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.