Luke's

Peer to peer file sharing is great. I can nearly find every song that I've ever heard and ones I've forgotten all about. What the internet doesn't do is give the the experience of pawing through stacks of vinyl records. True, the songs I can get off the internet are scott free and can rip them onto cds or mp3 players to play them pretty much anywhere. You can't with vinyl.

I've always been upgrading my little stereo system ever since I had my first “real” job to pay for this hobby. The last turntable I owned was a Realistic player that you could adjust the rpm's via an LED strobe. When I bought it, I thought I had the cutting edge of technology. $49.99 spent on a piece of equipment in 1984 was proof, to me at least.

I didn't get into purchasing vinyl in numbers till I was about twenty. Prior to that, I relied on my brother to bring home the newer editions or if I bought any, it was because I had to have it or it was for a gift. Albums were costly to me in my teens as I had little money and crappy part time jobs. I had to be judicious. I can remember buying my brother Zappa's Joe's Garage double album for Christmas. I had to save up $18.00 and that was a huge hit to my meager budget when I was 15.

Today, if I cared to, I can have the entire Grateful Dead discography, studio, live and bootleg recordings for $0.00 (Thanks Internet!).

One of the better places for records was a place called Luke's Record Exchange. It was great because the costs on second hand records were minimal and they weren't scratched to hell. The lower prices made it possible to buy more and different artists.

My first one I bought was Neil Young's “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.” I had pawed through the stacks, trying to decide on something and I wanted as an addition that I never heard of before. The mottled picture of Neil leaning against a tree and song titles proved to be interesting.

When I went to the counter to pay for it. I saw this guy who dressed like and acted like, Boy George.

“Ah, this is a great album” he said to me.

“Yeah, I hope I like it. I like Young's stuff but never heard of this one before.” I replied.

As the transaction took place, a younger girl came to the counter and said; “Luke, Do you want anything from D&D? I'm going to get something.”

“This is Luke?” I thought. With all that hair dye, earrings and feathers weaved into his hair? I guess so.

The funny thing was, as the popular music changed and morphed, as the newer genres came, Luke would at times, dress like it. There was another time I saw him as an 80's hair band look-alike rocker.

Luke's is gone but it was great while it lasted.