Cheapo's on Lamar in Austin was our favorite record store. It was just a warehouse with CDs and LPs, new and used but mostly used, nothing fancy. CDs were separated by genre and alphabetically, except for my favorite section to dig through: CD singles and full albums that just had cardboard sleeves instead of jewel cases. Those were all just thrown together. Over the 4 years we shopped there, we found a few advance copies, sometimes before the album was even released.
I somehow really thought we'd meet the loves of our lives there, that one day they'd come walking in the door at 10pm on a Friday night when we were there. This never panned out quite like I planned, although it DID look like a large percentage of the few men we saw there could have used a girlfriend...
Anyway, tragically but not surprisingly, Cheapo's finally closed its doors at the end of December. These paintings, mostly done in spray paint, covered the outside of the building. I have no idea what the plans for the building are, but I was glad to get a few snapshots before it gets remodeled.
