How Many Indepedent Record Stores Does Your Area Have? (RECORD STORE ECOLOGY)

Spinadisc- the record store of choice for the discerning person trying to prove how alternative they are. Good wide selection, avoid the Goths and sk8rs outside the entrance though, permanent 3 for £20 offer on Bob Dylan CDs, upstairs dance and rap section, because, God knows, there's such a crossover between Def Jux and Postiva.

Pied Piper- old bloke's record store, cheap as chips, looks like shit though.

Sidewinder- scary jungle/drum n bass venture, run by Lee Scratch Perry lookalike who has really bad asthma.

- Sound Garden (good all-around hipster stock, has a sister store in upstate NY somewhere)
- Reptilian Records (punk, metal, noise, what-have-you)
- Modern Music (DJ-centric, dance/electronic joint)
- An Die Musik (small but devoted classical shop, with a smattering of jazz, etc.; some used)
- Music Liberated (essential hip-hop, R&B, dance, etc.; probably single best source for indigenous Baltimore "club music")
- Dimensions in Music (middling jazz and R&B mostly)
- Normals Books and Records (excellent used and new vinyl and CDs, lotsa experimental stuff thanks to the adjacent Red Room)
- Musical Exchange (used vinyl and CDs; the non-goateed Thievery guy and Madlib have both been spotted crate-digging)
- Jazz House (not entirely sure this place is still around, but it is/was an excellent resource for obscure jazz vinyl and discs; I bought most of my Rufus Harley albums there)

There are also several local hip-hop/R&B/"club" music outlet chains, but they're pretty indistinguishable. Also, there used to be another great used-vinyl place in town that all the Brit DJs used to raid when they were in town, but the woman who ran it only works out of her house now. I've been told Amon Tobin bought pretty much all the records he used on his second album from her.

i don't think there are any in Finsbury Park, and Crouch End has a place called 'Listen' which is pretty rubbish and rockist (but not even good at that...)

I make occasional use of the reggae / hip hop place. It's OK.

Stores of any real interest are increasingly hard to find. Both branches of Reckless (in Wicker Park and Lakeview) are very good, and Evil Clown on Halsted is good as well. Dusty Groove (www.dustygroove.com) is far and away the most interesting store in town, and likely the cheapest too, but the store itself feels a little clinical to me.

There are other places I check out every few months, but nothing to get excited about. Having lived near New York, and in Boston, for several years spoiled me. Boston is a much better record store town than Chicago (although the death of the Cambridge Other Music was unfortunate), and New York goes without saying. It is very hard to find good vinyl in Chicago as compared to those cities.

I think the internet has taken much of the fun out of record shopping as these days no CD or LP is ever truly elusive--it's just a matter of how much you're willing to spend.

NYC could use an amoeba, though.

the best are Amoeba (the size of a football field - anything you're ever looking for is here), Grooves (all vinyl with the coolest mom & pop owners), Recycled Records (80/20 records to cds), Groove Merchant (all hard to find jazz and soul - caters to hip hop producer crowd), and Aquarius (they know more about music than you do)

there are also tons of specialty house, d'n'b, and techno stores (BPM being my fave)

i way prefer it to flashback

when amoeba was one store in berkeley, yes it was a fantastic store. however, i have found in the past 4 years, their ability to remain in stock on deeper titles other than new releases has been very poor. their used section is tremendously picked over, i find way more treasures at open mind in the past 4 years than at amoeba. the berkeley and sf stores are to some extent now a step-child of the dvd-centric la store. new releases sometimes take 3 days to get out on the floor in the sf store (which i lived 1 block away from up until about 6 mos. ago). imports? forget about it. so if you're looking for 450 used copies of destiny's child promos or well-stocked used little river band LPs or thousands of electronica CDs from 1998, you're in luck. all else is a crap-shoot.

it is my opinion that lou's records in encinitas (no. county san diego) is the best record store in california, and has been for the past 10 years.

