bought a single 45 record adapter - he charged me $1.45 - no lie - whadda douche

Some selected VV comments from other ILM threads (I didn't include any of my own comments):

So today I found myself running an errand just down the street from the Vintage Vinyl store I moaned about earlier in the thread and thought I'd duck in to see if anything has changed. Of course not, in fact, I think the prices have gone up! They were selling some of the latter day Amon Duul II reissues on CD for $29.99 and $39.99 each! One of which I had just bought at another store in town for $18.99. Ridiculous. I flipped through the Neil Young section and saw they had the audacity to be asking $109.99 for a three-disc bootleg compilation of International Harvester Tour stuff. I mean, who the fuck pays for this stuff??
But the icing on the cake was the new vinyl section. Copies of fairly new and easy to find stuff for insane, insane prices. New Ariel Pink record on vinyl? $24.99. The one that pushed me over the edge and caused me to actually laugh out loud at the prices, however, was the $39.99 for a Wilco vinyl.

clemenza OTM. I've bitched before on this board about a place called Vintage Vinyl just north of Chicago. Ridiculous, ridiculous prices. A beat up copy of Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town? $15. What is even more disappointing is that the store does carry a fantastic selection of kraut and psych releases, but at even more astounding prices. Want used Can vinyl? They start at $55 and go up from there.
Also, they sell CDs. But only sloppily assembled CD-Rs of live boots. You know the kind, the Dylan shows on two discs for $45.
I hate that place with a passion.

If you are willing to get completely ripped off, you can always try Vintage Vinyl in Evanston.

Vintage Vinyl is nice to look at but don't waste your time unless you want to drop some serious loot and feel like an asshole at the same time for patronizing a shop with such ridiculous pricing. The last time I was in there, they were charging 22$ for the NEU! reissues on CD. Bullshit.

In Chicago, Vintage Vinyl in Evanston is ridiculous. I hate that place. More personal museum than record store.

ahh good I'm not the only one who thinks Vintage Vinyl is a nightmare. It's one of those stores where you probably couldn't find a STeely Dan LP for less than 10 bucks.

Vintage Vinyl is still there, and still sucks./q]

Is that Vintage Vinyl place up in Evanston still there? All I remember is that they had seriously overpriced LPs

I just thought "overpriced" left the impression that everything cost a few dollars more than usual, whereas with Vintage Vinyl it's much weirder than that.

This has been discussed here before, so you can check the archives for a full explanation, but: watch out for Vintage Vinyl. I'm not saying don't go there, or anything -- just be careful and make sure you know what you're buying and what it's worth. Just because he's selling something for $50 doesn't mean it's not in the 99 cent bin of several other stores.

I stopped going into Vintage Vinyl in 1990. When I saw the $70 price tag for Chelsea Girl, which I had just bought at 2nd Hand Tunes on Morse (a real shithole) for $5 (a great price back then, by the way) - I haven't set foot in there since... I was wondering if anyone had ever bought anything there. I've always wondered how that guy stays in business..

The Vintage Vinyl guy is a complete fucking prick. I've had many discussions with Chicago record collector friends on pulling some pranks and/or mass theft against that fucker, but we never got around to doing anything. (Record collectors, y'know?)

Vintage Vinyl in Evanston has some nice stuff occasionally (albeit at sky-high prices), but the older guy who works there is a total jerk.

etc.

Haha...started going to VV 20+ years ago, mainly because it was the only place I knew to find Who bootlegs. Also, I was twelve. I don't think I've spent more than $20 in there over the last 15 years; last thing I bought was the issue of Creem where Lester Bangs reviewed The Who By Numbers for $3. I always wondered how that place stayed in business, but as someone told me, "He probably only needs to sell two or three of those insanely overpriced records a week to cover his costs." But the last time I was there, in late 2010, I swear he still had some of the same stock he had in 1985.

From the Dope Jams "About" page:

Dope Jams opened its doors in 2006 after two years of tireless planning and construction---coinciding with the tragic closing of many of New York City's finest dance music establishments. The timing was no coincidence. From the beginning, the shop, sandwiched between the historic Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bed-Sty and Ft. Green, sought more than a simple profit. Opening at the peak of the so-called "digital revolution" never faired well for vinyl sales, and it would be a fallacy to describe the journey from the store's infancy to its present status as anything but trying. But Dope Jams' mission to maintain and disseminate underground culture in the midst of an uncertain era in dance music's history testifies to the institution's true calling: a haven for anything and anyone that doesn't fit into the rigid and commodified categories of the new New York, a stark contrast to the mythologized promised land of all things playfully subversive and utterly foward-looking.

