As last weekend’s New England adventures played out, I found myself Saturday afternoon in Providence, Rhode Island, tracing along the racks at Armageddon Shop. I’d never been there before, don’t know when I’ll get back, but found it on the Record Store Day website (which is pretty handy as a database of indie shops around the country) and after seeing the considerable catalog posted on their own site, decided it wouldn’t be such a terrible way to pass some time.

And it wasn’t. The racks of used CDs were horizontal so you looked at the spines of the discs, there was plenty of vinyl around and not much standing room, Hank Williams coming from the speakers in a store with one of the coolest Melvins posters I’d ever seen. Nothing to complain about. I picked up a couple odds and ends; some Grief, Roadsaw, a Blind Guardian live record, Mobile by Dutch rockers Beaver, the digipak version of the last Type O Negative (I don’t care what anyone says, those are stoner riffs Kenny Hickey is playing), a surprising find in the first Monolithe CD which is something I genuinely never thought I’d own, and solely based on the artwork, knowing nothing about it, for $6.99, the self-titled album from The Satellite Circle.

I stood at the counter and asked the good-humored guy on the other side, “That’s pretty much gotta be a stoner rock CD, right?” He took a look at the front, turned it over in his hand, said, “Yeah, that’d be my guess,” and continued ringing up my purchases. My wife rolled her eyes.

Read more »