TEMPEST (is great, is hideously expensive, but is great. Top for flare spotting)
SWORDFISH (is great, is cheap, but is cramped as frig. Top for old man spotting.)
PLASTIC FACTORY (is down the wrong end of Corporation Street and I am a lazy bastard)

The M&VE might or might not count, but I fucking hate the staff there. Cheap as all shizzick, though.

This isn't really my experience at all. The Berkeley store gets a lot less foot traffic than the SF/LA stores, and most of the out-of-town collectors primarily hit SF, so I never have trouble finding the stuff I'm looking for. What kind of imports are you looking for?

Don's Music - specializing in new and used vinyl, with an emphasis on psychedelic and experimental music (the indie section is tiny). They sell a handful of CDs and cassettes, but it's mainly a vinyl store. I like to go there on weekends and pore through the junk crates outside.

Halcyon - it's a bar/coffee shop/vintage store/record store on Smith Street. This is where we met up for my birthday. Again, mostly vinyl, with a selection catering to the aspiring DJ -- old beats and new beats, microhouse and '60s library music, UK garage and African funk. Methinks the stock is overpriced, but I just got some birthday money, so I may wander over there later and see what's worth buying.

Earwax - Williamsburg's record store. Small but esoteric selection, high prices. I've only been here a few times, not enough to get a really good read on the place, but with all the great record stores in NYC, I wouldn't go out of my way to come here.

Also, Rick's Records which is very similar to Round Again but sells only vinyl, and also deals in used stereo equipment.

Vertigo (S. Division & Oakes) -- Formerly dba Vinyl Solution. Offer selections in Alternative, Jazz, Hip Hop, Blues, etc. Great personnel and fair pricing - i've been buying from them for 16 years.

Dodd's Record Shoppe (S. Division and Fulton) -- Ton's of used vinyl, mostly from the 50s and 60s. Great for World, Folk, Jazz, Country and Classical. Just about everything in the place is $5, but Dodd shrink-wraps everything so you can't check the condition/sleeve (although, he's very liberal about returns). Old-man Dodd practically lives at the store, and frequently naps.

The Hip Hut (Burton and Eastern) -- DJ and hip hop haven; solid folks -- and it's located next to a deep-fried fish joint.

Eastunes (Eastowne) -- Alternative-centric special editions and clothier -- surprisingly, not as bad as it may look on paper.

…recently closed;

Radio Kilroy – Closed after 10 years of serving the Punk, Psychedelic and Hardcore communities. What I really miss is their wonderfully priced used vinyl (mostly 70s-era Rock).

Halcyon - it's a bar/coffee shop/vintage store/record store on Smith Street. This is where we met up for my birthday. Again, mostly vinyl, with a selection catering to the aspiring DJ -- old beats and new beats, microhouse and '60s library music, UK garage and African funk. Methinks the stock is overpriced, but I just got some birthday money, so I may wander over there later and see what's worth buying.

Earwax - Williamsburg's record store. Small but esoteric selection, high prices. I've only been here a few times, not enough to get a really good read on the place, but with all the great record stores in NYC, I wouldn't go out of my way to come here.
"

also in williamsburg - "sound fix" - the ebst and most beatiful record shop in nyc with good coffee shop.sometimes free live bands gigs on saturday (though "serena maneesh was cancelled last time!)

Halcyon is in dumbo, so it may as well be gone!

kidding.

Williamsburg has about 50 more record stores now.

San Francisco people: OPEN MIND!!!

They have the best selection of tech, funk, electro, italo, disco ... and one of the guy who works there is maybe the most knowledgable person I know. John, I think. If you tell him what you are listening to, he'll hand you a stack of recommendations. And they're usually pretty good!

James— the Athens Schoolkids was part of the Schoolkids "empire" up here that self-destructed about 10 years ago, leading to (for a while) the founder running Schoolkids in Exile and the regular store turning into SKR. SKR folded, and SIE is unaffiliated with your Schoolkids, so the Athens one is totally independent.

