It’s official, Vinyl Road Rage is off the road. It was a HELL of a trip–25 record stores between Chicago and New York City. There are still plenty of record store posts from the trip to come, including Philadelphia, Allentown, Toledo, more Pittsburgh, and New York City. But the road trip itself is done. I am back in Chicago, safe and sound.

Many, MANY thanks to all who retweeted, posted on Facebook and blogged about Vinyl Road Rage. There were many highs, a few lows, and a LOT of great record stores along the way.

Quite possibly the largest, most daunting and overall amazing record store of the trip was the mighty Jerry’s Records in Pittsburgh. It was absolutely staggering in every way and you’ll marvel at the size and scope of the place when you read the review.

Biggest disappointment of the trip? Fun as it was, I would have to say that from a vinyl junkie’s point of view, the Andy Warhol Museum (also in Pittsburgh) was a major letdown–from the lack of a return call when I phoned to get press access to the Warhol archives to a serious neglect of Warhol’s involvement in the music business from the Velvets to the Rolling Stones.

I had high hopes for the Warhol Museum, but maybe it was just a case of bad timing…I certainly hope so. I loved the place, vinyl gripes aside, and will be very happy to go back.

As I mentioned, there are MANY more posts bearing the Vinyl Road Rage logo to come…just wait til you see the record shops I found in NYC. I’ll post many more of these record shops this week, but next week the remaining posts will go up combined with our usual WTF bad album covers, vinyl blogs to watch and other features. THIS week, it’s ALL about the Road Rage.

–Joe Wallace