Los Angeles area record stores

Discussion in 'Music, Movie and Hardware Store Guide' started by jamesc, Jun 16, 2016.

  1. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Live on-line auction on low dollar 80's stuff. If you want to know why the racks stink in record stores now....
     
  2. Partyslammer

    Partyslammer Lord Of The New Church

    Weirdest thing, a record store in Costa Mesa that I really liked, Port Of Sound Record Shoppe had someone come in and buy virtually their entire inventory both new and used which amounted to something like 200,000 LPs. Completely cleaned out the store. But they’re still open, slowly restocking, buying new inventory. I think they had maybe 200 new records when I dropped by last week.
     
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  3. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    This place? Port of Sound Records Vinyl Records

    I've ordered Record Store Day titles from them a few times.

    I guess they need to remove the statement on the carousel of their home page that says "One of the largest collections of vinyl records in the world" .... !!
     
    Daddy-O4 likes this.
  4. Partyslammer

    Partyslammer Lord Of The New Church

    Yes, that's the store. I don't know about their claim about having anything close to the largest collection of vinyl records before the buy-out, even in Southern California (Amoeba Hollywood and even Fingerprints in Long Beach are better) but they were certainly worth dropping in a few times a month and they typically got a lot of RSD product.
     
  5. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Somebody must know who bought them out. The Brasil guy is cheap.
     
  6. Marc Perman

    Marc Perman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    POS’s used records are generally overpriced, but whoever bought them out saved the equivalent of a Rolls Royce (0r three?) by not buying the same titles from Better Records.
     
  7. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    I saw a photo of the owner on a Facebook photo od store......at a Greater Orange Record Show I attended a few months ago he sold there. High high prices. I'm sure he found some rich Japanese person though the Yen to Dollar stinks.
     
  8. Mooglander

    Mooglander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mesa Springs, CA
    Rhino Montclair's soft opening is this weekend. I read there was a very long line to get in yesterday.
     
    steelydanguy, jamesmaya and neruda like this.
  9. Partyslammer

    Partyslammer Lord Of The New Church

    I will say at least a few years ago, Port Of Sound paid me a pretty fair price for a bunch of albums that were cluttering up my collection - mostly early 80's MFSL and Nautilus Half Speeds and even a few live bootlegs that I have much better sounding options.

    ...and apparently, the buyer of their entire inventory was the owner of a couple records stores in CA.
     
    Marc Perman likes this.
  10. Mooglander

    Mooglander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mesa Springs, CA
    "Come and take advantage of our bulk discounts!"
     
  11. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Don't tell me Amoeba.....Rockaway pays more than those characters. I guess the stock would be better than their VG- Van Halen albuns at $16.99.
     
  12. jim249

    jim249 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah, USA
    It just might be that Rockaway is appointment only now to control the number of shoppers in the store at a given time. Maybe they were having problems with shoplifting. Just a thought. The last used record store I was at in the LA area was MobyDisc in Encino about 37 years ago.
     
  13. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Rockaway is retail but 1/4 of the old store. No shoplifting, it is like being in a big living room. Amoeba probably isn't getting much in in quality. They are notorious for being cheap to the people bringing stuff in.
     
  14. Ryan Chang

    Ryan Chang New Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles

    If you can spare any more details about the buyer, I'd be curious!

    I really liked Port of Sound when they first opened -- a nice mix of used and new, but when they started to stock almost exclusively new stock, with overstuffed bins, it felt more like picking through the top twenty of someone's Spotify algorithm. Not my taste, but I'm glad they've stuck around for as long as they have. I hope they continue to.
     
  15. Ryan Chang

    Ryan Chang New Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Can't speak for the CDs, but the vinyl selections at Book-Off locations are either of the thrift store variety (opera; private press religious sermons; Tijuana Brass) or moderately collectible (some VMP pressings here and there). Have failed to find any real deals.
     
  16. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Sounds like Bookman's chain in Arizona. Only buy with trade, books especially.
     
  17. shark shaped fin

    shark shaped fin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I'm still on the hunt for a place that is keeping their prices reasonable. I think one issue was alluded to upthread, which is that people aren't selling to stores as much anymore, and the more common stock is similarly scarcer and the prices are too damn high. I might have unrealistic expectations, of course. I'm still pretty happy with Freakbeat's prices on more common LPs but everything else seems higher. I've checked out Deadly Wax in Chatsworth a couple times but it's a little more steep than I'd like, however I have walked out with some good records. Record Outlet in Thousand Oaks is a trek for me, and I wasn't totally thrilled with the prices, but they're not gouging. They're just elevated. CD Trader remains a non-starter at this point.

    I went to Amoeba last week to trade some things in (I had five records), waited 45 minutes while the buy counter folks were lackadaisical in their sorting through giant piles, and got $15 credit. Didn't even have enough time to shop, had to skedaddle before my 75 min was up in the lot (they validated me since I sold.)

    Atomic Records is still pretty solid but I'm not thrilled by them either. Seems like a lot of common stock priced slightly higher than it should be.

    My current hunt is for peak-era Thin Lizzy vinyl, not the reissues. Talk about a good example of a band that you used to be able to find everywhere, as far as used stock, and now it's absolutely nowhere.
     
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  18. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I would not consider that stuff clutter, and it had better fetch decent prices for trade-ins.
     
  19. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    "Clutter", yikes, that stuff is gold in 2022. I hope you got eBay sold prices for store trade. Amoeba is the looking at your watch store for parking. L.A. stores all have high prices for commons especially Record Surplus....their $1 "attic" 25 years ago was incredible. True these places are seeing less and less incoming nice commons. People are clued into the near empty divider cards with high prices. Thin Lizzy divider cards are always empty.
     
    shark shaped fin likes this.
  20. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    There are still deals and there will always be deals.... online I mean. There is no reason to expect a store with rent and labor overhead to have deals on records.
     
  21. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    I wonder what Freakbeat pays on the main drag?
     
  22. shark shaped fin

    shark shaped fin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I have a list of spots I won't go out the way for, and then there are the places I won't even enter if I'm in the neighborhood. I feel like I should mention Record Parlour specifically, because amateur hour "best record stores in L.A." lists seem to mention them a lot. I have friends who will always tip me off to sales there, but I beg out of going since I think that place is just no bueno. I went in there once after a fruitless trip to nearby Amoeba searching for a vintage copy of Steely Dan's Gaucho for a friend, and found a copy there: scratched vinyl, scuffed cover, $12. It would have been passed over by me in a 50 cent bin. Regardless, talk about an LP that deserves a clean pressing. That's about par for the course, unfortunately. Price gouging on gouged records.
     
  23. shark shaped fin

    shark shaped fin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I assume to an extent that the prices are dictated by the real estate, but even considering that, trying to sell someone absolutely **** copies of albums for double digit dollars is not cool.
     
  24. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Amoeba has been selling beaters for years. Rockaway may be museum pricing but mint it is. Good ole Gare and crew.
     
  25. shark shaped fin

    shark shaped fin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I went to a newish shop in Burbank, Runout Groove Records, just north of Magnolia several blocks east of Atomic. Higher prices but everything seemed to be in good shape. Seems like a nice local spot to check out, if you're in the area. The employee behind the counter was chatty and pleasant. I wouldn't necessarily expect to find many deals, but I did get a couple very clean copies of records I'd been seeking for under ten bucks.

    I've decided, though, to largely stop wasting time on digging because I inevitably will buy something that isn't really high priority. I hate to move my shopping to online, but spending valuable time driving to far-flung places digging thru overpriced used vinyl is just not much fun. My empty handed disappointment-to-thrilling discovery ratio is way off-kilter these days.
     

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