This post is all about those good old days when you were young and you used to go to the Mom and Pop stores (that are now mostly out of business) with your Mom and Pops (no pun intented). Share your stories, or anything related to those times. Also if you remember explain what albums you or your parents bought when you were with them.

signature pose.

the pet shop boys, "west end girls" was my first 45.
my mom bought it for me from "mother's records."



that song was and is the shit,
and i love it just as much now as i did then.


"mother's records" was incredible...
when you bought an album, they'd give you a sticker to put on it
so that if your copy got messed up for some reason,
you could just swap it out for a new one.


i hated it when the fye replaced mothers records
at the mall. hated, hated, hated it.


and i used to love just browsing through all the music.
vinyl, specificlly.

fuck cassettes and cds, because the cover art is too small,
and it's no fun to browse. w/ records, you could just
stay in the record store for hours, just looking at the covers
to bands you'd never heard of.



and i also remember buying singles.
it was awesome when you could just like one song,
and then just get THAT song. along with various remixes
and alternate versions.

those were the days.


that's why i STILL fuck with vinyl.
that's why i still love used record shops.

they take me back.

i picked up my bootleg Black Album there in 1991, i think. and i found The Jewel Box there too. that Jewel Box blew my head!

the store is still there. i'll visit in November around Thanksgiving.

fuck you.

i got fam there man.

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

there's another joint too, I forgot the name ( it had a Movie theme), kinda pricey, but BOOOOOY do they have some MEAN Disco in there. I dropped about 150 in there one day.


and Vintage Vinyl always has some smokers in the White Label section.

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man....I remember when I was in middle school, my uncle and I used to go to this place called collectors world in atlanta,ga and my uncle would buy so many different Prince bootleg cds and we spent a fortune on a lot of different Prince bootleg cds. I remember my uncle bought the black album from eat more records here in atlanta,ga and it was always kept in a brown paper bag.

we would go usually for him to by some Grover Washington Jr. record or something but he would start pointing to 70s records, 60s records and start telling family stories that were centered around certain albums almost.
He's 61 now, and I had to explain iTunes to him a month ago.
The convo aint the same but he brought the old days of him going
and buying records.

"This is dedicated to whom it may concern."-Donny Hathaway

In the Detroit there was this franchise called "Peaches". Huge record store. I used to love going in there.

Download my new EP "Merlot Music"

http://mclogic.bandcamp.com/album/merlot-music

http://mclogic.net/

I never bought alot, but went in enough that the owners liked me.
One day they got a box with a few warped records so they didn't wanna look through them; told me I could have anything I wanted in the box for a quarter a piece.
Thank you Vintage Vinyl for my entire Beatles and Stones collection, none of which are warped, thank you very much.

<----

Larry Otis!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeM89CITvMc

and his free new singles, produced by Tough Junkie!
http://soundcloud.com/toughjunkie/sets/larry-otis-leaks

both places hold fond memories of my childhood and teenage years

I used to (and still could) spend HOURS in Amoeba. It felt like time blew by in there

buying Terence Trent D'Arby's first 3 albums, buying most of my Prince collection, getting a Dilla mixtape in Amoeba that blew my mind, buying The Black Album on cassette for $2.00 in 2005, crate digging for hours, spending senior cut day there....
jaywonder.tumblr.com

i bought tapes, albums and records in Buffalo, in Hampton Va, Houston tx

really went to the mom and Pop stores to get 12 inch singles and also various product over the years.

a family friend in Houston had a record store down the road from my grandmother's and she also did hair and sold candy to the kids and was the Nieghborhood oil Sho Nuff.

i bought at least 4 tapes of thriller wore the tapes out.

she had a set price there.

i always enjoyed the record store experience more than anything else in the world.

i mean back then talk about fantasy and reading about artists and just being in that time and moment.

nowadays going to be best buy, target and wallmart is cool to get a cd, but it ain't ever going to be the same.

i got so many memorys though and feeling like a kid at christmas time.

peace

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

Yo, I used to F I E N D at the glimpse of the window full of one sheets as we drove by "Dearborn Music" as a kid.

