BUYING THE NEW WILCO ALBUM

I'm prone to buying music on iTunes, but when a favorite band has a new release, I try to avoid hearing streams and samples and continue the tradition of the release day pilgrimage to a favorite record store to buy my copy. Such was the case for the new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky, though my journey was not without a few hiccups...

6:30 p.m. I enter Rasputin Music in Pleasant Hill and head for the LPs in the back of the store. Just like the guy at Rasputin's 800-number told me, they have 4 vinyl copies of Sky Blue Sky in stock. The sticker on the shrink-wrap confirms that the vinyl copy includes a CD copy of the album. Plus, all new vinyl at Rasputin is an extra 10% off, until they move to their new location (the old Tower Records space on Willow Pass Road.) Sweet.

6:35 p.m. After deciding not to also buy Johnny Cash, American V: A Hundred Highways on vinyl, I take the Wilco album up to the face-full-of-piercings slackerboy working the register. Before handing over my debit card, I explain the the Rasputin website says that Wilco purchasers get a bonus disc with unreleased tracks.

"Oh, man, I don't know anything about that," he says. His fingernails are painted black. "I don't see anything here, so we probably don't have them. I just got here."

"Well, just call someone in the back to check, because you should have them," I tell him, in a calm, firm tone. "It says so on the Rasputin website. I'm sure you just don't know where they are."

"Maybe we already gave them all away," he suggests. "They're probably already all gone."

"I doubt it. The album just came out today, and I doubt that all the bigger Wilco geeks than me got here this afternoon and got all the B-side bonus discs. Just call the manager or someone in the stockroom."

This goes on for awhile, with Black Fingernails angrily debating that the only two possibilities are 1) Rasputin Pleasant Hill never had any bonus discs, or, 2) Rasputin Pleasant Hill already gave away all the bonus discs. I finally convince him to use his walkie-talkie to call someone in the back, who finds the still-unopened box of Wilco bonus-discs in about five seconds.

6:51 p.m. Fingernails shoves everything in a big plastic Rasputin bag and says, "NEXT."

7 p.m.-8:30. I drive around Concord backroads in the early evening light, listening to the cd, which is awesome. I also find an Arco station that has unleaded for $3.29 per gallon, .10 cheaper than Costco.

-Peter Crooks