So there I was in Hillsborough, NC the Friday night before the Totally Tubular Festival in Raleigh on the 13th. I woke up at a luxuriously late 7:30 but still had many hours to eat breakfast and recon with my pals in Raleigh for a repast prior to the concert at 5:45 p.m. So I thought there’s plenty of time for a revisit to Chaz’s Bull City Records on the way in Durham, NC. It had been nine years since my last visit and I was curious to see what the store was up to.

After a breakfast of steel cut oats with peach-walnut compote and the best home fries I’ve had in ages at the New Hope Market in Chapel Hill, NC, I mapped my way to nearby Durham and figured I’d be at the store by 11:00 a.m. Mapping was taking me to a very different part of the city so it looked like BCR had undergone a move uptown. The old store had been in a lower rent district, and the new store was more downtown. This could bode poorly for the pricing of discs. As we parked in the adjacent garage (!) we entered the store that had just opened at 11:00, which is as early as degenerate record stores ever open up. There were a few hard core shoppers already there.

As I entered I saw a small box of $1.00 CDs. Nothing I wanted in there following a quick scan. Was this going to be it for the silver discs? No! There were thankfully more racks in the back of the store. But a glimpse at them showed nothing of any interest beyond some Rolling Stones live catalog titles which were not even on my want list! But I took a close look at everything and discovered something very heartening!

Local bands had a pair of CD-3 EPs on the racks! A band called Little Chair had a three track edition #9/25 for $5.00 and Years Active had a 4 track EP for $4.00. I should have bought them on principle! But checking them out now revealed the former having a Tallulah Gosh sound while the latter was actually painful to my ears [okay, so I’m old…]. Still, hipsters are embracing printed CD-R bespoke CD-3 EPs! This can only be good! And it reflected well on the store for carrying them.

Then I started looking elsewhere in the store. I saw boxed sets which were… record only, and all priced at three figures in the current environment. The store also had vintage (good) stereo equipment for sale. Then I turned to the used records; girding my loins for the worst. Only to be pleasantly surprised at the “old school” used LP prices that were still a hallmark of the store considering my last visit nine years ago! I was seeing clean use DC records of a Monastic vintage all at very attractive prices! I was heartened to see that moving to the downtown area didn’t force Chaz to abandon his good prices.

I don’t begrudge selling records for their value, though I find modern wax priced out of my cheapskate comfort zone. But here there were plenty of discs for under ten dollars that either I already bought 40 years ago for not much less, if anything, or else were titles I already had on CD. And Chaz had rated some of the titles on stickers! Want a VG+/VG+ copy of Danny Wilson’s “Meet Danny Wilson” for a fiver? This was your store! I saw two titles I didn’t already have! The debut album by Urban Verbs, a D.C. New Wave band I’d certainly heard of but never heard for $4.95. And a delightfully garish nouveau New Wave record from this century by a band called Zom-Zom’s.

The cover art alone would have piqued my interest; never mind the Gary Numan referential band name! [if you are new to the game…it’s from a lyric in Gary Numan’s early classic “Down In The Park”] As this was the 21st century, and I was participating, I took the effort to go to the Discogs page and play the embedded clip to sample. Spicy, twitchy ElectroPunk! And the price was good, but I was worried about records melting in my car on this trip [a very real concern!] so I noted it for possible future reference.

I saw The Spoons “Bridges Over Borders” for what I paid for it in 1993 or so when I bought the never-on-CD disc. Amazing. And the Shriekback 12″ was possibly the finest use of $7.98 imaginable. A few dollars more than what I paid in 1984, but how often does one see this gem out in the world??! There was yet more evidence of Graham Parker. For some reason, the Research Triangle area always has plenty of Graham Parker in the used bins. I wish I knew that this meant.

I was startled to see a Gang of Four promo US promo 12″ of “I Love A Man In Uniform” for $4.98! which felt like a pricing error! Surely all GO4 singles were double digits by now! If not, why not? A rare sighting of Alligator Indian’s “Football” black/green 10″ EP was pleasing – though I own it. I used to know Christian Church of the band as he worked with my wife and we both enjoyed the precursor band, Eleven And The Falcons as well as Alligator Indian as they were exploring a very Post-Punk space in the Asheville scene of the early noughts. Alas, they moved to [gasp!] Orlando many years ago. I’m not sure what their branding is now.

Finally, the store still had dollar LP bins [as was right and proper] and I couldn’t help but notice the appearance of Ultravox there which made me scan the whole section! But nothing I needed was there. Finally, I glanced through all of the new LPs that were in the premium position in the store. Amazingly enough, there are some LP only things which are new that I would buy, but not knowing where I was parking my car during the sweltering day ahead stayed my hand almost as much as the lack of want list goods.

But I was thrilled to see “Can’t Stand The Rezillos” in print for $23.98 in a new pressing! You kids have no excuse for not owning this classic! Back in the 80s, it was one tough mother to find! My first copy was a white label promo bought from Australia!! And I noticed a copy of the Rubellan Remasters edition of Suburban Lawns “Baby” EP. Which I owned on the original wax, so today I could pass, but this was the green apple wax edition. Finally a box of 7″ singles had nothing I needed but seeing such rare birds as the OZ pressing of Jenny Morris’ “She Has To Be Loved” for eight bits was another rare event.

I’d been in the store for about 45 minutes and it was almost time to move on. The ebb and flow of other customers was in a quiet time so I talked to the clerk, presumably Chaz himself. I complimented him on how he had upgraded his former store to this nicer, newer location and especially how he was selling a wide variety of price points on his stock. Sure, sure. There were three figure boxes and the new wax was on the lower end of typical, but the used material I had paid the most attention to had been a delight to browse. As I put it to Chaz [and he agreed] not every record is a $20+ item!

One would be hard pressed to come to this conclusion when visiting many of the new “Wrecka Stows” that have opened up in the current vinyl bubble. Considering that I could not find much here that I didn’t already have, the facts that handfuls of my Record Cell components were in evidence here for prices not much different for what I paid for them 40 years ago, was a minor miracle. As his door stated, they have been in business ever since 2005, and 19 years for a record store born in the aftermath of the Napster Event™ is little short of miraculous! For anyone crate diving in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, a trip to Chaz’s Bull City records is definitely recommended. Just because I didn’t buy anything, remember… I’m old. That makes it tougher for me to find want list items. Your mileage may vary.

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