Drawing by T.S. Avett

Drawing by T.S. Avett

Friday, September 12, 2014

San Francisco, CA

I love SF. A little burnt out and having slightly exceeded my budget in Portland, I found myself on Haight Street in proximity of a few record stores. I was pretty much forced into checking some of them out. First was Groove Merchant.
Groove Merchant is a small store with a well selected stock. Good jazz, soul and rock records. The guy there was nice and after seeing me picking through 45s asked what I was interested in. He then pulled out some records from behind the counter and gave them to me to listen to. He picked out some great funk that I had never heard before. I also picked up an old Zombies compilation which included their first two albums for $14, Odyssey and Oracle being one of my favorite all-time rock records.


Rooky's is a big store with a lot of records. Walls of 45s, tons of LPs. Dick, the owner, was very friendly and helpful. As soon as we walked in he asked what we were looking for and not in a condescending or rude way. He then started pulling out records and gave me a stack to listen to. 
Rooky's is cool because they have 4 turntables set up for listening and it really invites you to check out the music there. There was no pretentious eye-rolling bullshit, and there was a great vibe there. Just people hanging out, listening and talking about music. The prices were average- not super cheap but not overpriced either. After I bought a few things he told me that next time I come, to call in advance and that he would pull out more records he thought I would be into. 
I got a few things there, including this Marva Whitney single featuring the J.B.s, and this Funkadelic song:


No comments:

Post a Comment