I love self-aggrandizing "mission statements" with glaring typos and misspellings. This sounds like the most pretentious record store in the world.

that dope jams mission statement is ridiculous. especially for a store called "dope jams."

Saw this:

saw the article and thought of this thread:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-in-love-with-girl-from-record-store,309/

― messiahwannabe, Monday, 11 July 2011 07:42 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and, obv, thought of:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uB-0D-gV8mY/RwkTynuam_I/AAAAAAAAEcE/j1BXE3t7TPI/s400/freshies

dope jams is in a nice spot but it's not a great store iirc.

"I wanted to get the first Modern Lovers album, but I didn't want her to know I didn't already own it," said Jody Osbourne of San Diego. "To cover up, I told her some big, long story about how my friend is such a jerk because he borrowed it a long time ago and never gave it back. When I was done with this four-minute spiel, she just said, 'I hate Jonathan Richman.' I wanted to curl up in a ball and die."

roffle

Is fiction: Nobody hates Jonathan Richman.

Unless they know him personally, or something...

A few years back I was in Jackpot records in Portland, and they were playing something nice over the PA. I asked the clerk what it was, and he told me it was the new Phish album. "Really?" I asked. "Really," he affirmed. I'm pretty sure he was fucking with me, but damned if I'm going to listen to the new Phish album.

ha ha, Josh in Chicago likes Phish, Josh in Chicago likes Phish!

(Addendum: the story was better without this, but when I got home from my trip I had the record label send me the new Phish album, but honestly I couldn't recall if that's what the clerk was playing or not. Regardless, I sold it the next day to my fave local shop, ha ha).

You can't fool us, you ripped it and listen to it every day on your iPod, which is now engraved with "I SECRETLY LOVE PHISH"

Not that secret if it's engraved on his iPod!

This thread is a hilarious A+ read from start to finish.

Ironically, tonight, I am going for dinner with one of my oldest friends, who is in the UK on holiday* - who I met, 25 years ago when I was an angsty Bauhaus record-buying teenager and she was a (completely non-Tude-y, though I can't say the same for her bosses) record shop clerk!

*Visiting the inlaws - so, classic record shop girl cliche, she was so much more into British dudes she married one

I've worked in a couple of record shops. Any tude given is totally proportional to the tude of the customers. I gave so much tude back I eventually got sacked from the big chain record shop. But working in the little tiny indie shop was much more fun because the customers were nicer, even despite occasionally getting buttonholed by weirdoes who want to talk to you for hours about random music shit you don't care about. TrueLifeStory, though: one of the dudes who got very chatty, and I thought was going to buttonhole me to talk about random music shit... turned out to be a much respected dronerock producer and occasional Stereolab member. And that was an amazing conversation. </suzy>

i can imagine record store clerks get a lot of "youve never heard of ______ and you work in a record store!" a lot of the time from uber-nerds

only nasty record store clerk was from kim's in NY...ridiculously snotty to the point of parody

...cant think of one.. (Even Kim's was OK, then again I was buying Black Monk Time, which is top trumps in any pile..)

Actually, one time I was doing a pick-up for a DJ in Turkey, from a 'cutting edge' dance tracks supply shop in Paddington, except the albums he wanted were Dire Straits, Heart, Queen, PinkFloyd, etc. He bought often from this supplier the more trendy stuff and the pre-release 12" normally, but wanted these for himself.

Anyway, I'd left it to the very last day to go get them, and the shop staff member was quite agitated that these records were even present in his shop. Not exactly giving me 'tude', more that he seemed visibly healed once the box had left his environment.

Local record store owner here is a giant dick about parking. He threatens to tow you on a very smug, dickish handwritten sign on his door if you park in the spaces outside his store but aren't shopping there.

This, despite the fact that it is a small parking lot, there is never more than one person in his store at any given time, and he's next to a restaurant which has way more patrons, which could use the extra patrons during overflow.

He also sometimes locks the door behind you, though I hear he doesn't do that anymore. Dude's collection is pretty awful, though if you want KISS dolls he has em.

Instead of playing music in the store, he watches television, usually old police procedural reruns.

I've been in there about ten times, only made one purchase before giving up on it. No idea how he stays afloat.

