I don't live in Asheville, but have family there and have been visiting Voltage Records on my annual trips to town for at least the past five years. I'm a fervent supporter of independent records stores and always find a few great albums to buy when I stop in.
This past Christmas, my girlfriend thoughtfully bought a double-LP there that she'd seen me eying. When I opened it up though, I found that it contained two copies of the same record instead of the the two different ones that should have been inside. We were staying in a town a few hours from Asheville and so I decided to make a quick stop into the store to exchange it for a complete copy before flying out of Asheville on the last day of our trip.
So a few minutes before noon on Dec 29, the two of us swung by to make the exchange and had the most unpleasant, even frightening experience I've ever had in any store. The guy working there told us he didn't have another copy but we could exchange it for store credit. We explained that we didn't have a lot of time to burn browsing for something else and weren't from the area and thus wouldn't be able to cash in store credit another day. My girlfriend requested that, given that the item we'd purchased was defective and he couldn't replace it, he give us a refund. He expressed an increasing level of annoyance and explained that the store's policy was to only give store credit, not refunds and said it "wasn't his fault" the record set was defective. My girlfriend calmly explained that she expected the store to stand behind the products it sold, and he blurted out "fine, here's your f***ing money" and slammed the cash on the counter before telling her to get out. I was away from the counter and hadn't noticed the words he'd used, just the tenseness of the exchange. I smiled tentatively at my girlfriend as if to say "thanks for dealing with that" and he proceeded to tell me to "wipe that f***ing smirk off my face." I asked him what the problem was, and he got increasingly belligerent and swore some more as he told us to both get out. His body language and tone of voice suggested he was a step away from jumping over the counter to take a swing at me. We left and will never shop there again, nor will any of our friends and family in town now that they've heard about this experience.
I do not know if the guy we dealt with that day was the owner or just an employee (either way, he's usually there), but as long as he's associated with the store, I want nothing to do with it. I'm well acquainted with and even expect a bit of surliness and condescension from record store employees, but this was something altogether different. It's hard to fathom how anyone could get so violently angry over a $20 return and inexcusable to speak to either of us that way. Most guys I know there would have punched him in the mouth for what he said to my girlfriend alone, and while I abhor violence, I feel like he deserved at least that, although I'd settle for him losing his job.
So anyway, if you live in the area, do stop by Voltage Records if you enjoy being verbally assaulted. read more