washington dc record stores?

i thought dccd was overpriced and the staff rude (once i bought an lp with a bad warp and they were like "tough")...

two visits ago is when i stopped by Y&T to find it's doors closed. now i learn that they went on-line. yeah, d.c. sucks. always did, and maybe always will.

back in the day i used to work at Kemp Mill Records, which was a total horror show.

That's because Smash bought a lot of Y&T's stock when Y&T closed. But I like the place.

So fuck you, Smash.

Joe's Record Paradise is still around, isn't it?

Still there (but a bitch to get to), and it and Orpheus Records probably have the best vinyl selections in the DC area.

crooked beat is a happy new addition. those guys are indeed great.

As Vincent Furnier might say, welcome to my nightmare. Seriously, though — DC has more opportunity for professional fulfillment than probably any city in the US. And when the life thread is "TS: Professional Fulfillment/Good Record Stores", there's really no contest.

Plus, how much does anybody really depend on a record store nowadays?

I hear that one is able to find lots of new music on this thing called the InterWeb. Bill Bradley invented it.

Or something.

One other thing: There was this incredible record store in NE (or was it just Eastern NW) whose name I forget. It was stacked to the ceiling with old vinyl. You could play records and buy old 45s cheap. I bought all the old funk singles. This was a couple years before the funk reissue boom, so the guy who owned the place, for $25, would tape you every Parliament-Funkadelic record he had. Anybody know this place? I got a haircut in NE a couple years ago and the barber told me it had closed years ago.

I saw John Cale there.

Can't figure out how I managed to miss that place called Joe's, though. I do remember Phantasmagoria. Got Cabaret Voltaire's "Nag Nag Nag" 12" there.

THAT'S A BOOST!

WWW.WMUCRADIO.COM !!!

Well, I travel a lot and have visited many used cd stores. CDepot certainly has the deepest used selection in the immediate DC area. But I would say that the prices are actually on the high end - stuff marked $9.99 that would be $6.99 or $7.99 at most other used stores.

re buying cds, the pickings were pretty slim the last time I was at Cd cellar in Falls Church. Plus kinda pricey for used cds- $ 9.99...

Are these used cds stores collaborating to keep prices high? Maybe I should get soulseek and just download?

Maybe it's just a coincidence some of the area cd stores are all trying to get $9.99 for used cds.

this just isn't true. maybe it is regarding their vinyl selection, i never look there, but their cd selection is large and all over the map. big electronic, international, jazz and used cd sections. their reggae/dancehall section is kinda weak. (wtf is a "fashionable re-discovery"? is this some sort of comment like "boo hoo, my favorite formerly-obscure band is now being listened to by a larger audience!")

normals is great for vinyl but their cd section has almost zero turnaround. i used to sell/trade shit to them weekly and was always disappointed to see the same cds. the rap cd section is funny though, lots of wack shit to be found since they obviously don't listen to that stuff.

a couple new places in baltimore - oncetwice sound on charles st. deals mostly with experimental/electronic/psych/indie end of things and the true vine in hampden which has similar taste to oncetwice but more obscure/rare and quite a bit of vinyl.

And why in God's name would you move to Arlington? Northern Virginia is the very asshole of the earth.

Suffice it to say: I suspect that the things you like about whatever place it is that you like (Soho, Bombay, Iowa City) probably are findable here, and the things that you don't like about Northern Virginia probably exist in profusion elsewhere. But if you've already made up your mind, I'm unlikely to be able to change it.

Generally people who say that sort of thing about NoVa are just looking at the wrong parts of it. It's like that thing with the blind dudes and the elephant.

What irks me about wholesale judgments of the form "Northern Virginia is the very asshole of the earth" is how much selective vision it takes, and how that skews the argument away from fairness.

The disparager gets to select (for example) traffic on I-395, the McMansions of Ashburn, Oliver North, Reston's nightlife, and the Tyson's Corner parking lot the Saturday before Christmas and say: "Aha! THAT is Northern Virginia therefore Northern Virginia suxor!"

Typically, it goes further and involves a comparative disparaging, vis-a-vis (for example) New York. So the disparager gets to choose totemic New york stuff like the Knitting Factory, CBGB's, Strawberry Fields, and seeing Dave Letterman pick up his dry cleaning and say "Aha! THAT is New York and therefore New York roxor!"

This is fundamentally unfair.

The disparager sets the terms of the argument; he or she picks the attributes to compare and thus stacks the deck.

Notice that the disparager never wants to let the defender choose examples. Behold: New York also has the cruddy toilet in the back of Louie Vitello's third avenue pizza joint, a patch of pigeon shit on a Bronx sidewalk, Donald Trump's hairdo, a pool of vomit by the side of a bench in Prospect Park, and the cops who shot Amadou Diallo 41 times.

Yes, Northern Virginia has McMansions. But it also has Dr. Dremo, and the Lost Dog, and Iota, and playing frisbee in April by the Netherlands Carillon, and the Serbian Crown, and my cats, and and and and. The disparager will never allow the shoe to be on the other foot and compare, say, Whitlow's on Wilson vs. the Prospect Park pool of vomit.

Instead, twistedly, the defender of what has been disparaged is called upon to defend Ashburn's McMansions as being not all that bad, and/or weakly counterattack by saying that the Knitting Factory isn't all that great anyways. This is stupid. We should just object to the whole framing of the debate.

I don't even pretend to be reasonable about this. I should say that I don't know Naive Teen Idol, and don't know what NTI's beef with Northern Virginia is. But I distrust and dislike the ease with which NTI dismisses the region wholesale. It is at best a grotesque oversimplification; at worst it is the worst kind of snobbery.