I worked for my Uncle back in those days (early to mid 80's), too young to drive...

I would make my way up to the store two/three times a month.

Back then cassettes cost 4.99, so I would flip through the vinyl and eventually buy two tapes.

I later was the first Black employee at Dearborn Music (a whole 35 yrs into their existence).

They changed the layout from high ceilings and rows and rows of vinyl to lowered ceilings and rows of CD's...by the late 90's they were selling incense and stickers and schitt (knick knacks), the store had lost it's sheen as a digging spot...but on my visits home, they were and still are fam.

I think they've hired 2 other Af-Am's since I left in 1989.

I hope they can maintain.

Also...used to hit Peaches with Pops back in the day, Car City back in the day, Desirable Discs (on Michigan Ave), I forgot the name of the store that was bootleg heaven...but I bought HELLA Prince bootlegs up in that bitch, as well as boots by everybody else and their mama.

I used to hit Aspen (across the street from my grandfathers house), remember waiting for Vanity out there (when her solo album dropped) with my cousin. She was F I N E!!!!.

I forget the name of the spot on Livernois (by U of D) me and my cousin used to walk up to
and get out cassette on. I remember me buying the Family and him buying Mazerati on cassette and then dubbing copies for each other (the Family smoked Mazerati all day...and the tape smelled like bubble gum...lol).

Detroit has always had a diverse and pretty educated music culture.

It's a shame to see the radio and the record store culture there get SO LAME and dry up so hard, but man...when The Chronic came out...it was like throwing Gremlins in the deep end of the pool after midnight, twas literally the day the niggas took over. Niggas seemed like they didn't want to hear schitt unless it was harder than the hardest hard can get.

I got the fuck out of dodge a few years after the Chronic dropped, and I still see The Chronic as the official end of the last gasp of "Black Is Beautiful" in Detroit. Niggas celebrated being "Ghetto" from the east side to Southfield to SouthWest to the NW side like it was the return of Jesus.

s.blak
spin the black circle

keep: looking,searching,seeking,finding

this isnt really a childhood memory but...in my college days at TSU (late 80s) me and my boy used to DJ a few parties and we were always in Soundwaves...Well we knew the dudes working in there from just goin in and diggin thru shit or whatever...They always had this DJ playing tunes , scratchin and shit...We knew him as Chris...We would always chop it up with him..Theres was this cool mexican cat working there too..

So one day the black DJ dude Chris was up front and called us over...I mean he knew us pretty well bcz we'd skip school get a 40 and show up at the store a few times a week just to fk around with them and shit...He said yo go to the back wall and look at 12 inch number 24 (all the popular albums and 12s were numbered on the back wall)..So we go to the back and this nigga is on the album with another dude lookin muslim ..We like dam nigga thats YOU!! You got somethin comin out??? Hes like yeah thats my boy Keith E...We got some shit comin out..Buy that shit...We was like yeah right nigga we aint spendin on that ...He was like aiight niggas yall gon see.... So one day we go in the store and we ask wheres Chris?? the mexican dude was like oh..he gon to NYC to work on his music....We was ..oh word?? He was like yeah..dont forget to look out for Gangstarr, they comin with a full length soon... So about a year later i'm at this Prairie View homecoming event under this tent and this nigga comes up to us, like i tol u niggas...We chopped it up for a minute and he tol us how he was gettin it in and brought Guru over to meet us... After that whenever i see Primo, we laugh about that shit

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2019 CABG Survivor

2016 OK Survivor Champion

be about it or be without it

RIP GOATs

September 2008, I knew ATCQ Love Movement album was coming out so at Sam Goody I had the CD on pre-order. Mind you this was done late August. I remember going weeks without eating lunch at school to save up my lunch money for that album. The day of release I asked my Mom for a ride, but was still a few dollars short. She than asked how I got the money and told her I saved up my lunch money, she asked for the cash, took me to the mall and paid for it. Definitely a Record Store memory I won't forget.

