Remember that record store opening I said I went to? My friend
Jenny and her super great husband are pals with the proprietors of
Guestroom Records, one of the cooler things to ever happen to Oklahoma. In my opinion.
Places like Guestroom, places I'd seek out even in a larger city, make me feel I could maybe one day move back to the red earth state. There are other things about Oklahoma, too. But most of them come in the form of bloggers (who I do not know) and the handful of friends I still have there.
The weekend after Thanksgiving, Guestroom had their grand opening party on Small Business Saturday. This is Guestroom's third location, which is amazing. The new store is in downtown Oklahoma City. Right on the canal, surrounded by restaurants and bars and venues. I love seeing that even now, with bookstores going under and so many people downloading music illegally, a real life music store is thriving. I'd imagine a lot of it is attributable to the resurgence of vinyl, but that's just a guess.
They had a couple of acts play the party that I really dug. Jeff Richardson played a lot of great acoustic stuff on his guitar and then a band called Horse Thief had a nice sound I'd like to hear more of. I picked up the new Childish Gambino, CAMP, while I was there. I have to say, I don't like this "first album" nearly as much as his previous stuff. It's not as...joyous. If that's even a word I should be using to describe rap.
Here are a couple of shots of the new small, but awesome,
Guestroom store.
