Record Store Day 2013

When in Lafayette (“I’ll be yours. . .”) on a Saturday morn with only two hours to drive until Saturday’s complementary show (Fort Wayne), what to do but search the yellow pages (old school) and ferret out the likeliest prospect. In this case, one Von Records, hard by the Purdue campus across the Wabash River–which turned out to be a whole unified retail block: Von Books, Von Cards, Von Incense, etc. I could never figure out if it was Gay Pride Day, Boilermakers home baseball day, or just a major university campus out on the weekend. Things were lively, but I wended my way through the downtown west Lafayette costumed street festivities and purchased a Waco Bros-Paul Burch 2012 collaboration and also a Hank Williams disc. A propos of the latter, the sales clerk reacted, so since I had seen zero Lu records under folk, country, or pop/rock, I made the mistake of inquiring. “How is she classified?” the young lady wanted to know, which of course what I was essentially asking her. After a few licks at the computer, she returned to say, “You might check just under the letter W, for artists who aren’t as well known.” I bit down hard on that one. The words “That’s what three Grammys gets you” did escape my lips, despite myself. But Von seemed to be the lone game in town, and there were local songstresses performing for Record Store Day. Oh, the whole purpose of this jaunt was for Amy LaVere, and her drummer had mentioned something about them possibly showing up at a store, but not on my watch. At any rate, wishing I had gone the Amoeba route, but here’s hoping some on Forum did…