This blog likely won't mean a lot to anyone living outside Wisconsin or the Upper Midwest. But to today's music fan, there's a lot here that they can relate to...sadly. This weekend (March 13-15) will mark the final weekend of operation for Atomic Records, a local indie record store in Milwaukee, WI. Although I never attended school in Milwaukee, and although there were (and still are) quite a few awesome record stores in my old stomping grounds of Madison, Atomic was special in a way all stores (record or otherwise) should aspire to.
I had first heard of Atomic when reading a '90s zine out of Milwaukee called Milk magazine (I saw the cover of the second issue with pics of
Mercury Rev and
The Boo Radleys on the cover and knew I'd find stuff to agree with.) While I was 90 or so miles to the west, there was still a feeling that there was a lot of cool stuff happening in Milwaukee, and the frequent mentions of Atomic within the ads and print gave the place a sort of mystique and aura. So when other business in Brew Town beckoned (a
Superdrag/
The Apples in Stereo/
Tuscadero triple bill at the Rave) I decided to go early to visit Atomic. At the time, I lacked both a car and friends who were into that type of music, so I took a Badger Bus to downtown Milwaukee and then relied on local bus maps, very patient bus drivers and a daily city bus pass to finally find my way there. (My first attempt, I ended up walking some 8 blocks, finally finding it and then seeing a bus whizzing by just beyond.)
Sometimes, anticipation and excitement can make molehills appear as looming as mountains, and the resultant reality and disappointment is as painful as Peppermint Patty yanking away that elusive football from Charlie Brown. This was *NOT* the case with Atomic. It was by no means big, but every single square inch had a cool surprise, it seemed. (Plus, being a Badger alumni who was a loyal B-Side records patron, size can sometimes be deceiving in determining how cool a store was.) The racks were teeming full of import CDs, obscure 7 inch singles, old music magazines, kitsch lunchboxes, and press publicity 8x10s here and there. There were glass counters towards the front that held more rare and tantalyzing goodies (old punk singles, a few
Pearl Jam fan club singles, a couple collector box sets.) But the coup de grace was directly above the register, where gold and platinum awards for
New Order and
R.E.M. hung proudly. Going through the racks was more time consuming than most stores like it, as they wouldn rarely put the CDs themselves on the rack. Instead, they would put the cover book in a longbox-sized plastic slip, which enabled the buyer to flip through, card by card, grab the whole slip, and present it to the cashier, who would retrieve the actual disc from a large set of cabinets. Plus, with a lot of the artist cards would have strips beneath the name that would cross-reference side projects, solo releases, or other stuff that would fall between the cracks. Some would even have the artists' Trouser Press entries xeroxed and taped beneath. Such little touches really made me feel like the people were as obsessive about the music as I was.
But of course, you won't find stuff like that at the Big Box retail stores like Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart where music is merely an impulse buy between shopping for big screen TVs or budget jeans. Meanwhile, the local indie shops are falling left and right like dodos. There's been quite a bit of head-scratching and hand-wringing about the hows and whys, and I'm sure you've heard it all. So instead of that, I'll say this: celebrate your local record shop (especially since Record Store day is coming soon - April 18th) if you still have one. Browse the racks, check out what they're playing on the store stereo, buy something even though you know you could download it for free. Because it will be a sad day for music --and music fans -- when the only store you can find good CDs is the iTunes store.
I made my final trip to Atomic Sunday, March 1st. Besides snagging a commerative "Viva La Vinyl" t-shirt -- and being tempted to buy the Platinum plaque for
Green for two grand -- I scored the following things....
**
American Music Club --
A Toast to You
**
Black Box Recorder --
The Facts of Life
**
The Flaming Lips --
The Fearless Freaks
**
Gene --
We Could Be Kings import single
**
Hey Mercedes --
Loses Control
**
Nick Heyward --
The Apple Bed
**
His Name Is Alive --
Always Stay Sweet
**
His Name Is Alive --
Fort Lake
**
Josh Joplin --
Jaywalker
**
The Kooks --
Konk +
Always Where I Need To Be import single
**
The Lilac Time --
Lilac6
**
Lilys --
Better Can't Make Your Life Better
**
Gary Louris --
Acoustic Vagabonds EP
**
The Long Blondes --
Couples
**
Michael Penn --
Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea: A Michael Penn Collection
**
Phoenix --
Live! Thirty Days Ago
**
PMD --
The Awakening
**
Radar Bros. --
Auditorium
**
The Red Thread --
After the Last
**
The Standard --
Albatross
**
The Standard --
Post Wire to Wire
**
TI --
Paper Trail
** various artists --
The Wrong way Home: A Tribute to Supertramp
**various artists --
If You Can’t Laugh at Yourself...We’ll Do It For You
**
The Very Hush Hush --
Mourir C’Est Facile
**
Your 33 Black Angels --
Lonely Street
**
Edith Frost publicity packet
**
Sarah McLachlan publicity packet
American Music Club