The other weird franchise story about local record stores is that there's the Wazoo here and the Wazoo in Lansing, and another in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (which is about the best thing if you ever end up there on tour or business). But while the stores were founded by a group of three friends, they severed official business ties over 20 years ago. The owners are all still in touch, but it's kinda weird to run across Wazoos in random places.

As a side note to any travellers headed this way, Athens has in the three years since Blount's post lost Candy, with Schoolkids apparently picking up the slack in the "DJ vinyl you've never heard of" market. Just as well, as it freed up Candy proprietor Michael Lachowski to rejoin Pylon and rock the socks off this one-cow town.

Also, Agora (corner of Clayton and Pulaski) is not technically an independent record store - it's a consignment shop with an eye for "vintage" dealers. Several of the booths have records, culminating in a HUGE section in the back-left corner - which is actually a colony of Low Yo Yo Stuff around the corner on Washington (in front of the 40 Watt). LYYS has been for some time exploring this method of circumventing their tiny, tiny space - they had half of X-Ray Cafe for a while too...

More fun for visiting vinylphiles: if you go to Wuxtry (corner of Clayton and College), take the time to also head around the corner and up the stairs to Bizarro Wuxtry, which is a comic shop that also stocks about a third of Wuxtry's stock in vinyl. I think they're still doing their "records by the pound" deal there. For a while they had an independent space for that across from the 40 Watt, but this was shut by the county for not being up to code. Interestingly, when it was protested that the previous tenant, a mysterious recording studio labelled by outside graffiti as "Elixir," had been operating their for years with no hassles, the county apparently intimated that they had no idea Elixir was ever there...

Princeton Record Exchange, Princeton: vinyl heaven.

Vintage Vinyl, Fords: son of vinyl heaven.

Iris Records, Jersey City: small store, vinyl and CDs. Only open on Friday and Saturday.

Sound Exchange, Wayne: CDs only, mostly rock/punk/hardcore/industrial; I've found some gems there.

Let It Rock, Montclair: Punk and hardcore CDs. Currently closed for renovations.

Cafe Soundz, Montclair: Industrial/electro/techno/some punk; great mail-order place. Mostly CDs.

Tunes, Hoboken (and maybe elsewhere): indie rock and related CDs, with some more commericial stuff thrown in. Has a very picked-through used CD section.

Scotti's Records, Morristown (and elsewhere): commercial stuff at slightly cheaper prices than the major chains.

There are probably a lot more that I'm forgetting.

I have no independent music store in my town. The local Sam Goody, which I had not been to in years, closed right before Christmas. So, nothing except Wal-Mart and a Shopko; I have not bought a record locally in the 7 years I've lived here.

I think the closest independent record store is four hours away, in Appleton Wisconsin. The Exclusive Company there is pretty good overall, but confusingly divides records based on if they're on independent labels or not, so you have to either know what label something is on and if it's still considered "independent" or you have to look for stuff twice.

God I miss leisurely digging through record stores on Saturday afternoons.

AKA Records (on 2nd, right before Market): uh, lots of used CDs and a shitload of obscuro CDs/ records that you only thought you could mailorder. tons of nurse with wound and old soul on vinyl.

Philadelphia Record Exchange (on 5th? near South): if you look, you can find gems-- i got a great recording of Istanbul's street sounds from the 60s here. mostly vinyl.

Spaceboy (low on South): Typical indie store-- new records, new CDs, pretty good selection. Also sells tickets, which is nice.

Repo (on South, 6th): Expensive. But if you're looking for old punk/rocknroll vinyl, this place is the bee's knees. Asshole employees.

there are a few more, but they're not that good-- mostly boxes and boxes of crap and old grindcore records that i bought in middle school. mmmmmmm
-t

I recently discovered that there's another notable record store in JC -- Stan's on Bergen Ave. which seems to specialize in old soul and doo-wop stuff. The owner is quite knowledgeable.

Hey Hurting. Been meaning to shoot you an email, but I think I lost your email address. Do you administrate the American Altitude myspace page?

re: Stan's. Never heard of it, but I'm gonna check it out. Do they have a site?