Web site to catalog record shops world-wide
March 18, 2012 10:36 AM   Subscribe

Record Shops is a new web site that's attempting to list all record shops world wide. Allows you to rate/review shops you're familiar with and scope out the scene in places you're travelling to.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy (34 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I like this idea. Can anyone who registers submit a new store? I can't really imagine how one guy is going to identify every record store in, say, Japan.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:50 AM on March 18, 2012


Somebody with more energy than me please put House of Oldies on there. Thanks.
posted by jonmc at 10:54 AM on March 18, 2012


So they have all four shops?
posted by cjorgensen at 10:58 AM on March 18, 2012


registered, but I'm not seeing how to add locations
posted by edgeways at 11:05 AM on March 18, 2012


No wonder it's not there - my local record shop is kinda obscure, they've probably never heard of it.
posted by blue t-shirt at 11:08 AM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]


Hmm. To add it looks like you have to email him. I rated some shops and marked some as closed and that all worked very well but I hadn't tried to add any so wasn't aware of the lack of form.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 11:09 AM on March 18, 2012


It's not a great interface. To add a location, you search the address (it's a Google map) and a pop-up box asks if you want to add a store.
posted by Marky at 11:10 AM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


ah thanks marky
posted by edgeways at 11:11 AM on March 18, 2012


Call me when they have wax cylinders.
posted by phrontist at 11:14 AM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


phrontist: "Call me when they have wax cylinders."

No cylinders but there's a 78s only store near me.
posted by octothorpe at 11:35 AM on March 18, 2012 [2 favorites]


Do they have a process for removing stores if they go out of business?

(That wasn't supposed to sound sarcastic.)
posted by box at 11:57 AM on March 18, 2012


octothorpe: "No cylinders but there's a 78s only store near me."

Run by the inimitable Jerry Weber's son, and it's just across the hall from Jerry's in the same building.

If you are a record fan, and anywhere near Pittsburgh, you owe it to yourself to visit Jerry's, as well as Attic Records in Millvale.
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:04 PM on March 18, 2012 [3 favorites]


The celebration of record stores, and the passion put into their preservation appeals to the side of me that used to love spending time at them. This conflicts with the side of me that has a modest music career. Artists receive a pittance of physical CD sales after the overhead the system requires. 2 iTunes downloads bring in more than the sale of an entire CD. It's unfortunate for labels, manufacturers, and store owners, but many artists are better off now than in the physical-media era.
posted by yorick at 12:15 PM on March 18, 2012


Amazingly a store here in Long Beach, CA just opened in the downtown area. Seemed foolish to me but they smartly opened in Hipster Central and are apparently doing pretty well.

On the other side of the coin, VIP Records, where Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg got their start, finally threw the towel in.

I didn't realize you could do the map search thing to add so I just used the contact form.
posted by Defenestrator at 12:21 PM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


Why do you assume the poster has seen every site on the internet?
posted by shakespeherian at 12:50 PM on March 18, 2012


Funny, every time I refresh the page, there's on fewer shop.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:31 PM on March 18, 2012


karathrace, I said that the site was new. The point of the site is that so people can go and add/rate shops. That's the reason I posted it, to make people aware of it, because I think that it's a useful thing. If you don't like my post, make your own damn post (I see you've got a hell of a track record so far).

Do they have a process for removing stores if they go out of business?

Yes. I used the option once already.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 1:48 PM on March 18, 2012


My continent is not represented. Still, the gramaphone is relatively new here.
posted by mattoxic at 1:54 PM on March 18, 2012


I added like 5 or 6 stores, but I can't see them yet.

YSStOG: Relax, don't let Starbuck get to you.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:58 PM on March 18, 2012


By the way, Record Junkie isn't that great either. Slightly more comprehensive, but a number of the ones that I added to recordshops.org are not there either.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:00 PM on March 18, 2012


Cool Papa Bell: "Funny, every time I refresh the page, there's on fewer shop."

PLEASE STOP
posted by vanar sena at 2:01 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]


The response I got from using the contact form:

"Hi,

Thanks for the info.

To add a shop, please register, and then search for the post address.
You will get a marker with an "Add shop here" button.

I will have to make it clearer, because you are not the first person
asking this.

Please add the shop, because the site is brand new and I received too
many emails to add all these shops myself.

