Favorite Metal buying memory?

I shared this story in another thread today and a long time ago here or at the CMR, but doing so again made me think "why not start a thread?" Here's one of my best "Metal Memories"....



I remember walking across a pond and falling through the ice while
listening to Vengeance Rising - Human Sacrifice. My dog thought it was
great, me not so. As I waded to shore I was #1 - Thankful the water was
only neck deep where I went through and #2 - lamenting the loss of my
walkman and VR cassette to the bottom of the abyss!

I ran home (about 1/2 mile) completely soaked and freezing, changed
into sweats and ran back. In the middle of nowhere, making sure no one
was around, I stripped and WADED INTO freezing water up to my neck to
feel around for that cassette. NO GO! So, I ran freezing home again and
warmed up. Later that night I drove to the local mall and was lucky
enough that the record shop was cool enough to carry Human Sacrifice.
Score!

I will NEVER forget that day/night. It was surreal. My parents were on
a date or something that day/night so they never knew till years later
that they almost lost their son to an icy tomb! A few feet further out
from the shore and it would have been over my head. My dog was light
enough to run around the ice never breaking through so she thought I
was playing! I was able to do all this and drive that night to the mall
without them knowing. 16/17 years old and an idiot!!

You can't have a memory like that with downloads!

I used to ride my bike 8 miles to Tower records when I was 13.

my first metal purchase, with money i earned on my own. riding my skateboard several miles in the rain. i ended up soaking wet at the store & flipped through mountains of vinyl. by the time i had picked out the album i wanted, i was partially dry.

i made it home with Warlock's Burning The Witches & wore that thing out.

I was driving a truck route in Minneapolis, and as usual was listening to my worn out SAHB Live tape, and I just happened to think that wouldn't it be great to get this on CD. Now this was back when CD's were just coming in, and there weren't so many imports, specialty shops, or online sources as there are now. But I just happened to stop at a mainstream Best Buy store in Bloomington; not of course to look for that CD (looking there would have been foolish); but just to take a break and maybe buy a Cult CD or something. But that store just happened to have about half the SAHB catolouge (must have been some geek fan working there and ordering offbeat stuff) and they had the CD I had been wishing for 5 minutes before. That was some music buzz I got that day!

when I was first introduced to metal I discovered this little band named Hammerfall. At the local Fred meyers in florence there are these red dot online search machines that you could look up titles and what not. Whenever my mom was shopping for grocerys I would hop on one of those and listen to Hammerfall samples. I would have just bought a copy of an HF album but fred meyers is gay and didnt carry much of a metal selection. This routine went on for months untill I got a chance to go to Eugene and hopefully be able to buy one. When I cruised over to a sam goody in valley river center mall, I found ONE copy left of the chapter v disc.

I remember feeling so excited, that I actually owned the album. Everyone at school thought I was an idiot for listening to powermetal when I tried to show how awesome they were. To this day, all the metal heads (so called metal heads, their posers in my book) at my high school refer to powermetal/glam as stendermetal now. This happend in 2005 when I was 15 yrs old.

My first outing to Virgin Megastore. I know I seem to bring up that name so often you guys are probably tired of reading it but when I'm there I'm like a kid in a candy store. I would give my left nut just to get a enough money to go to Virgin and clear out all the metal CDs. I've seen and gotten CDs there from Grave Digger, Running Wild, Nightwihs, Jorn, Allen-Lande, Symphony X, Death, Thunderstone, Sonata Arctica, Catamenia, Royal Hunt, Silent Force, Axel Rudi Pell, Primal Fear, Circle II Circle, After Forever, Epica, Kamelot, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Angra, Khymera, Virgin Black, Rob Rock, Narnia, Cryoinic Temple, Black Majesty, Mob Rules, Rhapsody, Luca Turili, Avantasia, Edguy, Borknagar, Crematory, Mostly Autumn, Ayreon, Evergrey, Immortal Souls, Masterplan, Neal Morse, Graveworm, Bal Saggoth, Opeth, Pyramaze, Vision Divne, Visions Of Atlantis, Amorphis, Doro, Primordial, Origin, Metalium, Bathory, Nevemore, Leaves' Eyes, and many, many more (I got tired of typing). I have more memories of metal buing there than anywhere else in my entire life.

There were no Virgin Megastores where I lived, but we went to Vegas and there was one in the Ceasar's Palace complex (I think that's where it was). Anyway that was my only experience with them, but I said "screw the gambling, I'm spending my money here". And I did. I remember I got a Status Quo disc (Quo & Blue for You) 2 on 1 that I treasure to this day.

SAHB Healer wrote:

There were no Virgin Megastores where I lived, but we went to Vegas and there was one in the Ceasar's Palace complex (I think that's where it was). Anyway that was my only experience with them, but I said "screw the gambling, I'm spending my money here". And I did. I remember I got a Status Quo disc (Quo & Blue for You) 2 on 1 that I treasure to this day.

