Record Shop Faux-Pas?

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Okay this isn't a totally serious question but...Record shop's can be a confusing world...Especially the "independent" record store...I once asked if a certain vinyl-centric shop had a CD version of the album I was looking for...I always felt uneasy in that shop after that! And in that film High Fidelity the record shop worker "mentality" is on display! So, have you commited any faux pas in record shops, are there any rules on being 'cool' in that environment...?

― james edmund L, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

By virtue of being a girl, nothing "wrong" I did was considered a faux pas because I was one of the few "knowledgable" girls who'd come in - the clientele was mostly men and the workers were all male, so if I asked a question that was "stupid", they'd find it "cute". I was well liked in the indie/used shop. Possibly because I went there EVERY DAY to talk to a guy who I fancied a lot and who liked me. Why the relationship never went past the chatting-about-my-purchases (we had the same taste in music) is beyond me. Socially inept losers, us.

But anyhow this all brings me to a question, I've never seen a girl working in a "proper" record shop (ie not Borders or Best Buy or a similar "super store" that has a CD section in it). Why?

― Ally, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Think you've just been unlucky, Ally: except *maybe* for jazz shops, that's NEVER been a sex-division I've observed. Now girls with hair not Krazy-Kolor Krimson or black, that's a different matter.

― mark s, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Because you're not living here. ;-) My Fave Local Store, Noise Noise Noise, has one Jackie as a lead clerk. A very cool person, very knowledgeable about all kinds of music, very punk, very cute. Ergo, she has lots of guys trying to hit on her though she has a boyfriend and is happy with him. She can hold her own more than well against them, though!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I haven't really noticed any gender divide in this regard: my favorite shop is owned and managed by a female, and my "second choice" shop is also managed by a female (Though to be honest they could really really use new management -- has acquired a bland MOR focus lately. Why on earth would anyone put a huge display of Dave Matthews Band in the front window?????).

Anyway, I haven't really ever committed a faux-pas per se, I just feel a bit awkward in any store with a hipper-than-thou atmosphere if I haven't been there before.

― Nicole, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why would you want to be cool? To impress the record store jackasses who think that they're cool because they work there? The only faux pas are being loud or smelling bad or to being too drunk to walk around. There aren't any uncool questions. If your local cool store has clerks with attitude, then find another store or buy online if you have to.

― dan, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I managed a record store for close to ten years, and there were really no major faux pas that I could think of that didn't fit under the more general category of basic customer stupidity:

"Yeah, do you have this album, I don't know what the band is, or what the cover looks like, or anything about them, but it goes kinda like this...(tuneless la las that sound like nothing and everything)."

"Do you have the new (generic band) CD....on tape?" (well, which is it going to be, then?

Customer picks up album off the rack, then brings it to the counter: "Yes, I'd like to return this, but I don't have the receipt." Us: "It's still in the security shell." Customer: "Oh, uh, yeah, um, they gave it to me this way."

I once wrote a story about my experiences working at the record store for a local comic compilation. Anyone with nothing better to do can look at it here< /a>.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a shop up the road from me called 'Black Spot records' and the owner gave out to me once because I used to have a habit of asking him to put on a record and if I didnt like what I heard after two songs, I would descreetly leave the shop without having bought anything. 'You're not goin' to leave once I put this on, are you?' He's a really big bloke so I just timidly replied 'no'. I still shop there even though a lot of new stores have taken a lot of its buisness. I mean I have been buying records there since I was 15. The main reason I go in there now is out of a pang of nostalgia and pity. I go in there and buy stuff I would NEVER buy anywhere else.For instance, I bought a Kitchens of Distinctions record and a Terry Callier record there last Saturday. there not exactly top of my wish list but there you go.

― Michael Bourke, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A friend of mine frequents a local record shop where this hip girl works. She convinces him that he likes every album put out by Kill Rock Stars, every one! I stop by with hime one day, and they get to chatting and I begin to explain how much I enjoy the Melanie C. album. He's convinced to this day that I just did that to make him look stupid in front of her.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know a bunch of employees at the record store in my town because some of them DJ at the college radio station I work at. I went in the other day and saw that one of the CDs in the $1.99 bin I recognized as having been recorded in our studio, and went up to the counter to crack a joke with one of the guys I knew that worked there about how funny it was to see things done by people you know in the bin. When he mentioned how "Rudy and I really did most of the production for that one", it dawned on me that what we were talking about was HIS BAND'S CD. I asked if they were still around, and he pointed to the sign being put up advertising their latest show.

