Support your local record shop

In these Corona hard times with all this rules on social distancing a lot of shops close their doors temporarely. My local record shop keeps the store open under strict rules; You have to sanatize your hands when you come in en no more then 5 customers allowed inside and of course you have to keep the 1.5 meter social dinstance. I promised myself to go there every saturday in this difficult periode to buy at least one record every time. You have to support your local record shop. Record shops are vital; music is the staff of life.

I used to travel allover the world to visit record shops and fairs to hunt for records. A lot of the shops I went to in eigthies and the nineteens are long gone. They died out by the competition of the internet or just by the economical downfall. I still meet a lot of other collectors who complain about the solid record shops that are no longer there. Of course there are exeptions.

This made me realize I am still a lucky guy because my local "used" record shop that helped me most to start up my reggae collection is still up and running in a healthy state up to this date. Diskid opened his doors in Zwolle in 1987 while I was buying reggae albums for some years already. Up to that time I always had to travel to other cities to find my reggae stuff. Diskid was a general used record shop that made it possible for me to dig through loads of used records on a weekly base. For years I visited the shop every week. First just for finding records, but later on also to have a good time and have some good discussions on various topics with the owner and other regular customers. I also helped the owner one day in buying reggae stock at some wholesalers in Amsterdam.

The shop moved a couple of times to better locations and some years ago the owner also started to organize a yearly record fair with mostly private sellers. I attended there on most occasions with a full Jamaican Music stall and sometimes I had to spin a little reggae set on the sound system. Now having children and other priorities besides collecting and selling records I don`t visit my local record shop as often but still once a month I pop by for an update. And nowadays the facebook connection is also working. But as I said in these Corona time I will try to visit every week to support my local record shop.

I remember once in those early days (1989?) I was still studying and I had this birthday party at my house. My student friends gave me this special gift voucher issued by my local record shop. It was a hand writen coupon with the value of 25 dutch guilders. They went to the shop and asked the owner if they could buy a gift voucher for his regular customer. So he just improvised that one! And of course on my first visit after that birthday he had this special album for me behind the counter. That was Ras Michael - Kibir Am Lak! By the way later on he started to issue official printed gift vouchers! :) Diskid is still out there and I had some great catches out there and always a good time! Big respect to all record shops!

Flying D