A little over four months ago in mid June, I along with tens of thousands of hapless like-mindeds — inconsolable and defeated — mourned like the covert Scottish patriots at William Wallace’s public execution in BRAVEHEART as the last two American Virgins were sacrificed in New York and Hollywood.
More specifically, the last two Virgin Megastores. That, coupled with the shuttering of the venerable and iconic Tower Records chain, had the subtle effect of a Muay Thai elephant kick to the already deflated psyches of recorded media collectors worldwide. In a few fell swoops of corporate bottom-lining, the record store experience: Venues to escape and lose oneself filtering through bins, discovering a semi-obscure album and/or an underappreciated director, actor and film, became critically fewer. This was the day we all had been foretold and dreaded actually experiencing happen.
