Razzle Dazzle

The Return to Physical Media and Physical Locations

Mark Rushton’s Abundant Spare Time is an email where I talk about my ongoing work as a recording artist and visual artist. This is being released on Saturday, November 29, 2025.

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This week’s topics:

• A Change in Frequency

• Razzle Dazzle in Cedar Rapids

• Bill Evans Trio - “Autumn Leaves”

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A Change in Frequency

I’m changing the publication of this newsletter from “weekly” to “at least monthly”.

Starting now.

I’ve been considering this change for a while.

Schedules can often turn into “a grind”.

I have a lot of things going on right now: music, art, etc. You’ll hear about them, but less frequently.

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Razzle Dazzle in Cedar Rapids

Opening up a physical media business in a dead mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the kind of move the world needs right now.

Razzle Dazzle opens in Lindale Mall on December 1st.

Chris, the creator of the store, interviewed me in early 2023. I think I had a lot of advice for other composers and recording artists then, but nobody ever knocked on my door. I’ve probably changed my stance on a few things since.

I lived in Cedar Rapids for about a decade. My wife was born and grew up there. I met Jon Harnish and we’ve recorded a few things over the past 20 years. It’s where I got my musical reboot as an adult. Boundoff was started there. I made a lot of field recordings downtown.

Poor Cedar Rapids. The 2008 flood. The 2020 Derecho. Jon was affected by the fire at Geneva Tower - right below his previous apartment! (This is Jon’s current apartment)

I like the move back to actual stores selling physical media.

Even though I work in tech, I despise the “tech bros” and what the world has become.

Everybody walking around like zombies, staring into their “phones” 24/7.

When working in tech, you must keep a healthy amount of “tech skepticism” close at-hand. You don’t want to put all your digital eggs in a single billionaire oligarch’s cloud.

So yeah, Razzle Dazzle is currently selling at different places. But soon it’ll also be selling in one place. A dead mall!

Let’s revive our dead malls.

I can’t believe Lindale Mall is dead, but my wife assures me she’s seen recent walkthrough videos.

Jon and I have had plans to get together. Winter doesn’t make it easy.

But when I’m in CR, I’ll definitely plan to stop by Razzle Dazzle (located next to Turtle Power Games).

I like that Chris is making videos. What a great way to promote the business.

I remember watching Kevin Moll’s videos for Skylabs Audio, in the Valley Junction part of West Des Moines, and I thought it was crazy that he had about 4000 followers at the time. At the time of writing this, Skylabs is now above 163,000 followers. If you’ve ever been in the physical store for Skylabs, such reach seems unreal. That’s where I bought my turntable and Grado headphones.

A physical store is a hard road, but with a little ingenuity and a little “tech promotion” (don’t buy ads, just be yourself), you can obtain a customer base and fanbase.

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Bill Evans Trio - Autumn Leaves

The past week, I was listening to Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings, by the Bill Evans Trio, via Qobuz.

They’re all great. For obvious reasons, I chose “Autumn Leaves”.

I’m not linking to the video “visualizer” on YouTube because it moves around too much.

Honestly, I’m not as familiar with Bill Evans as I should be. I prefer Bud Powell, who Evans admired.

Jon and I were talking this week on the phone and we spent a while going on about the bass player Scott LaFaro.

Anyway, I probably won’t produce a new email update until the start of January 2026. See you then…