I can't remember the name of the place, but there used to be this little tiny basement shop on, I want to say, Division near Western that was a fairly typical used vinyl hole in the wall with exaggerated prices that never seemed to align with any sense of reality. Anyway, after browsing for a few minutes and deciding I didn't want to pay $25 for a Dylan record that was pretty common, I headed for the door and the dude actually yelled at me for not buying anything.

Man screw that. I for one rarely leave a record shop empty handed, so if someone is to be a dick and call me on it I just tell em I'm sorry their inventory and/or prices suck.

Yeah, just say "You ain't got NUTHIN, man!"

He ended his screed with something about not wanting me to come back in his store and I told him that with his prices, that wouldn't be a problem.

Youre not talking about kstarke right? Idk another record store in that area...

There was a place in Peascod Street, place looked great, had loads of albums, ephemera, scooter, wicker hanging chairs, dark walls, sixties posters everywhere..

I went in with Alice, "You know what I'd like?" she said, looking around. "No?" I replied. "This room"

Anyway, no attitude from the staff at all, just everything was at least three times the price. (Neu 75 UA Orig? £70)

How did they stay in business? Um, they didn't.

I assume it was a case of "take all yr stuff home" one day...

Peascod Street is in Windsor, btw.

I really don't remember the name of it, I don't remember it even having much of a sign beyond something that said "records". This was about 6 or 7 years ago though, so my memory isn't the sharpest about the details.

(xpost)

It was, in fact, a Burger King...

Okay, no, my memory isn't failing that much just yet!

I remember that place on Peascod St! It was on the first floor, through a doorway. I couldn't believe an independent had opened up after Revolution shut only briefly before. I didn't buy anything as it was all mind-bogglingly expensive. Can't recall the name. No attitude, I think the guy working there just gave me a look 'you can browse all you like but I know you can't afford anything here'/

Yeah, that's it. It's a tat parlor now.

It was expensive, but also there was so much in the racks, tightly packed, difficult to browse.

This belongs more in the things-that-bug-you-about-record-stores thread, but since this one's been been so active lately I'll put it here. I was at this flea-market booth on the weekend I've been going to for about 10 years. It was never great--most of the countless records there were junk, and, ditto, they were an ordeal to browse--but everything was $2, and I bought a number of records there over the years. The original owner died a few years ago, I think his son or grandson took it over for a while, and now he seems to have passed it on to someone else. When I took a quick look on the weekend, all the prices had gone up drastically--everything I saw was $20, including a Leroy Gomez disco record.

Good luck with that. There's nothing sadder than a guy selling junky used records who's got a price guide and the fantasyland belief that he's holding onto something valuable.

^^It's not just those guys. I was at a Salvation Army last week and everything vinyl--be it a scratchy Joe Tex, Manilow, or Dylan--started at $4.99.

Yeah, I kinda feel like some of these thrift store/used book store type places have been reading too many articles about "kids love vinyl again!" and have started to jack up their prices. When I first started digging through the vinyl bins at the local Half Price Books chain, the average price per record was like $2.99. Now, any "popular" artist automatically gets tagged with $7.99 or $9.99 and its getting increasingly harder to find things cheaper than that.

the vinyl bubble is putting the real estate bubble to shame IMO

I have no problem with the prices at the half price books nearby.

Neanderthal, I know the store you're talking about. It's not a very good store, but those guys really aren't dicks. They're socially maladjusted, maybe. They also have never locked the door behind me.

I have no problem with the prices at the half price books nearby.

I didn't until my most recent visit a few weeks ago, it seemed like all the vinyl had been repriced since last time I was there.

This has long been my problem with the internet and used/vintage stores. Every used bookstore that used to sell you things at 1/2 off cover price or lower now thinks every ratty-ass paperback they have is "1st edition" and worth $$$$. Why would I even buy used books if not for the bargain?

i do think lots of places who have little experience with vinyl just assume that because it's "old" it's worth money. i actually dropped into the new pawnamerica megastore here (out of morbid curiosity--it was next door to a home depot i was heading to) and their tiny vinyl section was filled with led zep albums in fair condition for $14.99. i suppose a few clueless yokels will actually buy those because they get a lot of traffic.

i also remember the old guy running the record store on division st. in chicago, and it's killing me that i can't recall the name of the store. i went in there maybe three times and they never had anything decent -- though i was never yelled out on my way out.

makes me wonder how much pawnamerica pays for your records if they turn them around for $15. i mean i could probably get a few 100 shitty led-zep-esque records for nothing and make a profit selling them for $4 each. not that it would be worth my time.

