I was downtown on Thursday, meandering towards Ground Kontrol, when I discovered Django's empty and vacant. Admittedly, I hadn't shopped there in years but it still came as a shock. This was the store where I cut my teeth on hundreds on $8 CDS. And now it's gone f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

Back in the day, it was one of the few west side stores in Portland that sold used music. After being weaned on a steady diet of mall outlets like Sam Goody, Django's was like a blast of stale, hash-scented air. Dozens of pine bins offered thousands of cheap CDs and records. The walls were covered in hundreds on vintage posters stamped with images ranging from obscure spaghetti westerns to the Sonic Youth. Django's was a virtual paradise for a greasy teenager seeking refuge from Z100 rancorous soundscapes.

Then, sometime in the mid '90s, Everyday Music opened on Burnside offering an even larger bounty of used music. Django's clientele fled up the street and it was eventually sold to a larger "independent" conglomerate of record stores. After the trade, the interior was remodeled and its worn, garage sale ambience was traded for a slick white walls and a smaller stock. In short, it looked and felt like a Tower Records.

Was Django's killed off by all those nasty P2P music traders out there? Maybe but perhaps it's for the best. The new Django's was practically a parody of its former self. Still, this little record store deserves at least an 8-gun salute.