So last week I was on vacation. I’ve touched down back to work for a few days, so now we can blog. You may know the rules of PPM, but if you don’t it’s easy: we blog during our lunch hour at work. Which is a scarce phenomenon for the next fortnight. Anyway, we trekked up to Akron, Ohio and as usual, there would be a visit to Time Traveler but with many crucial differences this time.

First and foremost, the act of buying music while simultaneously attempting to rid my Record Cell of a thousand titles, is somewhat self-defeating. So my goal this trip, unlike all of other times I’ve visited this store for the last 30 years [where I’ve spent thousands of dollars], was simple. Only buy the few things that I really want. I’ve had it up to here with buying what’s only conveniently in the store at the time of my visit. Where want list items are always very thin on the ground! That’s getting old. This time I was going to special order what I wanted. I might as well support one of the best stores going these days.

So I called owner Scott Shepard during a break on the drive up to Ohio last Saturday. And the word I got from him was, “could you call on Monday, I’m really busy right now.” That’s a good sign that he’s staying afloat in weird times, so I was happy to comply. We turned our attention back to the trip fully. We ostensibly go to Akron to see family and friends, not record stores [believe it or not].

Come Monday, I called at 11-ish and Scott said, “I’ve got a big order checking out and I need the phone line, could you call back later?” Sure thing. [insert seven fruitless calls] So it looked like Monday was a busy day as well for the store. As my wife and I were running errands that day, at a certain point we were driving down Market Street and my wife said, “we might as well just drop in to the store to get your orders in.” True, that.

I walked in the store and Mr. Shepard might recognize me by now. I said hello and got down to business. I had a shortlist of recent DLX RMs that were burning into my consciousness that I had skipped on at the time of issue due to saving for the 2024 Euro vacation. Now was the time to reel them in…if they were available.

First order of business was the DLX RM of Bryan Ferry’s “Mamouna.” Check! Not an issue. I also wanted both of the Electribe 101 recent reissues. Their luxurious 4xCD of “Electribal Memories” and the missing-in-action second album that never was! Score on the 4xCD but a bust on the orphaned album. I next turned my thoughts to The Revillos and The Rezillos. Cherry Red had issued several titles, but all were on the dreaded “back order.” Shorthand for “you’re too late.” So I went down to the second tier on my want list and got better results from the Bruce Woolley contingent. The 3xCD “Definitive Anthology” was still available! As we were into the triple digits by this time, I felt that was enough for this day.

Scott said that his orders are delivered on Thursday, so we could drop by on Friday and pick them up. Perfect! Friday was our day to have lunch with our friend Dean, another big music geek we always try to see when in town. We had a lunch at noon on Friday at Luigi’s and Time Traveler was almost walking distance from the 80 year old font of good pizza. During this trip I couldn’t help buy notice that this one was not like all of my other visits for the last 20 years in a major way.

I have joked that I could run the same, gray, overcast photo of the door of Time Traveler every visit on my blog and it wouldn’t matter. Apart from better cameras on my personal devices, they are of a piece. Not today. The 68˚F weather, and the bright blue sky was an abject anomaly! As my loved one said to me, “if people didn’t know any better they would want to live here [on a day like this]!”

When Dean and I arrived I saw the desired discs waiting for me. Scott said that one of his customers saw it and asked him to order it but the distributor was sold out! I was j in the nick of time, I guess! I looked in the store despite having committed $110 to the discs in hand. There might be something to tip my hand, but there was nothing else that I looked for this day. But I was happy not get just what I came for and keep the wheels of Time Traveler greased to the best of my ability.

So this was the way I need to roll going forward. Special order what I actually want if I’m going to hit brick and mortar stores. Keep the influx of music tight and focused. I’m not getting any younger. The “thrill of the hunt” is all but over for me. I almost never find that things I truly want as much as these titles. And I returned home to 11 titles leaving the Record Cell, so we’re at better than parity for the overall number!

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