But it doesn't make me want to go, much less reside there. Forget Ashburn's McMansions for a moment; the architectural landscapes of Arlington, Crystal City and some (but not all) of Alexandria, are atrocious to the point of forbidding. There are so many white baseball caps present on Wilson Boulevard, one could be forgiven for thinking it was the permanent site of a date-rapist convention of some sort. And the drivers are bar-none the most dangerously clueless assholes I've ever come across. And I'm from Boston.

Which, of course, has its own issues. But I'm not NYC or comparing NoVa to it. It's just become the worst kind of sprawl you could imagine, and for that, I can't stand it. Esp. not when you have DC across the Potomac, which is pretty nice. It even has a Best Buy now, meaning NoVa's main attraction would now appear to be the potpourri of Alamo's and Enterprises along Jefferson Davis (!!) Highway.

That said, mid-VA is quite attractive — so much so, I could imagine raising horses there someday. On my horse farm.

Let's get back to the thread subject here--record stores. Does Crooked Beat stock just new indie-rock, or new and used rock, or new and used music of many genres?

Ah, hell, I liked that place. Always made a point of stopping by when I was visiting home in MD.

real downer, though i can't blame josh for not keeping on if his heart's not in it anymore. i used to work there and still love checking in when i'm back in dc/md - gonna have to make it up again before he closes.

how's it going z

hey man! it's going pretty well, nc rules (recent political atmosphere aside) and i have a pool in my backyard. how're you?

keep that vinyl away from the pool

hahaha

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/08/30/red-onion-records-books-not-closing/

Changed his mind

so where should a record-store addict and vinyl lover be sure to check out in DC these days? bonus points for a good selection of psych/metal/noise/experiment/etc. many thanks in advance.

is this still basically the deal:

So with Melody RIP as of last week, the District's got SOM, Smash, Red Onion, Crooked Beat and Joint Custody (which I want to check out, but never seems to be open when I do my rounds). I need to visit the new Metro-accessible Joe's Record Paradise, too.

pretty much - http://dcrecordmap.tumblr.com/ is a good visual reference. i'd be sure to stop by red onion.

joe's and record exchange in silver spring are both excellent too, though their best sections (imo) are mostly dance/go-go

and actually, for psych/noise stuff, the baltimore recommendations upthread are still pretty much valid. true vine, old guru, celebrated summer...

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/44717/disc-men-kemp-mill-records/

Once a big D.C. area chain, now there is only one Kemp Mills left--in Temple Hills, MD with lots of go-go and rap according to this article

Mostly all on cd

Is CD Depot at College Park walkable from the CP/UofM Metro stop?

Well, it's looking like a No. Quite the trek. Guess I could bus it from the metro.

yep.

http://www.metroweekly.com/2015/01/vinyl-record-stores-in-washington-dc/

A few I don't know, but i don't buy that many records these days...

I'm in the middle of a 5 week work trip to DC and I have to say, the record stores have been incredible. Som, Joint Custody and Red Onion are excellent stores. I'll definitely go back to these three stores but where else should I go?

Crooked Beat maybe, and out to Md for Joes and to Va for CD Cellar and others. Check out that metroweekly link I posted in January.

Joe's Record Paradise in a Silver Spring just for the experience. It's unlike any of the others and massive.

Whoops - er, like curmudgeon said.

Sweet. Thanks for the tips. Think I'll try to hit joes next weekend. Metro accessible?

Yep. Here's your link: https://www.google.com/maps?ll=38.992121,-77.026942&z=15&t=m&hl=en-US&gl=US&mapclient=embed&q=8216+Georgia+Ave+Silver+Spring,+MD+20910+USA

Don't sleep on the Music & Game Exchange 1/2 block north of Joe's -- pulled some good stuff out of the new arrivals and $1 bins there. My boy found a Fairport test pressing in the $1 bin but it got yanked at the register.

Joint Custody has been killing it lately.

Arlington Flea Market starts up again this weekend, might go see what that's all about. I think it is Saturday morning.

Nice tips! I was thinking of making Saturday my big record hunt day so that would be convenient.

but it got yanked at the register.

What do you mean? The clerk just went "whoops - that's mislabeled" or something?

I've never found anything in the Music Exchange vinyl-wise but they have tons of CDs for like .50 cents - I got some great Go-Go discs there.

Record Exchange in Silver Spring is closed until mid-April. They're moving up to the street next to the Fillmore (condos are going up in the current space).

What do you mean? The clerk just went "whoops - that's mislabeled" or something?

yeah, clerk said he'd already seen it and had pulled it to be looked up/marked up, though it was still sitting over by the cheap bins.

Joe's Record Paradise was awesome. Spent 2hrs there but could have easily spent another 2. All the shops in DC have been great. Even Hill & Dale, which I wouldn't go to again, necessarily, but for what it is, where it is, it's good.

In Arlington, most of us are aware of CD Cellar but brief shout out to Blue Groove in Westover.

http://www.bluegroovesoundz.blogspot.com/

http://bandwidth.wamu.org/joes-record-paradise-is-moving-again/

Lee says he found out today that the store’s landlord won’t be renewing its lease come March 2016.

was going to joke that they shd move back to their og space in plaza del mercado and it looks like they are

red onion moving over to u street too

http://patch.com/virginia/oldtownalexandria/record-store-moving-dc-alexandria

Crooked Beat moving (moved?) to Old Town Alexandria.

Joe's Record Paradise will supposedly finally open in new Silver Spring location soon.