A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
by Trevor Kealey

September 17th, 2004

A few months ago I moved to a new neighbourhood. I now live in the west end of Ottawa, not as exciting as downtown, but it’ll have to do. So I’ve been getting to know my surroundings. For example, this afternoon I went into the big HMV store. It looks quite big from the outside, so I figured there’d be a lot of good stuff in there. Besides, it had been a while since I’d stepped foot inside an HMV and I had some time to kill, so giddie-up.

I went inside, and my suspicions were confirmed. It was quite big. The ceilings seemed to be a hundred feet above the floor, going for the whole strip-mall-warehouse style that all stores seem to do now. Obviously they were not using this extra space to house cds, but the rest of the store was very big as well. But what they did with this space was just spread out.

They have the same 500 cd’s they do at every other HMV, only now there is about 30 feet between the aisles instead of 6. They should rent golf carts at the door. It took me 3 days and 2 sherpas to get past the top sellers and new releases (most of which were the same).

I did however manage to find something worth laying money down on. I picked up the new (and last) Guided By Voices album for a fairly decent price. I expect this album to be pretty good, because it’s not just Robert Pollard messing around on his four track. The man pumps out a half dozen albums a year under various names, and while most of the songs are good, the production value really sucks a lot out of them. I am much less a fan of his lo-fi stuff.

After finding that I continued to browse. I stumbled onto Weezer. They have a ‘deluxe’ version of their blue album out. Two discs, one of which is all b-sides/rarities etc. The other disc was the original blue album. I guess I was in a mid nineties college radio mood, seeking out Guided By Voices and Weezer.

This is an album that I bought when the sweater song came out, and I learned every song on it from start to finish on guitar… my first experience with dropped tuning. I actually bought the cd for my brother for his birthday or christmas. I did that a lot, I would buy a cd for my brother’s birthday because I wanted it. Don’t get me wrong, he also wanted it, but he mostly listened to whatever I did then. He must have been twelve at the time.

That was all fine and dandy until I moved out of my parent’s house. I essentially lost half my music collection. I’ve replaced some of them, others I have tape copies of (which I never listen to since tapes have become irrelevant). Luckily over the years some of my roommates owned the Blue album, so I’ve never been without.

But when I got married, I lost that album again. (I did however gain a bunch of Flashing Light cd’s and other ones I bought for her over the years). So I made the plunge today, since it is the ‘deluxe’ version and all. It cost $50 though, but comes with a thick booklet and all. I was feeling rich for some reason.
So today I’ve been chilling to the harmonies of Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp again. Pretty sweet way to spend a Friday afternoon.