We bought ALL the effin'* records!

*censored for your protection.

I haven't written in a year, and frankly for the 2 or 3 people who read it, it's probably a relief. However on the vinyl side of things, something very dramatic has happened and it's time to reflect on the fact we bought a RECORD STORE! I mean what?? That's right, we bought an fucking awesome record store. I mean who does that? What the hell do we know about this shit. Well, not as little as you think. Kyle and I many have years of retail experience and well, I think we have put it to good use. Matthew is blowing my mind. He has embraced our family business with his whole heart, and we are so proud of him. Combined with Payton, a new addition to the Radomsky family whether she likes it or not, we feel quite optimistic and excited. After a year (WTF - a year???), and we feel like we are moving in the right direction and doing quite competently. We have a lot to learn, but who doesn't, no matter how long they have been in business. So I don't need to tell you all the ins and outs of our business. Much better you just drag your ass out to Chilliwack and check it out.

I was thinking about my last blog with all the fucked up record covers, and I am actually surprised to see how normal these record covers are. Seriously, I keep finding way weirder shit every day! Why are there so many bird training records? And check this out:

Incidently, I named the above file "I censored my pussy" and put it in first so the thumbnail doesn't show full nips. It feels wrong on FB.

Okay, yikes. But lets talk about it. This record is from 1957. This means it is older than my parents. Guys, it is almost 70 fucking years old! It also quite valuable. So we listed it online and actually sold it twice accidently - people were so eager to get it. The guy from Italy missed out because he was trying to bypass the website, because someone from the States bought it from under him when we failed to take it down. But don't worry Italian perv, they just repressed it and now you can get a brand "spankin'" new copy. Ha! Oh I also found some Playgirl magazines from 84 and 85. I had no idea they showed actual flacid junk. What the actual fuck? I was horrified. Erect peni are porn ladies - tsk tsk, but checking out flacid/semi cocked (teehee) is totally acceptible. I looked at one page with some guy’s ... resting on a stair of a staircase set and slapped the magazine closed, never to be opened again. I am not a prude, that is just yucky! Pierce Brosnan did not feature a naked centrefold on his cover edition. Not that I want to see his flacid poses anyway, but he is not as brave as Burt Reynolds whose centerfold exposè did not work well for his career.

Enough of that. Just know that this is totally relevant to the ownership of a record store. We buy collections from people and you just don't know what you'll find. From worthless (to us) records, to OMG this little 45 laying on the bottom is worth $300+! (- yes, sold). In this case it was found in a collection we bought for someone for $20 basing the price on the Nana Mouskouri and James Last-esque records which dominated the collection. (If that guy comes back, we will give him more with our apologies).

When we go through collections, there are quite a few we just have to donate. No one is buying someone's entire catalogue of James Last or a 1970's collection of country songs in the style of the original artists. We pack them into 12x12 boxes and stack them in the back. It is super awkward going to Value Village dropping of more than a couple boxes while driving a Jeep emblazed with Chilliwax Records all over it. Couldn't I go to a more deserving location than VV? I love donating my worthless stuff to them because they are such a rip off, I want them to have to deal with it. I want to give good stuff to the worthy charities. Anyway, when we took over in September last year, there was already an accumulation of boxes and we were getting overrun. I had made a couple trips to VV, but it was just too much. We had this plaster mannequin in the window display, who had seen much better days. His legs were severed so he could be in a sitting pose and his torso was separated from his lower body. Anyway, after I accidently broke his fingers off while moving him, we decided his time had come. He didn't even have a name. We tried but nothing stuck. Anyway, we tossed him in the dumpster. ON TOP of him, we dumped 5 boxes of records. This is approximately 80 records each, and heavy. Normally we would not actually trash them, but ... we did. I am sorry. We returned the next day to this:

  Which is possibly our next album cover.

I would like to point out that mannequin was under about 200lbs of records. Okay, I clean that up, lesson learned. I open the door at the end of the day and this is what I find. Keep in mind this was done during the day!

I guess is a natural segue to my own art. I have done very little pouring, and while it saddens me, I just have too much to do that is a priority and my workspace is more of a desk for my office work. That doesn't mean I haven't been creative. I do so much design for all the signage in the store, the website and our newsletter. It is consuming and I am very very inefficient, as I have not learned how to just settle on a font or that kind of thing. But in the end, I am very happy with my results.

I made this piece for the wall at work that I am really happy with. I am told that people in the neighbourhood come in to take pictures so it can be the backdrop. It's obviously not an original idea, but it was a lot of work to find records that matched the scrapbook paper I have been hoarding for over a decade. I'm telling you, Chilliwax records has really made me loosen my death grip on my craft supplies. Which is fantastic.

I have poured a bunch of records for a frame collage I am planning for our audio room, but I don't want to have too much of my art, its a little self indulgent and irrelevant. I do have a table for sale in there, (which people love, but don't buy, just like at the craft fairs, sigh) so that is already pushing it.

I started off on another tangent, but I think it is best we just leave this for now. It means I have a head start on my nexy blog about Window Displays.