Day Tripper

I drove to Austin to buy a Norah Jones album.  Well, on the hope of buying a Norah Jones album.  Come Away With Me to be more specific.

Since Brownlee bought me the record player, we’ve been pretty specific about the records we buy.  Mostly because we already have all the music we like digitally (and I still buy CDs).  Plus it has to be a record you want to listen to all the way through.  Because it’s too hard to find one specific song, and you have to flip it.  It’s a lot of work, this hipster life.

So most of my trips to Cactus, my local music store, have been good but I could never find Come Away With Me.  And I know it’s available on Amazon but that defeats the purpose of record shopping.

Anyway, I took a couple days off for an extra long 4th of July weekend and decided not to “waste” them both on the couch so I loaded up the Jetta and headed North by Northwest.  In this case “loaded” means purses, camera bag, and water bottle.

All my experiences in Austin have been at night and/or partially drunk.  6th street partying in some form or fashion.  I know it’s fantastic for live music and I know it’s weird (in a wonderful way) and I know it’s still very Texan and that’s all the things I love. But I had no plan for the day and even better, no one else’s wants to consider so I picked a record store and entered it into GPS.

First Stop – Antone’s

They had new releases and they had a ton of used records.  But most importantly they had a Texas section. The dude behind the counter was jammin something or another and was super polite and asked if he could help me with anything.  I was just browsing the J’s and found nothing as for a Jones, Norah.  Then I hit the Texas section and scored with Gary Clark Jr. Live.  Record store guy commended me on my purchase and told me it was cool if I left my car there and popped down to Buffalo Exchange to see what the Austin hipsters were wearing.

Second Stop – End of an Ear

End of an Ear reminded me of the CD store on Scott Pilgrim.  Very very genre specific.  Which was cool.  It also appeared to be on a legit hippie commune in the middle of South Austin, but what do I know. And there was hope because they had a Norah Jones label on the record separator dealy.  While I was tempted to buy the new Florence and the Machine, I passed for her first album, Lungs.  Every surface of the room will be made into a drum for my rendition of “The Dog Days are Over”.  I also lucked up on a used Purple Rain, and Erykah Badu’s Worldwide Underground for my sister.

No dice on Norah.  End of an Ear guy offered to order it for me but I told him I was just visiting.

As I was on the way to End of an Ear, I passed a sign that said “Caffeine Dealers, Breakfast Served All Day” and made a mental note to eat lunch there, Bouldin Creek.  Except sometimes (all the time) I get very excited about things and just don’t read.  I park, I get out and walk inside.  It’s so Austiny.  There’s a coffee/full bar open.  There’s artists on laptops.  A sign with Heisenburg saying “Let’s Cook”. My server was a black dude with cut off jean shorts and kung fu fists tattooed on his thighs but he was very soft spoken and told me to take my time going over the menu.

And I did.  Like 6 times because I was looking for the breakfast plates except everything was tofu or black bean or portabella mushrooms and I realized I was at a vegetarian place and wanted to cry.  But I ordered a lavender mocha latte and got the best latte art I’ve ever drank.  And I figured an order of Kick Ass Granola (that’s the proper menu name) to tide me over but it was in fact kick ass and I wasn’t hungry until 4.  So it was in fact worth the stop and I would go back after I ate some meat first.

Third Stop – Friends of Sound

Strictly second hand records and located near the UT campus, so you can either fight to find back in at an angle only parking, or you can park in an alley.  It was small and I browsed through the soul section but didn’t find anything we’d listen to really.  Some kids came in asking the record store guys if there were any new released and they were like “the newest thing we have is some 2000 indie music in that crate over there.” I’m 90% sure they scoffed when the kids left.  Needless to say, I didn’t find Norah.

I was going to take the rest of the day to find a taco truck and go to the LBJ Library because Lauren told me there was a cool Beatles exhibit.  But I figured why not try one more store and see what’s the what.  It was on my way to LBJ anyway.

Except I had to go by the Colorado River and there’s public parking for you to go across the bridge and watch white people (and one black guy) float down the river.  I assume there are other reasons for this river, but white people fully take advantage of the floating aspect.  I was not expecting it on a Thursday afternoon.

Fourth Stop – Waterloo

Waterloo is very much like my Cactus shop.  They have live music and album signings and a very large vinyl section and some toys and some other musicy things.  New releases, rare presses, record players, used, hard to finds, etc.  Except it’s HUGE.

I took a second to take it all in and started to browse. Play it real casual like and you know if I just happened to find my Norah Jones, then ok that’s cool, but if not it wasn’t a bad trip.

OMG I found it.  I FOUND IT!  They had one copy of Come Away With Me and I was very uncasual when I picked it up and took a picture and text it to Brownlee and then saw they also had Not Too Late and picked that up as well cause I was there.  THEN I went over to the hip hop section and saw they also had Stankonia and I broke the 4th wall like “are you shitting me?! This is heaven.”

After my Waterloo success I was seriously about to go home, but the LBJ Library was right by the freeway and it would make for an easy exit home.

The Beatles exhibit was super cool.  It wasn’t just the Beatles but a lot of info on music in that era.  Plus it tied into LBJ’s time in office.  Upstairs there’s also a lot of information on LBJ’s Texas roots and his time in office and my Socialist Democratic brain was very into it despite the seeming lack in social progress.

 

High on the day’s success, I called it a day before traffic in Austin became unbearable.  Save for the fact I didn’t stop for tacos, it was a fantastic day.