What better way to combat jet lag than writing a blog post at 4am? I'm sure I'll be coming back to edit this one once I "wake up"...
Anyway, I'm back from my trip and it would appear that I've fallen in love with Amsterdam.
The city is beautiful (even in cold weather), and the people are a wonderful, eclectic bunch. In addition to cruising canals, observing cat art, and partying with D'Angelo at the Paradiso, we spent a good amount of our trip doing what we do best: perusing rows of used records at hole-in-the-wall shops. I had no idea until we'd spent a few days there, but Amsterdam has A LOT of record stores. We went to eight(!) different places within walking distance from where we were staying, and there were still at least five more that we didn't get to. With the limited space I had in my suitcase, I settled on four albums:
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison (Dutch pressing). After making this purchase, we went down the street to this bar ("brown cafe"). The bartender saw the bag and asked "Is that a long-playing record?" and then when we showed him, gleefully remarked, "Ooh, it's a retro record!" I love the Dutch.
Rain Dogs - Tom Waits (German pressing). I couldn't pass it up. My dad was awesome enough to give me a (his only?) copy of this album, after I'd searched for an original version for a year. Turns out I just needed to go to Amsterdam to find it! Dad, want a "made in West Germany" version of Rain Dogs?
Fear of Music - Talking Heads (Dutch pressing). My musical theme of this trip was definitely Talking Heads, so I was pretty excited to find a new album to add to the collection, made in Holland no less!
77 - Talking Heads (Japan pressing). I was just trying to get any old version of this record, and the one I happened to find was from Japan! Pretty awesome:
It was interesting to note the slight differences between US and foreign (in this case, Dutch) record stores. Like, Mike Nesmith has his own divider in several of these stores, even the tiny ones (is he a bigger deal in the Netherlands?) and Kraftwerk is everywhere.
So if you're ever in the area and, you know, want to look for second hand vinyl, I can highly recommend the following:
- RecordFriend Elpees - Cool selection, good prices, plus I love the name. :) There were cute signs in the entrance saying things like "I'm a record friend." RECORDFRIEND! This is where I got the two Talking Heads albums.
- Record Palace - Great place by Paradiso and Museumplein. I wish I knew more about "Nederbeat," because there was a lot of it here. This is where we bought Astral Weeks.
- The others: Concerto (tons of new and used vinyl, plus CDs, books, DVDs), Distortion Records (tiny, cluttered, and awesome), City Records (really friendly owner, and also where I got Rain Dogs), Waxwell Records, Velvet Music, and Second Life Music (the three of which were about a 5-minute walk from each other).
Conclusion: besides the fact that Amsterdam has beautiful canals and lots of friendly cats, I would go back just for the record stores.
LP's, ???, & more...