Like all good music collectors I seem to be able to smell out good record shops. Whether they are in London, Boulder, Pasadena, Venice Beach, Sydney, Melbourne or ............. Timaru. Some time in 1998 I was returning from running a workshop in Oamaru one day when I noticed a small record shop in Timaru. It was called Rhino Records which I thought was interesting because I was aware of the boutique US label of the same name.
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rhinonz/about.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Dee_Graham
So I stopped and went in. I immediately noticed that this store was not what I expected to find in Timaru. They had a few albums by bands that were on the Sounds of the New West album in Connections 1. So I started to talk to the guy behind the counter who was also the owner. Mentioned I was a great fan of that album and asked for recommendations. So we listened to a few tracks and about an hour later I left with four CDs that would lead to both more music discoveries and recommendations adopted to friends. Nothing was cheap and this was before just getting obscure music from Amazon or eBay was easy in New Zealand but all worth it. Thanks Warren.
So here were the albums that I bought that day;
Faithless Street by Whiskeytown - which lead me to Ryan Adams, Jesse Malin and The Finger
The Mysterious Tale of How I shouted Wrong Eyed Jesus by Jim White which along with his next three albums I think make up the strongest run of albums since the .... A long time
Escape from Monster Island by Jon Dee Graham and
More Miles Than Money by Alejandro Escovedo
At the time I did not realise that Jon Dee and Alejandro were once in the same band and that Alejandro had also been in Rank and File (a favourite cow punk band from the 80s). I will write separate posts about all these artists later on.
I think I can trace about 50 albums directly back to that 1 hr stop. I did get back a few times but it was that first visit that made its mark.
Thanks Again Warren.
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