Purveyor of the soundtrack to The Sushi Prophecies, Burton is here to serve. Get a mug of mushroom tea and pick a song. God Bless this Record Shop. <\/em><\/p>\n When I say shitty record shop, I mean it in only the best possible way. Like a great dive bar, it doesn\u2019t advertise, and it doesn\u2019t care. Burton\u2019s Vinyl<\/em> doesn\u2019t sell tickets to known bands, it never stopped pushing records, it doesn\u2019t make money, and\u00a0Burton, the guy who preaches at the register, doesn\u2019t give a shit. Burton has lived, he has loved, and he has rocked. My friend has so much soul, and is assisted by narcotics so varied, his creative mind has overdeveloped onto its own spectrum. It\u2019s a pleasure to be in his space.<\/p>\n Burton may not be all there, but the vinyl certainly is\u2026best collection in town for rarities. Ask any DJ worth his weight, and he\u2019ll swear he\u2019s never heard of the place, preserving the hush-hush, meanwhile sneaking around the back of the nearest restaurant to find just one more\u00a0old yellow milk crate to fill.<\/p>\n The door opens without a single jingle, and you step into the noise.\u00a0One look around the place and you know you\u2019ve found something special, something intoxicatingly blissful, both embarrassing and gratifying\u00a0in its clutter. Like your grandparents\u2019 basement, or the shed of that disturbed single uncle, the treasures were flung far and with little regard for safe passage or\u00a0classification.<\/p>\n Burton\u2019s reaches all the way back to the alley giving it a rare full city block of depth. The elevated cashier bar, like many other bars in town, is horseshoe-shaped, providing a\u00a0view of the entire space and a fortress of defense against lubricious teenagers and divorced men\u00a0writhing\u00a0in their glory days. The really<\/em> good stuff is hidden\u00a0behind this barricade, with who-knows\u00a0how much more down the hatch back there, deep in\u00a0the cellar where you know he keeps magical\u00a0perishables and hypnotic foodstuffs.<\/p>\n There are levels to the place, figuratively and actually. In the far-left\u00a0corner, an orange spiral staircase\u00a0\u2013\u00a0wrapping around itself too tightly for proper skull clearance\u00a0\u2013\u00a0leads up to a graveyard of jewel cases\u00a0holding\u00a0laser-based technology long passed. In the other far corner,\u00a0a roped off ladder offers\u00a0a dusty storage space and\u00a0secret window-access to\u00a0a rotting rooftop deck and rain-ravaged patio furniture. The view is\u00a0unbelievable. The city shines for the few who have climbed that ladder.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the right side\u00a0of the store, in\u00a0the electric folk section,\u00a0navigating a\u00a0few\u00a0soggy\u00a0steps of frayed\u00a0green\u00a0rug,\u00a0stained a million stains, you might have come on a lucky day when\u00a0the\u00a0extraordinarily delightful\u00a0Death Race<\/em>\u00a0arcade game is\u00a0seen\u00a0humming away. Burton took great\u00a0pride in that machine for its\u00a0rarity and\u00a0banishment in the 80\u2019s\u00a0due to excessive violence. If asked, he\u00a0will\u00a0act aloof before slyly\u00a0producing\u00a0a tattoo of the cabinet\u2019s\u00a0marquee\u00a0artwork \u2013 a\u00a0purple-hooded Grim Reaper tearing through a\u00a0vulture-ridden\u00a0graveyard in a\u00a0cartoonishly\u00a0aggressive green Dodge\u00a0Charger. The car\u2019s\u00a0front-end popped up as it\u00a0rips\u00a0apart\u00a0crusty limbs of\u00a0zombie-gremlins beneath\u00a0big fat\u00a0smoking\u00a0rear\u00a0tires.\u00a0It\u2019s subtle, but classy.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are posters featuring\u00a0local bands that had come through to perform, but only if they brought their own beer. These were\u00a0often hand drawn with felt marker after the fact, sometimes weeks. Burton doesn\u2019t\u00a0believe in promotion, if you knew, you knew, and you would bring your idiot buddies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The many, many record stacks\u00a0and shelves\u00a0were\u00a0lacquered and tattered\u00a0wood, hand-built to fit the place and maximize storage. Dangling precariously overhead in all the right spots\u00a0hang\u00a0large circular industrial lamps, like some army base mess tent. Plants,\u00a0namely of the cacti variety,\u00a0were everywhere. Burton believed that twenty-four hours of musical diversity\u00a0inspired their verve.<\/p>\n The furniture and record players strewn\u00a0about\u00a0all other\u00a0spare nooks\u00a0were in high demand,\u00a0despite their barely clinging on to any semblance of hygienic decency. Boxes upon boxes, once filled with\u00a0Washington apples or\u00a0Oregon\u00a0whiskey were stacked where they needed to be, awaiting the day they might be transferred to the big leagues, those scuffed and oily wooden stacks\u00a0in the stadium of\u00a0browsing height.\u00a0<\/p>\n Everything\u00a0was just slightly askew,\u00a0everything but a single beige and brown rectangle\u00a0of framed\u00a0knitwork hanging from a central post,\u00a0stating simply,\u00a0God Bless This Record Shop<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And blessed it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n Want to see more of Burton? Get The Sushi Prophecies now at Amazon!<\/a> Or get the paperback at Barnes & Noble<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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