Thanks for the support,
Marcus"


If anybody is registered and wants to help out you can add this place, I don't care enough to do it myself and don't need another site having my email address or whatever he'll require.
posted by Defenestrator at 2:15 PM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well this site has introduced me to a shop in my city that I wasn't aware of, so double plus good thumbs up from me.
posted by idiomatika at 2:27 PM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]


There's a pretty good documentary on one of the last record shops in Northern England called "Sound it Out", also the name of the shop. (Sound it Out shows up on their list). I recommend the movie and I could care less about vinyl.
posted by ill3 at 3:28 PM on March 18, 2012


Oh hey yeah lemme just list Rockinghorse in Brisbane oh wait I can't because they closed down lol! I guess when the entirety of humankind isn't legendary enough to buy the obscure fucking alt-noise acoustic nasal bedroom Banhart Weekend bullshit that you stock (but you give 'em blank stares when they ask for Horse Rotorvator) then you pretty quickly run out of reasons to exist trolololol!
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:33 PM on March 18, 2012


Record? Shop? What are these things?
posted by Splunge at 4:08 PM on March 18, 2012


Just googled and found that my old record shop in my home town closed :(
posted by arcticseal at 7:18 PM on March 18, 2012


Wow. Looking at the map and seeing the void that is local record shops was depressing. Oy vey, we really don't get music from other human beings any more, do we?

This reminds me that record store clerk is number three on the "dead professions" list represented by my resume.
posted by Graygorey at 9:20 PM on March 18, 2012


I've got at least three good ones to list, all of which are thriving, but damn if I'm going to register on yet another website to do something so simple. What a pain. Took all the fun right out of a good idea.
posted by Miko at 9:41 PM on March 18, 2012


I may be in the minority here, but while I've had one or two good record store experiences in my life (involving clerks who gave good recommendations), records stores were generally sucky, small, limited in selection, and didn't have what you wanted. iTunes Music Store (and presumably any other large online music store) occasionally supplemented by less than legal downloads is vastly superior. I've discovered more good new music in the last few years than in all of my teens.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:22 AM on March 19, 2012


That's unfortunate, JZ. I'm kind of spoiled here in Atlanta, as we have a pretty solid group of really good record shops. I have lived in places where there were no outlets for digging out good music and then, yes, I did become a voracious mail-orderer & downloader. But I don't know that I'd call the iTunes option "vastly superior." It's better than nothing, agreed, but an important aspect of good record stores--and the thing which will hopefully keep them afloat in a post-physical-medium world--is their status as a third place. They should be places where people meet and converse and see bands and, yeah, buy music. Any brick and mortar that isn't trying to integrate itself into the fabric of their community is begging to go out of business.
posted by Maaik at 5:27 AM on March 19, 2012 [1 favorite]


I think the same thing has happened to record stores that happened to bookstores - when faced with competition from online, the bad ones went out of business, and the good ones got a lot better. At least in the cases I was going to list, they became more encylopedic, more fun, more customer-oriented, do more events and really play up the difference factor between the record-store shopping experience and the online experience. SO, record stores today are fewer but they're better.

My shoutouts to the fantastic Jack's Music Shoppe in Red Bank, NJ - the source of my first records, first guitar lessons, and many of my Christmas presents each year....Bull Moose in Portsmouth, NH and a few other locations in Maine, my current source for new releases and great deals on obscure used box sets...and Dyno Records in Newburyport, MA, which carries an unusually good selection of roots music, blues, and jazz.
posted by Miko at 5:58 AM on March 19, 2012 [1 favorite]


It must be quite new; as of yesterday there were only five Canadian cities represented. I've added eight ones I know of in Winnipeg so if you're from there or know of its stores, please add what you have (or correct my tags - totally going on memory which ain't so great.) And I couldn't see much use of tags on recordjunkie so this new site appeals to me.

(Side question: The recordjunkie description for one Winnipeg Hardcore vinyl place goes like this - "A store run by punks, bangers, and herberts." What's a herbert? Please tell me it's not a Trek reference.)
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:46 AM on March 19, 2012


Urbandictionary says "A male, working-class, youth generally associated with the punk/ska/oi music scene. Unlike punkers, rude boys and skins the herbert has a unkempt appearance and longer hair almost like a hippy."
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:02 AM on March 19, 2012


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