I guess "yelled" may have been a strong descriptor, more like angry muttering at me but he definitely made it clear he wasn't happy that I didn't buy anything and didn't want me coming back.

well, the store's gone now. so um "ha ha" i guess?

i had this conversation on facebook a while ago:

<threadstarter on support your local record store day or something>
my friend: i remember going into ***** records back in the day. memories etc
me: fuck ***** records, those guys were dicks. i'm glad they're closed
random friend of friend: dude, i used to work at ***** records. now i'm unemployed.
<awkward silence>
me: well fuck it, i'll just ask then: why did you guys always have such over the top 'tude? honestly it was really hard not to notice - what was up with that?
rfof: we never had 'tude, we always treated our customers nice
me: um, ok
rfof: unless you're talking about the main branch in Xtown - everyone knew those guys were completely pretentious. we used to make jokes about them.
me: oh, which ***** records were you in?
rfof: Ytown.
me: oh, shit, yeah actually you guys *were* nice! i used to drive half an hour to shop in your shop instead. no 'tude, plus you guys actually had techno and drum and bass and stuff! plus there was this really cute girl who worked there, she even complimented my purchase choices once.
rfof: yeah, i know who you're talking about - she was hott, and really nice, bought all our dance stuff.
me: that would explain it then. whatever happened to her anyway?
rfof: she married this british guy and moved to the uk

^^^ true story

they have an "awkward silence" button on facebook now?

ha ha, no, that's why it's in brackets. i just sat there in front of the screen for a minute, wondering how i was gonna get my foot out of my mouth. after a while i decided fuck it, here's my chance to parse this strange phenomenon once and for all with someone i assumed was a prime offender

maybe if they didhave an "awkward silence" button on facebook i wouldn't be so hyped to move over to google+

I have no problem with the prices at the half price books nearby.

I didn't until my most recent visit a few weeks ago, it seemed like all the vinyl had been repriced since last time I was there.

Half-Price is like this on a case by case basis, generally I think due to management or the buying departments at any given store. The following example is more of a CD thing but worth sharing. The one nearest to me (there are like 12 in my metro area) is a great store. I've had much good luck scoring 50s-70s rock stuff on disc, including many imports and OOP titles, all priced to move from $3.99-$8.99--and their vinyl when I look is reasonable, usually in the $1.99 to $5.99 range used, with "collectables" running higher. However that stuff they grade and always have @ half off based on a price guide (a $50 Beatle or Elvis lp will set you back $25).

A good example of a cd "find" I made there is the long OOP The History of The Dave Clark Five, a used two-disc set I found there for $6.98.

Now OTOH, about 30 minutes away is a bad Half-Price store. They have an awesome selection of cds; when I was last in there it was obvious they'd just scored an enormous collection of oldies including imports, box sets, and numerous OOP titles. The problem is, whomever was in charge of pricing looked at amazon or whatever as guide, and priced aaccordingly. So you get these old Rhino and Ace comps going for anywhere between 14.99 & $39.99 (they had all the OOP Monkees albums w/the bonus tracks and most of them were at this price point--if you have no problem dropping this much for Changes you truly have more money than brains). They even had an OOP VHS bin with stuff not on DVD in the $10-$30 range. Since these are "Collectables" they've decided they don't have to be half-price anything. I glanced @ their vinyl and it looked like they started around $4.99.

This location also had a used copy of The History of The Dave Clark Five. They wanted $39.99 for it.

People who order on Amazon will actually pay those prices, if they are the only ones available. Those high priced OOP titles aren't always priced highly due to delusional hope. But in my opinion storefront prices shouldn't necessarily reflect Amazon marketplace prices, where you and your competition are listed conveniently. Sort of a reward to find the rarer item in a store, but if you are in front of a computer you have to buy it within the price range that is decided by world-wide demand.

This is books not CDs, but Amazon marketplace prices are often wildly delusional. I publish a series of books through Lulu for between $9 and $15, and there's some loon trying to sell copies of them on Amazon for upwards of $140 each.

is it any_book? I think they upload two listings to almost every book and CD UPC at outrageously high prices, waiting for demand to go way higher than availability. When that happens and someone buys an item through them, I think they order a copy from some other source and send that, making a huge profit. But if that were true, the person ordering from them in the first place would likely not have to resort to their prices, because I'm not sure where any_book would go that a shopper wouldn't.

Not any_book, but someone called 'origin', probably working the same weird scam, which I'd not heard of before.