Now that spot is gone but my current safe haven is Park Ave CDs in Winter Park, FL. I can't go in there often as I would like to because I always end up spending more money than I wanted to while there. I can't help it, Music is my drug.

used to dig in LA we found this record store in an office building off the 3rd st. Promenade

this was like in 94, 95?

had to walk up some stairs from the promenade down a hallway and down some stairs in the back

this bald dude could find ANY RECORD (we didn't have dough like that obvs) or could dub you a record of your choice onto tape for $10. got my bootsy and the rubber band bootleg from there

lil spot behind my homies building on la cienega and horner was a treasure trove

The real shit was A-1 Record Finders in LA this Japanese guy ran just walking through the aisles was jaw dropping they charged waaaaaaaaay too much though. I think Q-Tip and a gang of other known collectors used to frequent that spot

Aron's records on Highland

Mr. Bongo's in London was crazy as hell. Picked up Blackalicious Melodica there...

In Chicago there was a record store / barber shop off the blue line Damen stop, and we used to dig at this jazz record store just north of the river in downtown. Tried to roll to the Westside to dig but it was too grimy for us LA boys.

NYC shit Fordham road beat street, fulton mall beat street, The Sound Library on Ave B which relocated to south of houston, A-1 records in the village,

can't forget my pops closet the dude had CRATES for real lol

------------------------------------
2019 CABG Survivor

2016 OK Survivor Champion

be about it or be without it

RIP GOATs

>used to dig in LA we found this record store in an office
>building off the 3rd st. Promenade
>
>this was like in 94, 95?
>
>had to walk up some stairs from the promenade down a hallway
>and down some stairs in the back
>
>this bald dude could find ANY RECORD (we didn't have dough
>like that obvs) or could dub you a record of your choice onto
>tape for $10. got my bootsy and the rubber band bootleg from
>there
>

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the promenade used to have all kinds of cool shit

was fully whored out by corporate America by the time I got here in the mid-aughts.

Longtime residents talk about the old Promenade with a twinkle in their eye, sorta like the old rockers still living talk about Sunset Strip going back even further.

I don't feel that bad for them though, rent-control has those same folks paying a quarter of what I do monthly.

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is craaaazy

Santa used to have way more life and flavor. And Venice forget about it. it's a shadow of what it once was culturally.

Did you know Record Surplus just moved from Pico onto Santa Monica a few months ago? Their cd collection is not really good. They are mostly know for their vinyls.

signature pose.

there was a record store behind my old crib near the corner of crenshaw and century next to the louisiana chicken and baskin robins... I used stay going into that place as a kid to buy cassette singles since that's all i could afford as a lil kid most of the time.

the best thing... they had a dj that was always there spinning records. You could give him a list of songs and he'd make you a mixtape with everything blended. they had video games n shit too. when i got older I realized that was 'the spot' in the neighborhood those years lol. I was clueless to that stuff as a youngster.

I went on a dig one day and hit Reckless, Mr Bongo, Black Market, and a bunch of little shops in Soho. Dropped about 350.


and I'm hoping somebody can tell me the name of the little Reggae shop there. I bought some real dope Stone Love mixtapes there. Can't remember the name of it.

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their collection pretty much stopped sharp when they got married, 1967... only records they have from after that period were
-The Beatles (White Album)
-Bridge Over Troubled Water
-Paul Simon
and, errr
-Hooked on Classics

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

The first release I had from them was "The Best of...The Art of Noise". I got this around 7 or 8 years old. Loved the cover and the music.

And what would be the start of a trend that's still in effect today, I needed to have everything they'd released. Eff a "best of" lol.

They were the first group I made a concerted effort to obtain everything from, starting from the beginning and making sure to scoop up any singles/b-sides along the way. So my first trips to the store back then always involved finding AoN stuff. My dad was a fan, but not to the extent that I was. He was fine with the "Best of..." set. I took it to the next level.

