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Last weekend I dragged Matt away from his books to accompany me on a quick spin to Grimey’s, a legendary Nashville record store. Ten minutes down the road, with the windows down on a sunny afternoon, Matt thanked me for getting him out of the house and the quick jaunt officially became an afternoon’s adventure.
Our first stop was indeed, Grimey’s, a charmingly unstuffy record shop shoehorned into a gutted house. While they also offered a substantial selection of new and used cds, we came for the vinyl. Records, new, “preloved” and everywhere in between, accumulated along every wall and perfumed the rooms with dusty cardboard and wax (ah! Heaven.) I found myself crawling under plywood crates to get at “the good stuff”: the $4.99 bin, the $1.99 bin, the (gasp!) $.99 bin! You heard it here folks – fine, well-cared for vinyl at half the price of goodwill.
With dusty knees I bought my selections to the counter, while Matt peeked at music magazines and rifled through the used cds. In the end I bought 4 records for the grand total of about 12 bucks, counting the absurd Tennessee sale tax. The final four?
The first two came out in 1971, and last two in 1973. God, I was born in the wrong decade.
On the way home we took a spin out to Charlotte Pike to McKay’s Books. Do you like used books stores? Well, this is the biggest used bookstore I’ve ever seen. Seriously:
I could have perused for hours, if we weren’t held back by my humblingly small bank account and Matt’s need to study. I availed myself of five thick novels, for the grand total of two bucks and two quarters. I bought an Anne Lamott novel for a buck, Song of Solomon for 50 cents, Cold Mountain for 15 cents! Heaven, heaven indeed. Thank god Orpah’s been getting into Cormac McCarthy; I can’t wait to pick up his full collection for pennies on the dime after the eventual discard by fickle book clubs.
We headed home, the car graced with books and records and two happy campers. I pleaded a bit for a quick Waffle House brunch, but we decided instead to throw ourselves at the mercy of our icebox. The rest of the afternoon was sound-tracked to Mother Earth and it felt, well, pretty groovy.
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