By Daniel Pearson
SDUN Reporter
Tucked away near the busy street corner of Sixth Avenue and Robinson Avenue in Hillcrest is a tiny, independently-owned music store called Record City. It’s one of the last of a dying breed—the independently-owned record store where patrons actually can purchase vinyl LPs and hard-to-find albums by obscure artists, not just CDs like those sold at the big-box stores, or credit-like cards you can purchase with a certain number of downloads from iTunes.
“All of the record stores closed around then—even Tower Records,” Leavitt said. “That was right about the time Napster and Internet downloads hit and became popular.”
At the same time, Graham McNamara, the current manager of the Hillcrest Record City, was frequenting the El Cajon Record City. His said his passion for music pulled him into the store to search for the records he loved growing up.
“In 1997, I was working as a hairdresser for SuperCuts,” McNamara said. “Leonard said he was looking for a new location to move Record City, and he wondered if I would be interested in running the store—not because I had experience managing a music store but because he knew I had a vast knowledge of and enthusiasm for all kinds of music.”
McNamara’s mother is British, so he spent the majority of his teenage years, from 1975 to 1980, living in Great Britain—when the sounds coming out of the U.K. were changing the musical landscape. The Sex Pistols were causing a stir with their violent, unpredictable shows; the sounds and political messages of The Clash were becoming popular the world over; and, of course, disco music was reaching its heyday.
“I would have to say that, of all the great music that came out in those days, my favorite bands have to be The Police and a band called Showaddywaddy, who was a pop group that specialized in revivals of hit songs from the 1950s,” McNamara said. (Showaddywaddy’s song “Under the Moon of Love” was a No. 1 hit on the U.K. singles chart in 1976 and spent a total of 209 weeks on the charts.)
Jack Adler, a Record City employee who started working there 10 years ago, said the store has the largest inventory of used records in San Diego County, and a lot of that has to do with McNamara’s passion for tracking down hard-to-find albums.
“It’s a pet peeve of mine that people search the Internet and find out about some obscure music, then come in here and ask us why we don’t have a psychedelic South American section,” Adler joked. “I don’t think someone who downloads music is passionate about the band they are listening to. People with iPods are just not that passionate about music anymore. There’s something about getting a record you’ve been trying to find for a long time. The difference between someone who likes music and downloads individual songs, and a collector, is all about passion.”
Ron Crosby, a frequent shopper at Record City, who describes himself as a “self-employed swap meet vendor who focuses on selling music,” has lived in San Diego his entire life. Crosby said it’s McNamara’s passion for collecting music, and the fact that McNamara and Adler give each customer personal attention as opposed to the clerks working in big-box stores, that makes Record City stand out from any other music store in San Diego.
“Record City is just more intimate,” Crosby said. “With the attention you receive, it’s kind of like buying music from a friend, whereas you get the feeling your business is not appreciated at the big-box stores.”
Prices at Record City range from the $1 bin to albums between $4.98 and $7.98, although some of the more obscure albums are a little more expensive. Record City is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. And contrary to popular belief, the music store across the street called Thirsty Moon is not affiliated with Record City, McNamara said.
