I spent about ten years in retail, around the Bay Area. The guys at
Discount in San Jose weren't rude, but they had developed a fine cutting
line for "trouble makers". Most of the problems were with the anal
classical guys. They'd buy the cheapest pressings, then come back with
notes about every pop and click. After too much of this "they showed him
the door he came in thru". Otherwise, we were happy when someone would
buy one of our favorites. People trusted us enough to take suggestions.
I also remember a very famous exchange where our guy Mouse tried
unsuccessfully to convince "Rudolph Hess", a German classical customer
that Toscanini had done a good version of some German Opera. I think our
customer had veins bulging has he adamantly declared "only a German
could do this right".

I think the Reckless in SF was one of the snootier shops I'd visited,
but I've gotten a lot of indifferent useless help along the way. In the
old days at Rhino, there were some very opinionated guys. I did see them
fool a Zep hating coworker into liking a Zep track...

When I was last at Easy Street, the two tattooed punk girls behind the
counter looked over all my purchases, giving their approval, or
disapproval... They were all good, just not all punk!

I just find that most shops, the help doesn't want to have to interact
at all. The good thing is that means they miss a lot of the real gems
hidden in the stacks..


-- Ronald Sanchez
Director Of A&R
Career Records

www.CareerRecords.com

The new Donovan's Brain Site
www.Donovans-Brain.net