by Joe Wallace

By the time Vinyl Road Rage got to Cincinnati, I was ready for something crazy. Something big, consistently good, and a little overwhelming. I’d seen big. I’d seen good. But the cramped quarters of some of the smaller shops was starting to make me feel a little claustrophobic, and the biggest shops were heavy on the new releases. In short, I yearned for a New York City style record store in terms of size and selection (not price, to be sure).

And that is EXACTLY what I got at Shake It Records in Cincinnati, Ohio. Friendly, well-lit, and a massive collection of used vinyl that forces you to cancel your plans for the rest of the morning, slow down and take a serious look.

Don’t let appearances fool you. This picture shows nothing but compact discs and books–and what an AMAZING selection of books it is, too. This part of Shake It Records is deceptive as it doesn’t LOOK like a book store, but there are enough titles along the walls and above the CDs to qualify this as a genuine bookseller. But not at the expense of distracting you from why you really came here.

Like many of the most impressive New York City record stores, Shake It has a downstairs area stocked to the brim with well-organized, easy to browse vinyl. It is a bit overwhelming at first–where to start? My advice is to begin looking at the rarer titles along the walls. Behold:

But it doesn’t stop there. The obscurities, the weirdness, all the things I love best about vinyl shopping were all handed to me on a silver platter at Shake It.

Shake It is one of those stores you go out of your way to hit, and on top of everything else, it’s located in a GREAT part of Cincinnati with plenty of indie coffee shops and restaurants nearby. It was by far one of my favorite parts of the trip and I can tell you I will DEFINITELY come back to Shake It at my earliest opportunity. This store is clearly a work of love–every single inch of the place is a joy to shop. DO NOT MISS.