The Downtown Spokane Skywalk Record-Buying Circuit

In the mid-1970’s, downtown Spokane got a huge boost from the city playing host to the 1974 World’s Fair. They renovated quite a bit for this event, and when we moved back to Washington from Ohio, I saw that the dank, dingy downtown area had become a shopping mecca. Before I found The Music Box (and after as well), my first stop whenever we’d hit “the big city”, was the circuit of mostly large department stores that were all interlinked by the city’s new “Skywalk” system – these were (mostly) enclosed bridges which connected most of the major stores on

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OMG – Vinyl really IS on the way back…

We’re currently vacationing on Cape Cod, and we stopped by the Cape Cod Mall on Saturday. We went over to look around, do some shopping, have a nice dinner, and check things out. The mall is one of the few left that has a large Barnes and Noble with a mall entrance – most of them are free-standing stores these days – and imagine my shock when I saw a bin as we approached the escalator proclaiming “BN now has Vinyl!” But there in the middle of the store, below the big sign, was a large rack with ALBUMS. Not

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As The Eucalyptus Turns…

I don’t think they’re still in business anymore, but Eucalyptus Records and Tapes was a store in Spokane, WA that I had heard about and wanted to check out. By this point, The Music Box was still around, but I needed to try out more of the stores in the area. One afternoon in the mid-summer of 1979, I made a trip to Spokane to spend my money, and headed up to north Division St, almost up to the Northtown Shopping Center. I pulled into the store, a free standing store, the first I’d ever been in that wasn’t part

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My “last farewell” in a Tacoma record store…

I’m repurposing this from one of my old “Song Of The Day” entries on “The Kirkham Report“, but the story has to be told here as well…because…well…it just FITS, you know? Roger Whittaker is known throughout the world as one of the most popular crooners of the 1970’s. Yet in America, he was virtually unknown until his song “The Last Farewell” catapulted him to the top of the MOR/AC charts here in the States. Got a Mom story for you, if you weel….heh heh heh…picture a twelve year old TC  in the summer of 1975. (Or maybe not…don’t want you

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My own personal “Music Box” dancer…

Although I’ve been listening to music since I can remember, and buying records since I was about three, for the most part from that time until my teen years, I purchased records in regular stores. There was a large bin for records at a number of local stores when I was growing up in Ohio – Ben Franklin in Utica, Twin Fair and Seaway in Newark, Kings and Arro in Heath, and others. And while I went to a few stores devoted to records as a child, including one in Tacoma WA that I can’t remember the name of (though

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Welcome to the world of the past…

Kim and I have been perusing some of the retail sites online lately. I’m fascinated by the “dead mall” concept, and businesses that have gone under in the economy or bankrupt for another reason. And we got to talking, and thought about how much fun it might be to take a few trips down memory lane about our favorite hangouts – record and book stores. One of the things that drew us together as a couple all those 20+ years ago was our mutual love for books and music. We both love to read, love all kinds of music, and

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