__
I don't like the beat anymore because its just a loop. ALC didn't FLIP IT ENOUGH!

Flip it enough? Flip these. Flip off. Go flip some f*cking burgers.(c)Kno

Allied State of the National Electric Beat Treaty Organization (NEBTO)

In that order...

Armands usually had everything I was looking for in new releases. Too easy to drop $100 everytime I walked through the door, especially with all the equipment they sold too.
I bought my coffin setup from them.
Still got it too.

Funk O Mart had all the white labels and a decent amount of vintage vinyl.

Sound of Market St was good for hard to find stuff, and they had the largest collection of vinyl.

Cue records was good for underground hip-hop, but being on South St meant an extra trip, that usually wasn't necessary after I spent all of my money at the first three stops.

I made the trek to Fat Beats a few times as well.

Some of the hand me downs mean the most to me though. Friends' parents old record collections, etc...

I remeber when Common dropped The Corner, and I couldn't find the 12" anywhere, and most of those shops were either closed or stopped selling vinyl altogether.
Kind of forced me to get the virtual DJ setup and start a MP3 collection instead.
Nothing like reading every liner note on a record and checking the cover art while you listen to the album for the first time.
I even hung a few alubms on the walls of my first apartment, like they were paintings.

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If you can't understand it without an explanation

you can't understand it with an explanation

When I was in Philly from '93-'97. (Except I never hit Cue's).

I used spend the most at Armand's, that was the first place I bought those advance copies of tapes before they officially dropped. I also learned a shit ton about underground shit from the cats there.

I also remember say Fat Joe there during an in-store appearance. It was the first time I'd ever seen Big Pun. I remember thinking to myself, "Damn Fat Joe is big, but who the hell is that other motherfucka? He's almost as wide as he is tall?"

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www.albumism.com

Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:

https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/

I'll never forget when it was in the ass end of Audio Warehouse. We were testing a CD player, checking out Herbie Hancock's HEADHUNTERS to test the sound.

used to be my spots. we had a small mom and pop shop around the corner but they never had anything we wanted

Do ya'll still have Wherehouse musics? they're all FYE around here

--sig--
n/a

And they took Leopold's with them (which they had bought a few years before), which SEVERELY pissed me off. I was away in college at the time, making it even worse.

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www.albumism.com

Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:

https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/

Actually, they folded around 2005. I worked there from '98-'03 and remember the last of 'em gone for good (at least the B&Ms) in '05. The management was a joke. LOL!

The rap section started off in the basement, with all the tapes on the shelves, without those theft proof "keepers" on them. Damn, I can barely even remember the days where you could get to a record store where tapes (much less CDs) weren't kept in those keepers.

Anyway, I remember scouring the "M" section to find MC Hammer's "Let's Get it Started" album, and being perplexed when I couldn't find it. Then asking the clerk about it, and feeling really embarrassed when she told me to look under "H."

I remember when Leopold's started kept all their hip-hop tapes in the aforementioned "keepers," and set up these huge metal wire filing centers to organized them. They were liked stacked and up, rather than on individuals shelves.

And I remember the first record store clerk I ever had a crush on. She worked at the register and would always talk to me about the new hip-hop shit. My heart fluttered the one time I saw her looking through the bag of comic books I checked in (I'd always hit the comic shop down the street before heading to Leopold's). I mean, I was like 16 and she was in her twenties, but I certainly did dream...

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www.albumism.com

Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:

https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/

i used to make the Telegraph/South Campus record store circuit religiously.

and Half-Price books had used records i'd skim. and i feel like there was another store i'm missing.

fuck you.

but my older brother would take me and my younger brother out to Streetside Records off of West Florissant Road in North St. Louis County in Missouri. I would mainly just browse and take the occasional CD up to the main counter to listen to it (it was the early to mid 90s). They had a pretty good collection of music tho. I remember the day my brother got the Wu-Tang single, "The Mystery of Shadowboxing" and he got Midnight Marauders. That bass on Midnight Marauders nearly blewout my ears after listening in the back seat. LOL!

