Virgin Records is Gone

Hey-I popped by the Open Mic tonight but only stayed for a minute. Actually, I wish I could have hung around. When I walked up a bunch of friendly folks were hanging around out front. Chloe, Rebecca Seattle, Ariel, Ben K. etc. Chloe Philip said something about the closing of Virgin Records. Yes, another one down. I never was a real fan of Virgin, much more of a Tower man, myself. But once Tower closed, I started shopping at the Times Square Virgin and got kind of used to it. They did have a pretty deep collection there. Lots of people I know were down on corporate record stores, but I always thought that Tower was a cool place and ultimately thought that Virgin was ok too. At least at Tower I felt that somewhere underneath all the corporate trappings the place had a music lover's heart.

I was in New Orleans recently and spent some time at the Louisiana Music Factory which is a great old fashioned music store just like they used to make them. It reminded me of what I loved so much about record stores in the first place. In this case they focus exclusively in music from Louisiana artists, but it's the type of place where you stumble on and discover new things just by strolling around. They have tons of listening stations there too and you can listen to practically everything in the store. Plus, on Saturday afternoons they have really good free performances.

OK, so if you're ever in New Orleans you should stop by. I must admit that here in NY I'm not that up on too many great record stores. Other Music is decent but seems to have something of a limited stock. Any other good recommendations?

The OJ All Day Festival is coming up and I am getting excited. I am playing on Friday with the Key Lime Pie Revue (Ariel Bitran on guitar, Doug Johnson on drums, Trudy Williams on bass). Here's what it says about the Fest in the Critic's Pick column that just came out in Time Out: "Oddball local favorites come out of the woodwork for a quirky two-day festival." Ok, yes, we are oddballs. I can live with that.
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Well, hope to see you there. Check out ojallday.com. Also don't forget the cool video that Justin Remer made (I know I plugged it once before, but what the heck.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Safmzgtgfss