TUPELO – So the new P.O.D record released on Friday and I rushed into Best Buy to get it. I’m as much a downloader as the next guy, but I’m still old-school, too. I like the disc and the sleeve. Heck, I like the smell of it.

So I took my $10 in and went to the new release end cap of the national chain. Not there. So I asked an employee. She goes to her little computer station and after asking what I was looking for, she types in POD.

Of course it brought up every iPod ever sold in the store and I told her to try P.O.D. She did and it brought up the vinyl release. I want that, too, but not until September. She says, “Oh, it’s not out until September.”

“No, that’s vinyl,” I tell her. “I want the disc.”

I ask her to type in “The Awakening” to see if the album title pops up. So she types in theawakeningdisc. Yep, just like that. No spaces, no caps, no nothing. One long word. So now I’ve gone from knowing she clearly doesn’t know music to wondering if she has ever typed. No spaces?

Shocking, that pulled up nothing.

So I asked her just to type “The Awakening.” How about that, there it was.

To which she replies, “Oh, it doesn’t come out until Aug. 21.”

“Today is Aug. 21,” I said.

So she searches the shelves, not there. She searches the back, not there. There are five of the discs in that store and no one bothered to put any of them on the shelf.

I went back Saturday. Same thing.

To the blessing in disguise. Saturday, an actual helpful BBY employee asked if I had tried the new record store in Tupelo. I had no idea there was a new record store here, I told her.

But my interest was peaked. I looked it up and on Monday went to Rock Star Records. Tupelo’s lone record store for years, Album Alley, closed a couple of years ago. Rock Star has finally filled the void.

It’s a new store and the shelves are filling as we speak. The only P.O.D he had was an older live release from the band’s Rescue Records days.

So the owner and I talked, while I like a kid a Christmas, looked over the new and used vinyl, CDs, shirts and stuff. He ordered the disc for me.

Rock Star had new Disturbed, even the vinyl. Best Buy didn’t get any on the truck for the release of the long-awaited Disturbed record.

The P.O.D disc is going to cost me $13.99 at Rock Star and maybe $10.99 at Best Buy. BBY can order 50,000. Rock Star can’t.

Do music a favor and support your local record store, folks. I’ll be going back to Rock Star to pick up my disc, and my son some AC/DC and the Super Mario poster he saw there he wants.

The people putting their money on the line in your town to bring you a record store love music and they are doing you a service. Best Buy and the retail chains couldn’t care less about music and they certainly don’t care about you.

Want a TV or a new MacBook? BBY is the place. Want new music? Spend the extra couple of bucks and support the local store that are supporting the music we all love.