Recommend some record shops in Austin, Texas

Going back to Austin for my second visit next month.

When I was over in 2003 I made a couple of visits to Waterloo Records (excellent), Tower Records (average) and Best Buy (just okay)

Any more you can recommend - used stores in particular.

thanks

 

Tower Records is closed.

 

If you are going to be in Austin on April 1st, 2nd, and/or 3rd ... check out The Austin Record Convention ...

 

waterloo records is great. pretty good prices, nice used cd section, and lots of new vinyl.

cheapos is another i've heard of but don't know much about them.

w

 

Hate to be an old fart (and I hope I'm wrong on this), but Austin's no longer a good town for record shops. Waterloo is still the best. If it's blues and/or roots music you seek, check out Antone's (which was north of campus on Guadalupe last time I was in town, right across the street from Antone's old location).

Other than that, there's not much, though the Half Price Books and Records store on Guadalupe sometimes has decent stuff. I haven't been to town in a couple, three years. Maybe things have changed. I hope so. The tech boom of the '90s made Austin much more corporate and Dallas-esque than it was before. Of course, the joke in Austin is people have ALWAYS been saying to newcomers "you shoulda been here 10 years ago."

Check out live music when you're in town. That's always been Austin's strength.

I lived in Austin from 1980 to 1993. What a great town.

 

There should be at least a couple of decent shops along The Drag. It's been a couple of years since I was wandering down the drag looking for CDs, but CD Exchange should still be there across from Dobie Dorm. A little further north was a great little shop (close to Tower) that had nice imports/boots, but I can't remember what it's called any more

 

All gone! The Sound Exchange was famous for the Daniel Johnson mural ("Hi! How Are You?") threatened when the location became a Baja Fresh restaurant. Technophilia is gone, too, or you could be thinking of Inner Sanctum, also gone (Starbucks). The Guadalupe Half-Price is now the Lamar Half-Price, across from the best hamburger stand/traditional breakfast in town at Dan's.

Try Cheapo Discs on Lamar, ABCDs on Airport, MusicMania (especially for hip-hop), maybe Antone's near Milto's on Lamar. I haven't seen Sound on Sound or Alien Records, but they could be worth a look.

Stephen

 

Waterloo's having a sale on Randy Newman's Greatest Hits right now - $7.99 - you can't beat it!

I was just in Waterloo last week. Yeah!

JEFF!

 

When did they close? When I lived there I used to go to A B CDs. They had good imports back then. Don't know if they're still around. There's a store called "Musicmania". Don't know if they're still around or not but they were at 3909 North Hwy35.

 

Unbelievable!! Yes, it was Technophilia I was thinking of. Their closing doesn't surprise me, but The Sound Exchange?? I can't believe it. That place always seemed like such a "staple". It was always busy. Been there for as long as I can remember.

Hmmmm....I will be in Austin for 4 days starting this Friday. I may have to try some of these other places.

 

ABCDs also closed (it morphed into a CD Warehouse for awhile, but that closed too).

Cheapo is sometimes OK, but the fact that they organize their most recent used CDs by arrival date (e.g., Monday, Tuesday, etc), rather than alphabetically, is really irritating. There's also a new used record store on North Loop. I've only been a couple of times and they seem to specialize in Punk and/or really-trashed used LPs, but it may be worth a look. Unfortunately I can't remember the name...Sound on Sound maybe???

Tower, Sound Exchange, 33 degrees, ABCDs, Jupiter Records - all of these have closed in the last 2 years, it's really depressing. The only place that's still going strong is Waterloo.

 

Yikes! It's worse than I thought. But I'm not surprised that Sound Exchange went under. 20 years ago, it was THE record store in Austin (it was known as "Record Exchange" then). Last time I wandered in (4 years ago or so), the CD racks were barely stocked and the LPs in the back were just a joke—crap records literally thrown together in a pile on the floor. An ignominious end for a once-great shop. Back in the mid-'80s, it was arguably better than Waterloo. Certainly it was hipper. Waterloo was then still in at its original location (just south of the Lamar St. bridge, where Soccerworld is now) and much smaller than it is now.

Is Antone's Records still around?

 

sad to see that so many have closed now

I'll miss the convention - that would have been great.
not going til 15th April

still, thanks for the suggestions....