Doug goes to Wave Records

Contrary to how they are depicted in popular culture, record store clerks in the US have never been particularly interested in talking about music or helping me find a record. (It is very likely that they look at me and think that this nerd isn't worth my time. My prime example of this is when I went to Disc Go Round as a teenager and there was a sign that said: "Please let me know if you know which song has these lyrics." I looked saw the sign and looked at the girl at the desk and said "That's High by Feeder." And she looked at me like I was insane. "The song with those lyrics. It's High by Feeder."   I could tell that she did not believe that the person in front of her would know the song and she didn't. "I have the song. It's Feeder. They are British." Finally, she just said: "Oh, ok." And that was that.)

But the record store clerks in Europe have been great. In Budapest, I went to a place called Wave Records. It's one room that is absolutely packed with CDs and LPs (including a Kraftwerk LP way high up on the wall). I looked around at all the English-language CDs mustering my courage to ask the tough-looking Hungarian clerk if he had any indie rock Hungarian bands he would recommend. The poor guy spoke hardly any English, but he spent the next twenty-five minutes browsing through the latest Hungarian CDs and selecting three for me to listen to. One was the most popular Hungarian indie band, one was a band that he knows and has seen live, and one was a band where he explaines that their sound has evolved over the last three albums into aomething that he thinks is really great and different. And you know what? He was right! That last CD was very different but very cool sounding. I bought it. And that was despite the language barrier and that I was dressed in my work clothes so did not look at all like a typical patron. Just some top notch clerking. 

(The sad thing to me is that all young Hungarian bands sing in English. I asked for Hungarian language bands and he only was able to find one for me and unfortunately, I didn't like their sound. Maybe there are others that he doesn't know about, but I just wish more bands sang in their native language.)