Buy me a record

Remember when I dreamed this record store into existence? That was a pretty good dream. It's been nice to have them around the corner, especially because almost every weekend features a free live performance by one musical act or another. Some are bands you've surely heard of. Most are unknown, like shiny wrapped presents.

Yesterday we saw Matthew Mullane, an acoustic guitarist who looks as young as my nephew but plays like a virtuoso.

Previously we've seen a rowdy blues band, an electronica DJ (with a film projected behind him onto a white bedsheet), a moody Califone, and a Southern-gothic punk outfit that would challenge you to a staring contest as soon as look at you.

We've missed Jon Langford, a handful of noise bands, two film premieres (shown on the same white bedsheet), three art openings, and a 17-member punk-rock glee club singing a cappella. No matter. There's always something new on the calendar.

Watching music this way corrects for all the things I've come to hate about the late-night rock club:

- Afternoon performances. You leave and it's still daylight outside

- Just one or two bands on the docket, with none of that endless set-up and breakdown in between

- Crowds you can breathe in, even if you're short

- No danger of getting knocked over by some liquored-up jerk trying to recreate the mosh pits of his youth

- Sometimes there's a dog in there

- Free show!

See? It's not that I don't love music anymore. Not at all. It's more that after 20+ years of heading out at 10pm, sitting through two different bands before hearing the one I came to see, and dodging the collective machismo of the room, I'm ready for a kinder, gentler delivery system. Now one has opened just around the corner, and I don't even care that my husband is single-handedly keeping them in business. Whatever it takes, I hope they stick around.