I’m walking… and walking round the narrow streets of Venice on a very hot July day. I’m searching for a record shop that I’ve looked up on Google maps, it’s called Living in the Past and I’m excited to find it, it’s here somewhere; I need to sit down and check the app. I do love a record shop. I had worked behind the counter in Phoenix record shop in Edinburgh during the summer of 1979, before I went to college. Those few months were formative to me but I do remember having to constantly play Rust Never Sleeps when I wanted to play Unknown Pleasures.
I’ve visited Venice quite a few times now. Being able to visit the official Biennale Arte over the past years has been a treat, I feel that I know enough about this unique environment to find my way around fairly well. The Giardini and the Arsenale venues are the main focus but it seems too easy to just cruise the National pavilions, picking up the literature, filing along, looking at things; although this year the French artist, Laure Prouvost made us go round the back of their pavilion building, through the basement and up a stairway to find her artwork and film. This shift of pace and route makes the experience special and memorable. Finding the Peggy Guggenheim Collectionwas also on my schedule, so I tracked it down on the same day as looking for the record shop. I had been here before but this time I felt more tuned into the significance of the collection and experience it was giving me. I was now paying attention, the collection has all the modern classics including Ernst, Kandinsky, Arp, Brancusi and Pollock.
I turn a corner and I see the Living in the Past shop. There it is, over there; the familiar sight of busy well-arranged windows and homemade record racks straining with the weight of the vinyl. These places are like art galleries to me; I know what to do, how to browse, how to look, what things are. The records seem to be mostly prog and classic rock, but some interesting new wave euro items – Italian issues and rarities, and they are all marked up with specific messages by the shop. The man behind the counter looks cool and friendly, it’s his shop and he knows his music culture.
Iain Irving 