Category Archives: vinyl road rage

Philadelphia Record Stores: Repo Records

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During my visit to Philadelphia, I was very pleased to shop at Repo Records at 538 South Street. From the moment you spot the store, you know you’re in for a crate-digging safari you should set aside plenty of time for. I realize that most of the reviews from this particular Vinyl Road Rage trip are glowing (I had very good luck most of the way) but Repo Records truly deserves the praise.

South Street is full of touristy places to lure you in, but I get the vibe in Repo Records that locals shop here. Like all the good shops on my trip, the staff were friendly and chatty. No sullen-faced wankers who have seen High Fidelity too many times here.

I was pleased to find a good combination of new material and re-issues. There’s so much good stuff coming back on the market these days that a new record collector will have trouble picking their battles. Behold:

Yes, that’s Here Comes Shuggie Otis on 180-gram vinyl, brand new and ready to be discovered by a whole new generation. But I was happier with this discovery which, in spite of its ruined cover was a very pleasant find indeed as I’m a bit of a nut for anything on vinyl related to the Justified Ancients of Mu.

You couldn’t have made me happier if you had given me a white label pressing of a late night drunken collaboration between William Shatner and Mark E. Smith (with Brian Eno playing a MicroKorg through seven echo boxes).

For some reason, the farther east you drive, the more prevalent record stores with basements become. I don’t know why this is, but I’m very pleased that the phrase “bargain basement” is still more than just a cliche.

The Repo Records bargain basement was fab–not just for the usual crate digging, but as a connoisseur of tasteless, poorly thought out or just plain goofy album covers, I was in heaven.

Look at that HAIR. Now THAT’S a SIN.

You people quit your day jobs, decided make a career in music and the best name you could come up with after pondering it for AGES and AGES was….

But I digress. Basically, Repo Records was fun to shop and I crawled around the old, new, and very used bins for quite some time. If you’re in Philly and are tired of all the other South Street stuff, drop into Repo Records and stay a while. Just make sure you’ve got a nice, cool place to stash all that vinyl when you’re done shopping…the trunk of your car might work in November, but in the dog days of summer you need a better plan.


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Philadelphia Pennsylvania Record Stores: The Marvelous

Record Shops, vinyl road rage, , ,

Philadelphia record stores are quite diverse, from the crate digging pleasures of the vinyl-only stores to the new-n-used modern feel of Philadelphia’s The Marvelous. Located at 208 South 40th Street, this is one hell of a record shop.

When I walked in the door, I was greeted by an impressive collection of empty, crushed beer cans and bottles. Far from making me cringe at the clutter, I felt envious of whatever event I had missed out on that created this post-modern sculpture of party refuse. A quick glance to the right reveals a large (for a record shop) performance space, which explains everything.

The Marvelous specializes in a range of new stuff, reissues and reissued obscurities–I scored big at The Marvelous with the vinyl reissue of Japanese freakout music by Flower Travellin’ Band, name-dropped in Julian Cope’s JapRockSampler and a holy grail record of mine ever since reading that lovely tome.

On the overhead while I was digging through the stacks of vinyl goodness,  the gent behind the counter had some Magazine playing which made the experience even more lovely.

There is a lot to love about The Marvelous–they’re one of those record stores (of which there are many) that make Vinyl Road Rage a joy to do. I couldn’t possibly have walked out of the shop with all the titles I wanted, and when the selections were small, they were still pretty comprehensive for the size of the genre.

I scored Gary Numan & Tubeway Army, Soft Boys and The Bongos plus the glorious reissues previously mentioned…it was quite difficult not to just load up the old credit card to the max in this shop…

I highly recommend The Marvelous, my only regret was not being able to hear what that in-store performance space sounds like–it had one of the more generous stage areas I’ve seen in a record shop–rivaled only by the late, great 33 Degrees in Austin which cleared out an entire section in the back end of the shop for bands to play. If you are in Philly, you owe it to yourself to check out The Marvelous.

Allentown Pennsylvania Record Stores: Double Decker Records

Record Shops, vinyl road rage, , ,

Double Decker Records in Allentown Pennsylvania is a crate-digger paradise. The selections are excellent–once more the big winners are fans of post-punk, new wave and metal. But the vinyl weirdness category is also a strength of Double Decker Records…I walked out of this shop a very happy vinyl junkie.

Double Decker is another shop where the people working don’t mind telling a brother where to find more vinyl goodness–I got the down low on several other good indie record stores along the Vinyl Road Rage 2 route and it’s so great to encounter down-to-earth people willing to chat about other shops and all things vinyl. Double Decker, I WILL return!

There are plenty of rarities on the walls, as it should be in every good record store…and the collector-friendly selection includes the old left-of-center favorites:

The classics…

To the utterly reprehensible…

Double Decker Records, like many of the shops on my journey, had at least one section that was quite literally a disaster area of vinyl—in other words a cluttery hodgepodge certain to yield at least one irreplaceable treasure, usually of sentimental value rather than collector cash cow cred.

What a great shop! Comfortable and easy on the knees–no bending and stooping to get to the weirdo vinyl titles usually relegated to a crate on the floor or under a table someplace…everything is easy to access, with plenty of surprises. Bravo!