Embarassing record store moments? FUCKING BEAT THAT.

― Dave M., Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My only real faux-pas was not handling the vinyl correctly in the listening area of a DJ-oriented store. There was no place to set down the cover so it was awkward getting the disc on the turntable and I got some glares.

The best record store in the world is owned and run by a woman, Windy at Aquarius in SF (I actually haven't been in a lot of record stores, it's just a personal fave.) I haven't noticed these gender differences w/ record store employees.

― Mark, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one time i was in a record shop with my sister & she passed out & fell down on the floor. But I was so deep into bin-surfing mode that I just stepped right over her to flick thru the next bin. (They had to call an ambulance & everything.) That's not really a faux-pas of the kind you were looking for i guess but it's pretty hard to beat as just general uncouth behaviour.

― duane zarakov, Friday, 20 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't think of anything I'd consider a record store "faux pas". I mean, are there pet store faux pas? Or grocery store faux pas?

If the clerk is rude to you then THEY'RE the one making the "faux pas". Not you. There's too much weight given to altogether worthless knowledge.

I generally don't even ask questions in record stores. The best store where I live (Dallas, Texas thereabouts) is staffed by what appears to be only two men and one woman, all over age 35, all super friendly, patient, knowledgable people. No one from here ever talks about this store - the stores with the most noteriety here are the really bad ones - , but it's the hippest place in town. It's so hip that I think I might be the youngest person who shops there. Most of the people going through the bins near me all seem to be in their 40's, still hip to new music, and sometimes with stories to tell about a few of the circa 1983 records by no name bands that I've dug out of the vinyl bins.

I have such good experiences there that it's hard to believe anyone with internet access would even tolerate stores that have the snob clerk vibe happening. I know exactly who to avoid in this town.

― Oliver K., Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Record and Tape Exchange at Notting Hill used to employ people whose sole qualification for the job was to be able to execute a particular facial expression to their fellow employees whilst in the process of inspecting the 'trade-pile' you'd just brought in for exchange. This expression was meant to convey : "this sap doesn't recognize that the Squirrel Bait debut album is a real classic - because he wants to GET RID OF IT, but we know better, don't we mate!" The they'd "put it to one side" to wank over later on.

I haven't noticed this behaviour in a while, though. In fact they seem quite friendly these days.

― Dr. C, Saturday, 21 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know about pet shops, but I think that clothes shops are the ones in which to fear faux pas. Is this stuff for girls or boys? It's confusing these days, as Bowie once said.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 22 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not a record store anecdote but inspired by Dave M. Going to a local band show I was handed a CD when I paid for my ticket. The CD was by a band led by one of the biggest (in both senses of the word) local promoters. This band are rubbish. So naturally I ask what this is and the ticket guy says it's a free CD, and I say why the hell would I want a free CD by when they're a bunch of sh... At which point I realise that inevitably the bloke from the band -- big bloke, remember? -- is standing behind me. I got out alive, but only after an exchange of pleasantries about the recording of this sodding CD. I still have it somewhere, but have never heard it.

― alex thomson, Sunday, 22 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nothing beats dance music shops for absolute fear. I guess once you know what you're doing they're not frightening.

In my experience of the Record And Tape Exchange (on both sides of the counter) the staff there aren't that rude. If you subscribe to the customer service = modern-day serfdom ideal then yeah, they won't reach the requisite levels of crawling, but generally the hostility was reserved for people who haggled, people who were themselves rude (or smelly or complete time wasters), and the occasional well-meaning regular who would repeatedly bring in completely worthless stock. Certainly in the shop I worked in people bringing in good stuff were treated exaggeratedly well - after all, if you want their old CDs or books you're going to try and make sure they take your offer!

― Tom, Monday, 23 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Techno and hip hop stores I always find a little intimidating, especially the ones with hardly any racks, just stuff on the walls. I never know where to start looking.

― Patrick, Monday, 23 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A friend of mine goes regularly to a record shop in North London. Last Christmas, the guy behind the counter said "we're asking all our regulars to name their record of the year, and we'll put the results up in the shop". My friend voiced his choice (can't remember what it was, probably something mildly indie) and the man paused for a moment, said "Hmmmm, interesting..." and walked off. Put-downs come no more exquisite.

― Paul Steeples, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nine years pass...

how do i shot covering letter for record shop vacancy?

― basic chanel (r1o natsume), Friday, 14 May 2010 12:50 (fifteen years ago)

with a gun.

― seandalai, Friday, 14 May 2010 12:54 (fifteen years ago)

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