Benjamin R.
Yelp
I was very excited to see the Dallas-based Josey Records were planning on opening a location here in Kansas City. The music scene in Kansas City has always been strong across the board, but the vinyl selection here had been less than thrilling until the last few years, when all of a sudden, we were blessed with several great shops around town.
What got me most excited, though, was that Josey was started down in Dallas in part by fairly well-known house music producers/djs, JT Donaldson and Waric Cameron, both of whom had come up to play KC a bunch in the 00's and loved the vibe of the city. "Electronic" music, despite having sustained the vinyl industry for the better part of the last 20 years, is woefully underrepresented in the bins and shelves of stores around the city, so I felt like this would be a great spot to pick up some well-curated classics and some cutting-edge releases, as well.
We stopped by on a blistering hot Monday afternoon and were immediately impressed with the open, airy layout of the store. There was a big square desk area in the middle that resembled an employee command center of some kind, with a guy looking through records online and another employee towards the back weeding the Jazz and Soul section.
I cruised around the outer perimeter, getting a feel for the selection. I kept seeing "Rock Music" "Rock Music" "Rock Music" on the little placards and it was right about then that I realized I'd set my expectations too high. The records facing me were the same Goodwill/dad rock crap every other place had and overpriced, as if I owed them for saving my Saturday mornings by perusing the horrible suburban garage sales for a month for me and collecting the 10/$1 AC/DC, Boston, and Yes records after everybody's uncle had upgraded to 24k Gold CD in the late 80s.
I asked the guy at the counter if he could show me where the electronic/techno stuff was, and after mentioning some of it would be up front with the new stuff, he walked me back to a little section about 2 bins wide, full of the crap dross cut-out bin nonsense that probably hadn't seen the business end of a 1200 in well over two decades, if ever. One part of me screamed "BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY" to unload a significant amount of more contemporary house and techno records and actually shore up this pitiful selection, but honestly, I'm not really sure I'd find myself back in here any time soon, and despite the Donaldson/Cameron connection, I wasn't terribly confident that anybody I'd talk to here would have the first clue what I was even bringing in, much less give me a reasonable offer.
Back up front, I hoped the New Arrivals would yield some gems, but it was all overpriced, ironically self-aware indie stuff or major label reissues that ranged from "kinda recent" to "well, it's still sealed so it's new," most of which seemed to rely on packaging or color variant gimmicks (OMG triple gatefold pink splatter!) to support outrageous pricing. I get that that's what's "hot" in the market right now, but on the other hand, a long time ago I gave up supporting businesses that rely on uninformed, impulse customers overpaying for nostalgia and gimmicks in the name of "supporting local business" - especially when the commodity at hand is the product of a mega-industry only concerned with the potentiality of billions in "untapped" revenues staring them in the face with every Crosley sold at Urban Outfitters.
I'll give Josey the credit that they are just opening, and that the space itself, located just south of Power & Light on Oak, is well designed, with a lot of potential - beautiful wood shelving, listening stations all along the walls, huge album cover art all around, exposed wood and brick, live event area, and a volume of selection that looks nearly impossible to get through in one setting. This is what "modern" record stores look like elsewhere, however the antiquated selection factored all of that out. Were there things in the bins I probably would have picked up, had I spent more time in there? Probably, but I have already committed to myself that I will not dig through Clapton, Joe Cocker, and Commodores records looking for Cocteau Twins eps ever again - Discogs and Ebay all day long.
I would like to see a MUCH better curated electronic section, and a bigger emphasis on truly independent/boutique records from the past, present, AND future that attract the truly obsessive music devotee instead of trying to appeal to the casuals trying to re-create the local classic rock, easy listening, or milquetoast NPR station's playlists song by song. This sort of lowest-common-denominator thinking is exactly why record shops dried up and blew away in the first place.