In my not so recent past, Saturday's and Sunday's were spent getting up in the morning (actually more like coming to), and grabbing a soda and bagel, hopping in my car and hitting all the local music stores.
My route depended on what else I had going on that day. Starting at a Daddy's Junky Music in either Salem or Nashua, working my way down to Mr. Music in Allston.
I knew the schedules of all the stores. This one opened at 10 on Saturday's, noon on Sunday. That one closed at 3 on Saturday's, and was closed on Sunday's, but only in the summer, as the owner liked to go fishing in the good weather.
No shopping agenda, just looking and occasionally pulling a guitar off the rack and giving it a whirl. These sessions weren't just window shopping, I ended up with my strat via this method of wasting time.
You got to know which places let you grab any instrument, and plug it in as loud as you wanted. Likewise, you knew the places where the people that weren't as friendly, and viewed you as if they were the bad guy in a Scooby doo cartoon (you meddling kids). If you went in there and bothered them for anything you knew you'd have to make a purchase, even if it was a small one. I bought more strings and picks in this manner, placating a shop owner for bothering them while they watched a black and white TV from behind a counter. It was a pity purchase.
The interesting stuff back then, was the cool used gear, which wasn't few and far between back then, The used Wal bass that was at Daddy's in Peabody for a week, the chandler Digital echo (that I'm still kicking myself that I didn't buy for $200), the PRS EG III. Every trip you found something cool, even if you didn't buy it. Heck, on one of these trips, I found a double neck Rickenbacker, that a friend of mine promptly bought upon my reporting it's location to him.
Eventually these jaunts kind of lost their luster. I had all the gear we needed, and the stuff we wanted, was now so rare, or expensive, that finding the lost Ark of the Covenant would be easer.
Recently walking through Davis and Porter Squares, I noted that all the cool stores in the area that provided me with this cheap fun on the weekends were gone, and I realized that a lot of other stores that I used to frequent died off as well. I romanticized at the time I ran into Ron Carter Jr playing bass at rock city guitars, the time I (supposedly) just missed Joe Perry at Cambridge music.
Maybe it's the economy, as people are still out of work, or making less, and paying more for the things we need in life, as opposed to what we want.
These days my Saturdays are usually spent doing tasks I couldn't complete during the week. On a good day, behind the wheel of my MG, with my girlfriend in the passenger seat. However, I do miss the days of wandering into a store and asking "hey, how much is that old Telecaster in the window?"
