I just got back from another trip to Vancouver, and, as usual, I got in some record shopping. Things are changing in Vancouver for record shopping. While I was only there one day, I can see that things are shifting quite a bit.
First, tangentally, about driving in Vancouver...
I've been driving in Vancouver for a few years now (a couple of days a year) and, sadly, I think I'm getting used to it. Yes, there's strangely aggressive drivers everywhere, swerving in and out of lanes, failing to signal, blatantly running through red lights or exploiting yellow lights. That's par for the course in Vancouver.
Trying to find shortcuts through the city has become futile and I've mostly given up on it. I used to try to find easier ways through the city by avoiding the main, busy routes and going one street over into residential areas. The traffic would be non-existant and driving would be slow, due to roundabouts, but it was a lot less stressful than trying to drive down Main or Knight or whatever main street. I've found you can only get a few blocks doing this, before a street becomes blocked off by a bike-only path, a park, or some other obstacle, forcing you to go back to a main road. Likely, this is deliberate, to force drivers to main arteries, or, in my case, make them not want to drive at all! If I have a choice, I'll park my car from now on and take the Skytrain.
Highway driving is getting easier too. The only stretch I hate is the part from Abbotsford to Vancouver. It's almost always slow going and, often, forced down to a crawl or even a stop due to heavy traffic. In the future, I'm going to get off on Abbotsford, head north on Highway 11 to Mission, then take Highway 7 into Vancouver. It takes a bit longer, but it's more relaxing and the scenery is nicer too.
Parking is easily the most annoying part of driving in Vancouver. Parking is expensive, and almost non-existent in places. Often, you have to park a couple of blocks away, and even then, you need to watch the parking signs, since a lot of places need a permit to park there. It's easy to rack up a hundred bucks in fines if you aren't watching what you're doing. And I suck at parking, so it's even harder for me. I don't mind the walks though. I like parking on Victoria, then walking over to Commercial Drive for walking and shopping.
On to record shopping.
Zulu Record is fast becoming a place to avoid. Since I was last there, they've sold off the upper half of the store to a trendy clothing shop. The store itself used to have a thriving and vibrant local section for music, now it's just a couple of rows in the shop. Used music is still the name of the game there, though most of it is vinyl now. A few years ago, they decided to let vinyl take over most of the shop. The upstairs part still has dirt cheap CDs, which is a great reason go there, even if the selection has been picked through, there's still thousands of albums for a buck or two there. I think it's downfall has two factors. First is the neighbourhood. Kitsilano is an prime example of gentrification. A previously fairly affordable place to live slowly turned into a trendy place to live, in turn, jacking up the prices on everything from housing to food, and changing all the local shops into trendy hipster joints. In one stretch of road, I counted four specialty tea shops right next to each other. Simply put, it's a tourist trap since only the rich can afford to live there. And tourists aren't looking for used vinyl, I suspect. Second is Red Cat Records, next on my trip, which seems to now be handling the lion's share of live ticket sales, which used to be one of Zulu's main sources of income. Their ticket wall seemed anemic to me, compared to other times I was there.
Red Cat Records on Main is the best place to go to find new music. Their local section is usually brimming with new material. They have a tape section of new stuff. All the biggest indy bands are represented on the new wall. Their vinyl selection is healthy, same with the CD selection. I buy most of my new music there. I found the new Factory Floor, Preoccupations and Pixies album there, but they didn't have the new Thermals or Tacocat, which I was really hoping to buy. I got the new Light in the Attick reissue of the Shaggs "History of the World" finally. Yes, I finally own a copy of one of the albums that is a contender for "Worst Album Ever Made". Red Cat is doing great in live ticket sales too. They just opened a second location near East Hastings and Nanaimo. I checked that location out too. It's very new, so it's small and clean, and pretty empty of customers so far. I bought an Evaporators album there and chatted with the clerk about how the cover of the album is an homage to a classic Subhumans album. This is the best record store in town right now.
Neptoon on Main still is a great niche record store. Basically, if you're looking for an album in rock, classic rock, blues or jazz, Neptoon is likely to have it on vinyl or on CD. Indy music and the obscure is much rarer here. I went in for the first time in years looking for some of their recent Vancouver band releases on CD, but they mostly had them on vinyl. I picked up a sweet Dave Edmunds collection there.
Lastly on my trip was my favourite record store, Audiopile on Commercial Drive. I'm constantly amazed by the sheer variety of music in Audiopile, and the excellent prices. Routinely, I'll walk out with 15-20 albums I know I'll love for like $50. Their vinyl collection is nice too, but I rarely dig into the vaults. As with any serious record buying and collecting, digging through the stacks is vital, and Audiopile always has interesting finds, obscure ones too.
For the first time, I also got to go to the Vancouver Flea Market on 1st. I always saw it on my Skytrain ride into Science World, but never got to stop there. It was fascinating just for looking. If I had the time, I would have loved to dig through the vinyl crates and through the vintage comics. I bought a couple of albums there, but just looking around at the constant weird stuff, from wax cylinder players to iPhone cases to bizarre old dolls. If you were into something, chances are someone had a table there that catered to your interests.
Of course, thrift store shopping is always worthwhile in Vancouver. From small thrift shops to places like Value Village and the Salvation Army, you're always bound to find something. If you have time, always crate dig in thrift shops, no matter where you are. Every time I dig through vinyl boxes, I'll find the usual thrift store stuff like Slim Whitman or 101 Strings. But there's always an intriguing album like a banjo player from Swift Current, or a choral album of 60s pop hits. Something like that. One day, I hope to have the space and the money to start buying these strange bits of musical history that just scream "weird".
There's a lot more record shopping to do in Vancouver. I still have to get back to places like Scratch Records, Dandelion Records, Vinyl Records, Highlife, Stylus and Sikora's, amongst others, so there's more research to do!
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