December 16, 2005

Fingerprints: Music Lives Here

Many of you have seen that line on our ads in the Grunion, and we’ve probably done a mediocre job of getting our message out, beyond the folks on our mailing list, but we are very proud to have had a slate of musicians drop in to play for our customers that would make a world-class nightclub jealous.

Much like authors stopping into a bookstore to read a passage from the latest book, musicians regularly stop in to record stores to play a few songs and introduce new fans to their music. Here at Fingerprints we have a bit of a reputation for throwing a killer in-store so we get a lot of artists to stop by, many who rarely make the time for these events.

Some of the most memorable events over the years include: Jack Johnson, he drew our largest crowd by far, so many we had to beg him to stick around and play twice. It was just before he signed his major label deal and he played a few songs that later showed up on his second record, including the song “On And On” which he said he wrote on the way to the in-store. He also sang his version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with my daughter. Priceless.

Another incredible event was when we had blues legend Taj Mahal in to play, he had never done an in-store and wouldn’t commit to actually playing until he got to the store and made sure there was an audience. Needless to say, we had a batch of fans on the edge of … well we don’t really have seats, but you get the idea. He absolutely had a blast, so much so that his driver had to tell him three times it was time to go before Taj told him to go wait in the car, it was fine. His manager called later and said Taj was all of a sudden really excited to play in-stores and wanted to know what we had done.

Personally, one of the in-stores that meant the most to me was Long Beach’s own Dave Alvin, of the Blasters and several stunning solo releases. Dave apparently doesn’t like to do in-stores either (I think he might have had a few bad experiences) and we tried for years to get him to come in and play for us, after years of trying it was more incredible than I ever could have guessed. Dave Alvin will someday be considered in the same breath as songwriters Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, or Johnny Cash.

I could go on for days, we have had a very impressive list of guests (we have posters from almost every one on the wall behind the counter, stop in and check them out. Most have a story to go along with them.)
Anyway, enough about the ones that got by, here’s how you get into one that’s still down the road. These events are free, they usually last for around 30 minutes, and the best way to find about what’s coming next is to sign up for our email notification list, either at the store or here on the site (just click the email link in the upper left). Hopefully we’ll see you here.

Take a look at our list of in-stores to date.