I personally just discovered Virgin less than 3 years ago but I have been an avid visitor since then. I don't go there that often because it is a little too far for avarage visits and I have to have a lot of money or be very determined to go or I will spend hours trying to make a decision. What's really great is when they have their frequent buyer card buy 10 get one free, unfortunatly on my last outing I got 6 CDs and forgot to get the card . This was partially the cashiers fault because I asked her to fill one out for me and my fault for getting sidetracked (I thought I had an extra $20 bill and had to figure out if I was just mistaken or not-I was) and forgetting to make sure she did.

My favorite metal buying memories date back to when I was in college. My friend Sean and I would hop on the Staten Island Ferry at least one Saturday a month and head into Manhattan for what we eventually called "The Metal Record Store Tour" -- i.e. visiting every funky little record store in the Greenwich Village area to scoop up as many metal treasures as we could before our money ran out. There were a LOT of record stores in the Village in those days (Bleecker Bob's Records, Second Coming Records, Saint Mark's Sounds, Revolver Records, the Sound Factory, It's Only Rock N Roll, and many more), so you could burn an entire day just going from one store to the next. Often we'd finish off the day at the Tower Records store in the village, which had a "clearance outlet" section that couldn't be beat, or if we were in the mood to travel, we'd hop on the subway to hit the main Tower store uptown (66th and Broadway, if memory serves) and see what could be found there. Those were the days!! I graduated from college in 1992 and though I have only been back to Manhattan on a few occasions since, I sometimes wish I could go back in time and do that Record Store Tour again. Unfortunately Tower Records is gone now, and I'm sure that most, if not all, of those little independent stores have most likely closed up as well.

I had a buddy that worked in Tower Records and he would tip us off when no undercover security was working and other ways to beat their systems. While I'm not advocating shoplifting here, allot of my early metal cassettes were "liberated" from their shelves in this fashion. I never swiped any cd's, though. I did pay for them when I upgraded my collection.

I have a few memories that will stick with me forever. One of the more resent ones was when me and a couple of friends went bowling at this large bowling hall we have here. We were just starting our first set, when some familiar tunes hit the speakers in the hall. Now there weren't that many people there at that time, but it still syrprised me when I recognized the song "High Gear" from the Whitecross album with the same name! Wow, this is a odd but cool tune to play. But the surpruze wasn't over, bevasue he continued to play the entire album while we were there. After our sets, I went up to the counter and asked the man about the album he played. He didn't have much knowledge about the band, but told me he liked it. I donæt even think he knew this was a Christian band. He didnæt at all look like a metalhead, and I was right about that too. For some reason he just liked that particular album.

I remember being in a train station in Europe (Spain I believe) and saw an album with a cool pirate themed cover so decided to buy it. Later I was listening to it and discovered that it was good old fasioned power/speed metal. That album was of course Running Wild-Black Hand Inn. Up til that point I never knew that band existed and to day that is one of my favortie albums (favorite track being Fight The Fire Of Hate-I've played the hell out of that track).

One good thing about Portland, Or. was the plethora of used music stores. Many have closed but there are still enough that when I visit I can hit a couple and always find a treasure or two.

I would go to the stores and buy everything on Combat, Music For Nations and Metal Blade. The only bummer is that they had a greater selection on tape and not vinyl. Summer of 83' till the end of 85' / early 86' was some good years for discovering great music and bands.

I remember skipping school and walking 5 miles or so (uphill both ways in snow!) to get to Waxie Maxie's to pick up Girls, Girls, Girls.

I remember the day I bought And Justice for All like it was yesterday, 4 dudes in a Pontiac T1000 rocking out. Ah memories.

kethdredd wrote:

I remember the day I bought And Justice for All like it was yesterday, 4 dudes in a Pontiac T1000 rocking out. Ah memories.

I remember the day I bought "Justice" too... cuz I actually got it a day early!! I happened to be in a Crazy Eddie's store (anybody remember those?) on the night before the official street date for the album, and found a box of "Justice" cassettes sitting on the floor in the corner. I wasn't sure if they'd even sell it to me before the release date, but the guy behind the counter either didn't know or didn't care cuz he rung it up without giving me any trouble. I practically FLEW out of that store so I could get back to my dorm room to crank it up properly....I also remember that my friend Sean (whom I mentioned in my last post) was with me at the time but he had to go home empty handed because he wanted to buy the album on CD... though we searched that stack of boxes for CD's we didn't find any (those were probably still in the back room) so he had to do without... All the way back to campus on the bus he kept glaring at me like "You lucky son of a b*tch." haha!!

