regarding Disc World.

Another one of my favorite record stores has shuttered its doors - Disc World in Conshohocken is no more. I drove by there today to give a gander only to find a giant "For Lease" sign. According to Conshie news site More Than the Curve, the place went out of business back in November. So... that sucks.

Disc World was one of the first indie record stores I ever visited. I wasn't too hardcore about visiting indie shops in high school - my employee discount at Sam Goody took 40 percent off of CDs - but Disc World's prices were always ridiculously low. Since they primarily sold used CDs, and later used vinyls, the selection was always varied, which I found appealing. Sam Goody always had to maintain X amount of a given album/artist, but Disc World's inventory shifted from week to week. I can barely remember all of the out-of-print stuff I picked up over the years thanks to this store. The Internet has made obtaining music hella-easy, whether you want to go the illegal piracy route (which I detest) or the legal online shopping route (Amazon, eBay). But the thrill of the hunt is part of the attraction in record collecting.

Besides, Disc World was one of the best places for crate digging, which is something I just can't do online because it's so fucking boring. Their vinyl selection was never as huge as, say, that of the Philadelphia Record Exchange, but it was manageable and almost always yielded a great find or two. I found a sealed copy of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' Let's Face It on clear red vinyl for $5. David Bowie's Low and Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska for $3 each. My entire Simon and Garfunkel collection, as well as plenty of LPs from the Police, Prince, Joni Mitchell. This place was cheap, friendly, and like 15 minutes from my house. With all due respect to Siren Records in Doylestown and Repo Records in Philadelphia (whom I love and cherish more than my future children), Disc World was a rewarding place to shop at and didn't guzzle up my gas money. Oh yeah, and parking was free.

It's funny; here I am celebrating Disc World for its pre-Internet wonders, and the place never had a Web site. I will probably never learn how or why they closed. Maybe it was the economy. Maybe the owner decided to retire and couldn't find anyone worthy of taking over the business. OK, it was probably the crappy economy. And those damn kids twittering rap music from the BookFace or whatever. Regardless, I'm down yet another record store. Oh sure, there are plenty of stores with decent selections in the city, but I'm a big fan of service too. You ever notice how much I don't talk about a.k.a music?