Thirteen-year-old Radite Adyanawa and 59-year-old Sri Murti have never been at the same stage in life at the same time, but their love for old music brought them together at the same place
hirteen-year-old Radite Adyanawa and 59-year-old Sri Murti have never been at the same stage in life at the same time, but their love for old music brought them together at the same place.
Recently, the two visited the basement of Blok M Square shopping mall in South Jakarta to look for compact discs and cassettes of their favorite old songs, which rocked music stages between the 1960s and 1980s.
They wandered through the basement's Block B, where 11 stores offer CDs, cassettes and vinyl records of old songs of various genres ranging from Indonesian keroncong (traditional Javanese rhythmic music) to American rock.
Radite, who visited the block for the first time, said he had stumbled upon the stores.
'When I went downstairs after shopping with my father on the upper floor, I saw stores in this block displaying old music discs,' he said, adding that he and his father directly headed into a store to look for old rock music discs.
He said he used to download old rock songs from free download websites, such as RapidShare and 4shared, before the two websites limited access to free downloads.
'This block is new to me to find music references,' he said, while holding an Old School of Rock disc that he was about to buy.
Radite, a student of an international junior high school in Bintaro, Tangerang, said the disc would be a valuable asset for his newly formed rock band.
Meanwhile, Sri Murti, a grandmother of three who loves karaoke, said she felt young whenever she visited the stores as the owners played old songs that she was familiar with, such as 'Kolam Susu' (Milk Bath) by Koes Plus, 'Benci Tapi Rindu' (Hate but Love) by Diana Nasution and 'Gereja Tua' (Old Church) by Panbers.
'The songs were popular when I was young. Now, I love them even more,' she said.
She added that she had more than 100 CDs of old Indonesian songs, mostly from the 1970s and 1980s.
Sri usually played CDs from her collection when she mopped the floor of her house on Jl. Pondok Gede, East Jakarta, or did other household chores.
'I love singing and I always sing when I work,' she said, enthusiastically showing off cassettes of Tetty Kadi and Ernie Djohan's songs.
Sri said she planned to visit the place at least once a month.
Radite and Sri are just two of dozens of customers who visit the place on Sundays.
Ridwan 'Djadul', a store owner who opens his shop at 2 p.m., said around 15 of his regular customers had been to the shop by 3 p.m.
He said he usually served 20 to 30 customers of various ages every day.
'Teenagers, young adults and old people come here for various types of oldies,' he added.
Ridwan explained that he sold more than 20,000 new and secondhand CDs, cassettes and vinyl records of oldies by various Indonesian and international performers, such as Lex's Trio, Arie Wibowo, The Beatles and The Police.
To keep customers appraised of what he has on offer, Ridwan uses a Facebook account under the name of Ridwan Jadul.
'I always post my new collection on Facebook and people may request the CDs, cassettes or vinyl records they want,' he added. (koi)
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