Philly Record Store Day fail


In Philly for the holidays, thought I'd check out Record Store Day offerings while here. My experiences:

(1) The place I used to go to on Record Store Day -- a shop called AKA Music -- is now permanently closed.

(2) Milkcrate Cafe & Records -- which used to be a pretty unassuming shop with a decent and varied selection -- is now apparently too hipster-ized to participate in record store day. Saleperson's quote when asked: "We don't participate because the releases aren't up to our standards." (meaning, I think, insufficient punk or obscure electronica). Flipped through the bins, literally nothing whatsoever of interest to me.

(3) Third stop: Beautiful World Syndicate. People raved about this place when I lived here and I checked it out a couple of times, but was always deeply unimpressed, both with the selection available and dismissive attitude of their (also hipster) staff. They also don't participate in Record Store Day, and the few minutes I spent browsing the used bins reinforced that I truly never need to go there again.

(4) Liquid Vinyl Underground: Closed on Black Friday.

(5) Bridgeset Sound: Did not participate in Record Store Day. Otherwise, a small but good selection (nothing I didn't already have, though) and a nice staff.

(6) Final stop: Repo Records. Not much there is to my personal taste, but they do have a high quality (if small) jazz selection. Picked up an original mono copy of Coltrane's Ole and a couple other things.
chipcarterdc

Showing 3 responses by lowrider57

Isn't Record store day in April?
Anyway, the best shop is Philadelphia Record Exchange and had to move from 5th & South to Fishtown due to rent increase.
That's too bad. I haven't been to the Phila. Record Exchange since the 1990s when records were in good condition. It always was a dimly lit cave and I think it was mostly a store for rockers and DJs.

The best stores I've found in the Philly area aren't in Philly...
Princeton Record Exchange; Princeton, NJ.
Academy Records, NYC.
Roxy, Third street Jazz is gone. I would have to say that they were THE BEST record store in Philly.