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Favorite Record Stores
I moved around quite a bit when I was younger, and in every place I landed one of my highest priorities was to find the grooviest record store in town and feed regularly at the trough.
My favorite was Poo-Bah Records in Pasadena, California. It was actually an old wooden house in a residential area that had been converted into a business. Although it was small and cramped, it had a very impressive selection of imported vinyl, bootlegs, and really weird-looking stuff like this album that I came oh-so-close to buying just for the cover art:
Recently I read a blog by a guy who had returned to Pasadena after a long absence and stopped by Poo-Bah, only to discover that it was now a store that sells… yarn. What a tragedy!
Anyone else care to share your recollections of a favorite record store where you used to (or still do) hang out? You know, the type of place that’s in need of structural repair, smells a little funny, and is run by two laid-back hippies who could talk your ear off about all things musical, and has all the cool obscure releases that you’d never find at the suburban shopping mall?
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11 Replies
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David, it seems to be an all too common unfortunate outcome for many of these special irreplaceable brick and mortar specialty shops like record stores that have shut down for good. For me it was Sikora’s Classical Records store downtown Vancouver a couple blocks away from where I use to work that shut down last year after 40 years. Many of my classical music CDs were from this store. They sold original cut classical records, vinyl and CDs, from many decades ago as well as very unique record sets you just can’t find anywhere. They also had a pop/rock vinyl section. The closing of this store made it in the city news when they shut down because it was that iconic in the city.
In the same area there is also The Vancouver Penshop as well as the Umbrella Shop that closed down after many decades too. Yup an actual store that sold only special umbrellas that they guaranteed for life if you bought it there, closed down last year as well. Fortunately the penshop, which opened in 1988, is still open, and as far as I know they are still open having survived the pandemic lock down. When the shop owner, Shannon, remember you by name, even if you haven’t been there for 2 years, it is very special. What’s so great is that these shop owners know their stuff so well, you can talk shop with them all day.
Good news is a number of new independent rock record stores selling second hand vinyls have popped up all over the city. It seems vinyl is making a comeback in favor over CDs. Seeing more variety of turn tables and retro style record players being sold in stores more too.
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Fountain pens galore. A pen lovers candy store! Online stores just can’t compare to a brick and mortar shop where you can go in and experience the love and excitement of the product. We also have Tom Lee music store that is huge selling guitars, pianos, ukeleles, harmonicas etc and all kinds of music gadgets, music books etc. A musicians heaven.
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I have 5 that fulfilled my cassettectap/record/CDs needs while they existed,sadly now they don’t but a more recent record store has now appeared in malls…lol…
The stores in Ottawa, I did my buying from:
Sam The Record Man
CD Warehouse
Legends Records
HMV Records
Records On Wheels
And the new record store now in malls here: Sunrise Records
Legend Records and CD Warehouse were the best for ordering obscure or carrying gems from…. while STRM,HMV,ROW, were good for my Glass Tiger/DuranDuran needs in the 80s/90s…lol???
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Thanks for the stories! I really miss passing the time at those niche record stores. You never knew what treasures might await you as you flipped through the album covers.
Here’s a posthumous photo of Poo-Bah Records:
As you walked up to it you felt like you were paying a visit to grandma’s house, but once you were inside there were a lot more treats than just hard candy.
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David, Poo-Bah looks like the kind of place I’d love to hang out at and browse through all the records and paraphernalia. The few 2nd hand vinyl record stores that have opened up in the last 10 years all have the feel of an old antique store with old posters of the music scene from long past. One of my favorite record stores was back in the 90s, it was called Virgin Records that opened up in the heart of downtown Vancouver taking over the cities old library. It was 3 floors of vinyls, CDs of every music genre and huge section dedicated to DVDs. They even had a small book store section dedicate to hobbies and music. They had listening stations where you could preview/sample the latest releases and old albums too. When they first opened they had a DJ who played music and took requests like a mini in store radio station. They sold software too, and there was a small coffee/dessert shop right in the record store. It was a kind of place you could hang out on a friday evening after work and indulge your music passion. I usually ended up buying something, be it a new album, software, or books. It existed during the hey day of CDs and DVDs for about 10 years through the 90s and ended up closing in the early 2000s as online music and movie downloading took over and people stopped buying CDs and DVDs. I miss that place. It is a pop subculture that died away.
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Virgin Records sounds like a great place to be, Jung. I’ve never been to a record store with ancillaries like that.
I remember a couple of the places I used to go had a copy of literally the thickest book I’ve ever seen. It was an alphabetized catalog of the titles of seemingly every record ever released, along with the facts and figures needed to order each one. Several times I tried to stump the catalog by thinking of one of the most obscure songs or albums I knew, but I never won.
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Okaydokay…just found out a cool thing, and firgotbto mention this other music gem store in Ottawa…
I was trying to find a link to share about the owner of Legend Records, and up came a photo of what looked like a new location, I was under assumption he closed up shop for good at former location…anyhow, stoked my curiosity,mI inquired, indeed doing well at new location, guess where I’m going to go and visit in near future…lol…I last night some Mamas and Papas stuff at their former location a few years ago…. Ottawa has alot of independent record shops but the ones I mentioned in my previous post are where I would frequent most to…
Now, the other music store gem, is cool, more clothing, etc than records, but still funky cool to go and see, been there once, I believe if my memory serves right, that I may have mentioned about MLT to the owner while browsing around his wee shop…it’s called ” Fab Gear 64 “….
Just wanted to share and update….lol??
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Jacki in Vancouver we seem to have lots of independent record shops that have popped up recently. Those independents are the best with the unique experience they offer. That Legends sounds like a great place too. I like going to some of the antique stores too as they often have crates of used records, obscure titles, and if you are lucky can find a gem, and usually don’t cost as much as at a proper used record store.
That would be quite the fun book to have David. What would be great is if there was a record store that stocked every record that was ever released, that would be a music lovers heaven.
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Back in the day (70’s) we had a local husband/wife run store called “Record city”. They carried a HUGE selection of stuff, including bootleg albums. Another store was “Teepeedashery”. There was also a chain called “Record world”. I bought most of my stuff at Record City. I was a regular there. I was also in the Columbia house record club for a while. You remember them right? 10 albums for a penny!
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Never bought from Columbia House… Lol… Thought it was shady and besides more popular in USA than in Canada, I think… However we did buy in Kmart, all the K-Tel records we saw on TV, later in Sam The Record Man, etc we bought K-Tel records until K-Tel ceased to exist… Lol
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When I was in college I hatched a plan to get rich by forming a band called Much Much More, and then suing K-Tel Records for falsely claiming that our songs were on their albums.
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