duggup

Artist: Take your pick
Website: www.basementdiscs.com.au

After queuing in front of a cash register at a very well known music store (part of a chain, you know who i mean) for ten minutes to find out the availability of a cd, i was informed by the sales assistant who was staring blankly ten centimetres above my head (must have been my aura) that sales assisatants don’t have access to that sort of specialist information.

I was directed to a little door (hell i want a cd not a porno magazine) where i waited another ten minutes before a more highly qualified sales assistant could tear themselves away from their computer and coffee long enough to tell me they didn’t have the cd in stock.

To rub salt into the wound, i was stopped by security at the door who wanted me to produce receipts for everything on my person bar my socks (wasn’t wearing any).

Trouble with chain stores, they wish you a nice day and yes they are a bit cheaper but they sort of devalue what you went there for in the first place and in the process we lose the places and things we took for granted — try getting beetroot on a burger! I rest my case.

That’s all the negatives, now the positives.

Basement Discs is a gem.

All the stuff you can’t find anywhere else, English, Irish, Australian, Americana, folk, bluegrass, swamp, whatever, it’s here or they’ll get in.

Great staff, interested in music (for that matter just interested) and they have regular in-store luchtime performances featuring local and international artists (everyone from Richard Thompson to Rebecca Barnard)

No music or downloads on the site but plenty of photos and recomendations including the months new releases.

Might cost a couple of bucks more but you leave happy, feeling you’ve bought something special and thinking Melbourne’s not such a bad place — and while these sorts of places survive it isn’t!

bland is
Email this author | All posts by bland |