Hi,
Yes. I remember Zip's though they had slipped my mind. I can remember
when almost my entire record collection had an Al Bum's sticker on it.
I was thinking about this and sadly I have none left. The remaining
ones I had were lost in a move. I wish I had some of those Al Bum's
stickers for my Tucson memorabilia collection. You know, the bum
smoking a cigar.
It was like a treasure hunt looking for Zappa albums in the early '80s
when almost his entire catalog was out of print. I remember they were
so rare Bookman's would charge outrageous prices for copies that had
split, worn covers with discs that were so scratched and dusty they
were most likely unplayable.
PDQ used to have some fantastic deals on hard to find classical music.
I used to go to another store to buy classical music. I think it was
called Jeff's. I'm not sure.
I lived on S. 5th Ave & 15th St. in the mid '80s, and I would go to
the old Carnegie library and checkout records from there. They were in
horrendous condition, but they had some rare classical selections. I
still have some of the tapes I made of those recordings. I would also
checkout biographies of the composers and read them as I listened to
the music.
When I was in high school a friend of mine owned an 8 track recorder.
Our family had a '73 Monte Carlo with an 8 track player. I would buy
blank 8 tracks at Radio Shack in El Con and make tapes for the car.
--- In vanishingtucson@..., "emailjsjenkins"
<emailjsjenkins@...> wrote:
Hey Steve Q, The late great Al Bum's has indeed vanished. I still
have my "Radio Promotional
copy only. Not for sale" stamped Zappa and the Mothers Live album
that I bought there in
1978 for $3.00. My son works at the last remaining Zip's Record
store [remember that local
chain? Main Gate, North Oracle and Park Mall all vanished. Speedway
and Kolb is the sole
survivor) where the owner Ronnie told me that his brother in law was
the owner of Al Bum's.
I loved that place and probably still have 8 or 9 other used albums
from Al Bum's in my
collection including Working Man's Dead [$2} and The Wailers Burnin'.
