To hear great recorded music, especially the rare classics, you can either buy it from a dwindling number of record stores, or you can find it at places like the flea market. Reporter Alyssa Kapnik spoke to shoppers Grant, and Thamsanqa Hlatywayo, and long-time vendors, Daryl Mitchell and David Dean.
THAMSANQA HLATYWAYO: Drums, to start with. When you come in you just hear all this drumming.
GRANT: Just a mish-mash of everything. Ashby Flea Market is just one of the weirder flea markets around here.
HLATYWAYO: I just love flea market to just come and get some free Vitamin D.
GRANT: All kinds of weird bootleg CDs and weird art.
DARYL MITCHELL: Books and other trinkets. Music. CDs.
DAVID DEAN: Early Robert Johnson album from Columbia. First pressing.
GRANT: 50s glass wear. Everything strange.
DEAN: My name is David
GRANT: I'm Grant.
HLATYWAYO: Thamsanqa Hlatywayo.
MITCHELL: Daryl.
DEAN: I live in Oakland
GRANT: In Oakland.
HLATYWAYO: Oakland.
MITCHELL: Oh, Sacramento. I just come by here occasionally over the years – the last 30 years or so.
DEAN: I been at the Berkeley Flea Market since 1992.
HLATYWAYO: On and off five, six, ten years now maybe. Yeah.
DEAN: You get to meet a lot of interesting people. It's not about the money really, it's the meeting people.
HLATYWAYO: The circle of drumming I think is wonderful.
DEAN: Actually a really, like, community-type feeling. Which I didn't feel when I would try other markets.
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