I loved to search for tapes with cool art work. That's how i discovered a lot of metal bands. I really enjoyed looking for new bands at Tower Records or Music Plus stores back in the early 90's. It was always cool when a new Maiden tape came out or spoting a cool "metal" picture that indicated a dark and heavy band. That's the way i discovered Sepultura/Arise, Death/Human, Testament/Souls of Black etc...

I loved to search for tapes with cool art work. That's how i discovered a lot of metal bands. I really enjoyed looking for new bands at Tower Records or Music Plus stores back in the early 90's. It was always cool when a new Maiden tape came out or spoting a cool "metal" picture that indicated a dark and heavy band. That's the way i discovered Sepultura/Arise, Death/Human, Testament/Souls of Black etc...

not really a buying memory but a metal one none the less.

i went to have two foot of hari cut of and just as i sit in the chair the radio station that was on in the background play run to the hills by iron maiden.

lets just say i nearly did

I was a big fan of Kemp Mill Records in my teenage years. Then I discovered a hole-in-the-wall used place called Record Exchange that was owned by a dentist. They had a healthy metal section that always had a lot of turnover.

Of course there was also the many Record and Tape Traders in the Baltimore area. They had a killer discount bin and twice a year buy one, get one free used sale. I miss going there a lot.

Not long ago I was in L.A. and checked out two secondspin stores. The one in Santa Monica seemed picked through (there was a 20% sale going on). But the Sherman Oaks store was incredible. Had to plug the parking meter four times. Could of bought 3X what I did. Maybe I hit it on a good day but it had been a long time since I had seen that much metal in a retail store. Seemed like every other selection in the new arrivals was a metal album. Reminded me of the old days. And that I buy online too much.

As for a buying memory, several years back the local library had a table with books for sale. People would just drop stuff off on the table to be sold. One day there were three large wood crates stacked up. I opened them to find them filled with records in perfect condition. Going to the librarian to ask how much they wanted for them all. Her reply, "five dollars, too much". When I was reeling in shock - she then added "three or four dollars then". I still feel guilty about only dropping a ten spot for them. Only one crate fit in my jeep and needed a friend to bring his truck for the rest. Nothing metal in the giant lot but plenty of new wave, rock, and soul. So glad I put them on the moving van when I moved out west.

Cool vinyl memory!

J state, sounds like we grew up in relatively the same area at the same time. Big Kix and Childs Play fan here since they were the local favorites.

jstate wrote:

I was a big fan of Kemp Mill Records in my teenage years. Then I discovered a hole-in-the-wall used place called Record Exchange that was owned by a dentist. They had a healthy metal section that always had a lot of turnover.

Of course there was also the many Record and Tape Traders in the Baltimore area. They had a killer discount bin and twice a year buy one, get one free used sale. I miss going there a lot.

Not long ago I was in L.A. and checked out two secondspin stores. The one in Santa Monica seemed picked through (there was a 20% sale going on). But the Sherman Oaks store was incredible. Had to plug the parking meter four times. Could of bought 3X what I did. Maybe I hit it on a good day but it had been a long time since I had seen that much metal in a retail store. Seemed like every other selection in the new arrivals was a metal album. Reminded me of the old days. And that I buy online too much.

As for a buying memory, several years back the local library had a table with books for sale. People would just drop stuff off on the table to be sold. One day there were three large wood crates stacked up. I opened them to find them filled with records in perfect condition. Going to the librarian to ask how much they wanted for them all. Her reply, "five dollars, too much". When I was reeling in shock - she then added "three or four dollars then". I still feel guilty about only dropping a ten spot for them. Only one crate fit in my jeep and needed a friend to bring his truck for the rest. Nothing metal in the giant lot but plenty of new wave, rock, and soul. So glad I put them on the moving van when I moved out west.

I used to show at kemp mill records all the time! I bought most of my music as a pre-teen/teenager at kemp mill or penguin feather records. I remember that one of the guys at kemp mill was a metal head with great advise on what to buy! I remember buying Master Of Puppets as a new release at kemp mill records the day it was released!

Penguin Feather! I remember when they got raided and the place closed down because of their "alternative" business. Penguin feather used to give away the record flats which covered my wall.

Kethdredd, Baltimore to Annapolis then the southern counties were my stomping grounds from 86 - 03. So of course I'm also a big Kix and Child's Play (with Brian Jack) fan.

I always loved Kemp Mill for the cheaper CD prices and the fact they had the big pile of free weeklies. It always cracked my up though how for awhile the tapes were behind the counters and you had to get an employee to retrieve them for you. They always had cool employees though. The CDs on the other hand were out on the floor to easily be browsed through. Probably quickened my converting over.

Was Penguin Feather by chance that record store in downtown Annapolis? I used to get those flats there and it seemed like there was always stuff going down not involving record buying.