The thing I miss the most about going to the dentist is browsing at Olsson’s Books & Records at Dupont Circle. When I worked downtown, I would stop at Olsson’s almost daily, either to kill a lunch break, or after work on my way home to catch the metro. Once I stopped working downtown, I’d always bookend my dental hygiene appointment with a music shopping expedition at Olsson’s, just around the corner from my dentist’s office. I would start in the “New Arrivals” trough and then work my way alphabetically through the rest of the rock inventory. The troughs were organized with plastic tabs labeled with most of the big name bands. However, the real treasures to be discovered, were located behind the single letter tabs: “A” for A House, “B” for The Bats, “C” for Cheeky Monkey, etc. The store tried to keep discs alphabetized behind the letters, but it was typically a wonderful crapshoot of chaotic surprise — just when you thought you’d exhausted the letter “D,” there was the latest release by the Darling Buds, misshelved right in front of The Eagles. Needless to say, depending on how well stocked the store’s ever-changing inventory was on any given day, scouring the rock section from A-Z could take a while!
There used to be a rack of CD’s in the store labeled “Staff Picks.” The CD’s in that rack were covered with handwritten notes that said things like:
Sometimes I would buy a CD just because the note on the jewel case was more like a brilliant short story or bizarre haiku, than a recommendation or a review. The staff was young, knowledgeable, and happy to share their eclectic tastes. I’d often run into them at the 9:30 Club — attending concerts by bands they had just recommended to me in the store earlier that week. Of course they were far too cool to speak to me in the club, but later, back in the store, they would acknowledge our shared appreciation for the same kind of music and ask me how I liked the show.
Once, the store installed listening stations where new releases could be listed to on headphones at the push of a button. In the days before the internet, this was really the only way to preview new music outside of college radio. The best part was, nobody cared how long you hung out listening. And trust me, if the weather was crappy I could easily spend an hour showcasing everything except Susie’s recommendations because she obviously had a thing against jangly guitar bands and U2.
One beautiful summer afternoon my friend Rob and I decided to take a break from producing intranet programming at MCI and go for a stroll in search of late afternoon half-price pastries. Along the way we passed Olsson’s where a handwritten sign on the door advertised an in-store performance by someone named Beth Orton. Neither one of us had ever heard of her, but more to the point, both of us were happy to delay getting back to work for as long as possible, so we ducked inside. Seated on a stool at the back of the store, and surrounded by a few curious shoppers, was a skinny young woman with blonde hair, worn blue jeans, and a guitar. The lilt of her British accent quickly dispelled our assumption that she was a local musician, and the 30-minute set showcasing her new album earned her a fan for life. Five albums and 22 years later, Beth Orton is still going strong (even branching out into film and television as a talented actor), but alas Olsson’s Books & Records is gone.
After 36 years, the store(s) were forced into bankruptcy and closed in 2008. As Emma Brown wrote in the Washington Post: “At its height, Olsson's was the go-to neighborhood bookstore - and music shop - for much of the Washington region. It boasted nine branches in the city and surrounding suburbs, anchored by a Georgetown store where shoppers navigated aisles made tight by overflowing books, records and (eventually) compact discs. Any given Saturday you could find Elvis Costello browsing for LPs in the music section and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger picking up a special order in the back of the store…It really was a cultural institution in Washington." And it really is responsible for a large percentage of my music collection — including today’s autographed Happy Medium Song of the Day by Beth Orton called “Live as You Dream.”
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