To Go: Sea Level Records Going Away Dance Party, L.A.

I hate record stores. Which is kind of odd, since records are some of my favorite things in the world. But shopping for them makes me crazy; I can't stay in Amoeba for longer than five seconds without wanting to strangle everybody in the room. I think it mostly has to do with my being a superbad combination of excruciatingly indecisive and wildly impatient, plus a little claustrophobic and maybe even a teeny-tiny bit misanthropic at moments. (Just so you know, I don't really like downloading music either - I hate missing out on the cover art and I generally like peeling off the dogbone thing even though it's so annoying.)

Anyway, there are only two record stores in the world I really love. The first is the Newbury Comics near the Alewife T stop in Cambridge, Mass: It's got wide aisles and it's brightly lit and pretty uncrowded most of the time, and when I lived in Boston there was a cute boy with dreadlocks who worked there and was always really nice and friendly. (FYI, I have this thing where once every five years or so I develop a weird crush on a boy with dreadlocks and then feel kinda awkward about it.)

The other store is Sea Level in Echo Park, which is closing forever on Monday. I went for the maybe-last time Wednesday night and bought Icky Thump and every Royal Trux record I didn't already own, and I was flooded with nostalgia for stuff like drinking free homemade lemonade at a Brother Reade in-store on a Friday night in the middle of a heat wave last summer, or even just for every hungover Sunday afternoon where I'd slurp Coke Slurpees and flip through the used CDs and maybe even play a game of Ms. Pacman. I used to make a point of buying new albums there instead of Amoeba, where it's a little cheaper but there's that problem of wanting to strangle everybody. The best was when a bunch of exciting records all had the same release date, like when Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis and Nine Times That Same Song by Love Is All and The Greatest by Cat Power came out two winters ago. That was a good Tuesday.

I don't know if I'll ever love any record stores again, but at least there's a party for us all to go tonight: Sea Level Todd will be spinning at Safari Sam's; it's an all-ages going-away soiree type deal. Our beloved Nikki from Silversun Pickups will be DJ-ing too, and Division Day and The Switch will be playing. And if you can't make it, you should at least stop by Sea Level at some point this weekend: All new CDs are 20 percent off, used CDs 30 percent.

Another thing happening this weekend that's totally unrelated but pretty amazing: Pharrell, the L.A. Film Fest's artist-in-residence, is hosting a night of films that have inspired his work - and we're so happy to learn that those movies are National Lampoon's Vacation and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's free and open to the public, happening at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Hammer Museum.

Posted by Liz in Events
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