A Day in the Life of a Doc's Records Clerk

Comments (0) By Ken Shimamoto Thursday, Sep 13 2012

Besides the new stuff, where do all these records come from?

We have people showing up all the time with records [to sell]. There are estate sales, some garage sales, but you've got to get to those early, because the collectors go through Craigslist every day, and they can be aggressive. Someone will call and say, "We have 20,000 records here," and Jerry and Jenkins will go out and spend a whole day going through them.

Kat Shimamoto

Doc's owner Jerry Boyd.

Kat Shimamoto

Dave Howard, record store clerk in question.

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How do you feel about downloads?

I like previewing stuff on the Internet. I buy a lot of albums, and I don't want to spend 18 bucks on an album with two good tracks. But if a band makes a good album, you should support them, because they're trying to make a living.

Do you think the "romance of the artifact" is dead?

There's people that hear music and just go, "Oh yeah." And then there's people that obsess over it and need to know everything about that band and that album, and they want to hold it and look at it and put it on a turntable and listen to it through headphones, and they're the people that come here and buy records. They need more than just some invisible thing.

What do you think the future holds for independent record stores like Doc's?

The future doesn't look too good. You're not going to get rich. People seem really busy these days, and don't want to go out of their way. But I believe places like this can be therapeutic. I know when I'm on my way here and it's a crazy day and just getting to work's a hassle, I'll show up and turn on the lights and just smile because this is where I work. I love this place.