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People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Peter Drucker

among others. I'm from the West Side, so any West Sider can tell you about MM or Partee's.

But to be honest, I usually went to record stores with my friends after school, or by myself. There was a store on Madison and Cicero ( can't remember the name )that sold 45's for a dollar and no Tax, so they pretty much got most of my scratch. Fuck a school lunch.


Anyway, since it's always a common question in posts of this type, I'll offer this:

First record I ever bought with my own money:
"This is is"- Kenny Loggins ( 45 of course )

First Full-Length Album I ever bought with my own Money:

(I was only 9, but my Pops took me with that good Birthday Money)
"Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome"- Parliament. Ironically, I'm not really a huge Parliament fan, but I thought the cover was cool and I had Ten bucks. So yeah...


Eventually, me and my main man DJPLR started hitting up the hops for 12-inches, and we'd go to Baby O's See n Hear on Oak Park or Coconuts and/or Peaches right across the street. That place actually stood until the 90's.

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meaning, No matter WHERE I go, I always find a diggin spot. My friends just don't get it. We went to JA once, and when everybody wanted to go to 56 Hope Road, I saved enough time to hit the spots in Kingston. and strangely enough, I found some Disco, lol.

Same thing with NYC, London, and Toronto. Anytime I'm on a vacation, I dip off and find a record store. I remember when I was about 16 years old and went down south to visit family. My cousin was trying to show me a bunch of touristy shit. I got the Yellow Pages out and wrote down a bunch of record stores. He thought I was nuts.


"you spending all your money on old records? What if you wanna buy some T-shirts and stuff?"

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Well I live in a small town and all we had was The Wharehouse back in the day.
I remember how hard it was to only pick 1 or 2 albums to buy at a time. This was around 94ish. I worked at my parents restuarant all weekend then at the end of my shift o. Sunday I would walk a mile to The Wharehouse to cop all the new hotness I could afford.
Once i figured out that they manually punched in the used cd prices in the register, it was on!!! I stole a roll of 99 cent stickers and bought all the "underground" albums i could get my hands on. I would scratch the old sticker off then add a 99 cent one. It worked perfect cause they had ZERO hip hop heads working there and no one else knew what i was buying.
I would by doubles of certain cd's or would by and slang cd's to friends for 5 bucks. It was a win win for all.....

"I don't say you feel me 10 times in a sentence...."

>
> Once i figured out that they manually punched in the used
>cd prices in the register, it was on!!! I stole a roll of 99
>cent stickers and bought all the "underground" albums i could
>get my hands on. I would scratch the old sticker off then add
>a 99 cent one. It worked perfect cause they had ZERO hip hop
>heads working there and no one else knew what i was buying.
>I would by doubles of certain cd's or would by and slang cd's
>to friends for 5 bucks. It was a win win for all.....
>


LOL!!!

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I remember when I was 5 yrs old growing up in columbus,georgia and my grandmother,my uncle, and me toke the bus downtown to get Roger's the Saga Continues LP because my grandmother really like midnight hour and they would play that song on foxy 105 and we went out to buy most of Prince, Roger/Zapp, The Time, Marvin Gaye or various artists that was played on that station. there was such a vintage, sweet incense smell that was in the record store while u were in there shopping for albums and when you left the store with your albums in those brown paper bags....you carried the sweet incense smell that was in the store on those album covers. I miss those days. I still remember when we bought Marvin Gaye Midnight love LP cuz my grandmother wore that lp out and my uncles did lawn service and worked sun up to sun down to get the cassette for 1999. 1999 was such a phenomental cassette that my uncles would put the boombox in the open windows with it turned up at full blast volume. during that time, it was ok to put a fan in the open windows or sleep with fan facing up against the window.

Great Post! I remember walking to the record store by the TAPE of De La Soul's 3 Feet High & Rising. I played "Eye Know" all day...lol

I could steal rap singles from other stores all day but Tower had the cameras with the joysticks