This is the building where I would clock in for my shifts from 1989 to 1994, my own High Fidelity. It used to be a record shop, but now it's a shoe store.
There was a time when you would shop here if you wanted to hear The Proclaimers sing how they would "walk 500 miles." Now I suppose this is where you would buy the shoes for said walking.
As much as I miss the days of hanging around a record store all day long, I have to admit that the majority of my music purchases are now made through iTunes. Those were the days when I was at my most social. I remember and miss getting so many free passes for concerts and hanging out with friends John, Heath, Chris, and Matt. If I'd never worked with Kirk, I might have never known the music of The Waterboys, Luka Bloom, or Billy Bragg. Eddie made sure that I always got anything Prince related and Tina turned me on to Nirvana months before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke.
With so many good music sites around, I'm probably exposed to more of it now than I was then. It's just the social aspect of it all that I miss. I work in a hotel now and while I still talk music and bands with some friends, it's not at the level that it was at the record shop. Back then a customer would interrupt a conversation about music to ask a question about music. Now my customers interrupt to talk about boring things like checking in. In my record store days we'd clock out and go to the Boardwalk Cafe to listen to more music and discuss it some more. Now my friends are married, moved away, or both and I just come home to read about bands on various music blogs and other sites. While blogs can be fun, they don't quite match the experience of sharing a booth at a bar with friends while a cover band plays CCR and Mitch Ryder songs.
Here's to Turtles Music on Nolensville Road. And don't forget Record Store Day on April 19. It doesn't seem like too long ago when every day was Record Store Day.
"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."
George Eliot (1819 - 1880)
1 comment:
Oh wow, that looks like the shoe store Tonya took me on my first days in Nashville when I was looking for work shoes... I can't be sure though. Do they have really ugly shoes? That's just weird... :)
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