With its 3/4-vacant downtown ever dwindling since the dawn of the interstate freeway system and its Eisenhower-era timewarp feel, virtually unknown musical history, relative isolation, and annual outflux of fun-starved "cool kids" to hipper pastures like Portland and the Bay Area (and even Sacramento), the town of Anderson hardly seems like the kinda place that could support a good record store. Or even *any* record store!
But consider this little known fact: Some 12-13 years ago, Melt Banana was already recognized by a growing fanbase in the USA as Japan's most transcendent force of brimming hardcore-punk intensity, exquisite appropriation of outer-zoning noise, and exciting, unpredictable, yet cogent rhythms further mapping the z-axis of rhythm on which Captain Beefheart had embarked 30 years prior. They had been playing packed shows at DIY spaces and warehouses for 4-5 years then. But on their fourth U.S. tour, they played the Grange Hall in Anderson! Still, this fact is virtually unknown anymore. And I think most of the audience at that show had driven from Davis, Sacramento, and the Bay Area, and maybe also from Chico where a then-obscure Melt Banana had played on their first tour with a reunion lineup of the Red Krayola. So it really doesn't rate as an explanation for how Anderson could have a pretty decent record store in 2012.
To be sure, Meteor Music is an uncommonly good record store for a semi-rural town, even in the age of eBay, GEMM.com, and Discogs.com which makes the collectibles biz viable from anywhere....so long as the proprietor knows what people want and how to get into it cheap enough to turn a profit. And be fastidious about mail-outs! Probably half of these sellers don't even have storefronts anymore, and that is why Meteor is special to offer this outpost here in California's outback.
I didn't actually buy anything because most of the A-Z rock selection was not my cup o' tea. But I recognized that a more typical record enthusiast would likely be happy here with so many Beatles and Stones titles, some Springsteen "fanclub editions" of live concerts, and the like. I was tempted by some nuggets of first-gen American independent underground bands, but they were priced a little too high for me since I wasn't so much on a vinyl mission during my visit to the area. Still, someone on Discogs is probably gonna snatch those up! The "new arrivals" section had some interesting titles. I'm gonna check on a couple of them to make sure they'd be worth my $15 apiece.
Coolest thing I saw was a Bell-Howell 1/4-inch tape of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" ready to play on your refurbished Teac reel-to-reel machine.
A pretty good record store in a podunk town deserves five stars on principle, but I will deduct two stars for keeping the rarer titles behind the counter. Probably 2/3 of the store's square footage is inaccessible to the general population, and no one's free to just go back there and browse. The owner wants you to tell him what you want, and he'll tell you if he has it. I didn't have 30 minutes to just spout off all the names from the Nurse With Wound list or Killed By Death comps, and who knows if he has any of that kinda stuff back there?!? But maybe someday I can do some browsing 'cos I am more of an impulse buyer when I come across a rarity that I like for a price that's pretty good.
This place is on the old Hwy 99 (now 273) which is an awesome corridor of weird 2nd-hand treasures for its entire length, but it's also just a couple minutes off I-5, so it's recommendable for a stop even if you don't have all day to scavenge. read more
