I've written before about the awesome nature of Sound Warehouse, in particular the flagship store location on May Avenue. SW was the Oklahoma version of Tower Records (with all the positive and negative attributes of what that entails). They had an unbelievable inventory of vinyl record albums displayed in rows of shelves that seemed never-ending. I'm sure I wrote of how much joy we took in perusing as many of these records we could take in during the time we allotted to it. We would marvel at all the new album art displayed in the aisles and on the walls (a rotating selection of staff picks and new releases which collectively made up a brand new "theme" each week). It was very easy to waste a lot more time in a store like this than money...especially when the allotment of cash I might have luckily acquired was not sufficient enough for me to pay Sound Warehouse's prices...
...not that they were ridiculously high or not worth what they demanded. They were actually decent and the trip to OKC would have been justified had I any intention of giving them what little money I had saved up for the trip. Steve likely bought something for his burgeoning cassette tape collection. Chet probably bought something from SW, too, probably on the strength of a Rolling Stone record review, but he too preferred to save the bulk of his LP allowance for the same thing I hoarded ALL of my money for.
Rainbow Records.
Rainbow was the first "used record store" to attempt and succeed with the concept of buying customer's records (albeit with a markdown that seemed incredulous to the "seller" but was actually a necessity if any workable profit margin was to be worked out). It was like a kick in the groin when you'd hand over your copy of The Velvet Underground with Nico for the measly couple of bucks they'd offer. But you understood how the whole thing worked so it didn't exactly "feel" like you were maybe getting ripped off...even if reality was on the side of the dude handing you a couple of bucks for your treasured copy of The White Album...money you would no doubt turn around and spend on one of the countless bootlegs they'd accrued via the business model.
Had Rainbow records succeeded on the strength of buying and selling product in this manner can and must remain a matter of speculation; the main draw of Rainbow Records was always the otherworldly import vinyl selection. Import copies of songs and albums by bands you could only read about in the music rags, the radio sure weren't playing their stuff...terrestrial radio, the FM band in particular, had their own universe of music canonized and for the most part it just didn't always live up to the standards we expected from all the groups whose music we knew we'd like before ever hearing a note; a record review in Creem magazine, or maybe Trouser Press, Circus, Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone and whatever else we could find was probably going to appeal, as we all three had a knack for music critique of our own. Between the three of us we had this in common, we loved to read about music, we understood the mind of a Lester Bangs and enjoyed thinking that such an individual might lead us to something better than the friendly Sound Warehouse guy asking "can I help you find something?"
The answer to that question was always, "no", as our superior music snob personalities had already summed up the extent of their inventory for what it was and collectively dismissed it in favor of a lo-fi bootleg copy of a Talking Heads show from last year. A transaction such as this could only ever be performed at Rainbow.
In it's first conception, Rainbow Records was located in Norman, Oklahoma, and it was there that the "used record store" model came into being. Apparently it was a successful one, as they sold the smaller lot (which became Shadowplay Records in it's absence) and moved to a MUCH larger building on the corner of Classen and NW 23rd street, just across 23rd street from a historical landmark, a dome shaped building which was at the time a bank. At some point it became associated with a church denomination and remains, at least for now, protected from a large group of people who wish to see it razed to the ground in anticipation of big dollars and bigger parking accessibility.
Rainbow seemed to thrive all the way up until the Compact Disc revolution and a tad bit beyond but all too soon they had to shut the doors and close up shop, leaving the store with only the sign to remember it's past glories (and the resting place of many a record collector's prized possessions). A shot of good memories every time I drive by, to see the sign and all it entails...
...and all that apparently survived last nights high winds (tornado?) are the brick frame and that sign... No, I never entertained the possibility of a Rainbow resurrection, but somehow the gloom is magnified by the busted out window fronts and the young lady taking pictures of the insides, through a broken window pane. The structure itself has been utilized as a warehouse for a Hoover vacuum cleaner chain, there hasn't been a record (or a CD, for that matter) pass through it's doors since they were first locked so it's really only the sign that's left and though I'd like to think that it's destiny is to remain for those of us, this dwindling few who helped make it what it became.
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