Deja Vu records (Natick, MA)

Recently I made a trip to this store. They have a ton of vinyl and just a few cds, I am a cd collector so I wasn't interested.

If you are in the area and have some time to dig through some titles, you may want to check it out:

http://www.dejavurecords.net/

There looked to be lots of cool stuff. The store is run by a nice elderly woman, who wants to help you.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the reminder on this place. It was brought up a few months ago in another thread but I still haven't gone. Now that I have this link to their website, I'm even more intrigued. It's not really as off the beaten path as I thought. Hopefully I'll get a chance to chek them out this week.

 

I have always had mixed feelings about them. The woman who runs/owns it is a little bit of a flake, and she is big on the hard sale...

 

Yeah, she is a bit flaky.

 

One of the local newspapers had an article on her last month.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/b...still-what-its-all-about-at-Natick-music-shop

Record keeping: Vinyl still what it's all about at Natick music shop
By Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff

NATICK - Poking through bins and boxes in her Natick shop, Eleni Vlahou-Dimeo pulled out the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" in its psychedelic jacket, Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" and a boxed set of Richard Wagner's epic opera "Ring of the Nibelung."

All vinyl - just like the other 50,000 or so 33, 45 and 78 rpm platters in Deja Vu Records at 154 East Central St.

Since 1998, the Natick resident has sold thousands of hard-to-find records to customers across the region and around the world who are convinced music sounds better on vinyl.

"I like the music. I like the art on the album covers. I like to make my customers happy. For me, it's like a family business," she said on a recent evening after her customers had left. "Sometimes I have to buy 25,000 records to find ten for my customers."

Since 1975 Vlahou-Dimeo has sold music from stores she owned, sometimes in partnership with her husband, in Cambridge, Brookline and Taunton. She's sole owner of Deja Vu Records, which she opened in 1988.

Targeting the "completely average" market these days, she estimated she sells about 1,000 modestly priced records a week to customers looking for jazz and bebop, rock and punk and classical music.

Vlahou-Dimeo said her once-booming overseas sales to Japan, Europe and Greece have been devastated by post-9/11 restrictions on visas and currency transfers for foreign vendors.

"Wholesale has stopped. I'm trying to be more small scale for my loyal customers," she said.

Raised in Athens, Vlahou-Dimeo grew up listening to relatives play music and enjoying musical theater. She spent two years in England studying literature and still clings to her love of Shakespeare.

A personal collection of recordings of all the Bard's plays are stacked in a shelf.

She came to the U.S. to study in the 1970s and married a few years later.
Vlahou-Dimeo prefers to deal with customers individually and keeps a notebook with their musical tastes. She has an Internet page that lists her telephone and address but little else.

"People don't believe in a machine. My phone number is online so people can call to find out if I'm here," she said.

Since she keeps irregular hours at the store and often steps out to buy records, she suggests customers call ahead.

Dinos Mekios, a native of Greece who buys records at Deja Vu to play on his radio show, "Our Little Rendezvous" on WHRB, said, "There's always an element of surprise looking around Eleni's store."

"You just stumble on some unusual records from jazz to rock and pop and even mazurkas, folk music that's popular in Greece. Eleni is very personal, a very traditional Greek who treats visitors to her store like guests in her home," he said.

Vlahou-Dimeo sometimes divides collectors of vinyl records into two categories, "people who love music and people who buy as an investment."
Though she's been in business for 30 years, she doesn't sell records online or via eBay because it seems like "an insult to the music and the artist."
Once a month, Bob Willett drives from Woodstock, Conn., to look for records by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holliday and other jazz and blues favorites amid Deja Vu's ever-changing inventory.

With a "couple of thousand" vinyl records in his personal collection, he's convinced the analog process of recording music on a record, rather than a CD or in a digital format, captures "the ebb and flow of music."

"No digital for me. It can't convey that natural, warm sound," said Willett, who operates his own mail-order business. "For serious pleasure, I sit between my speakers and play vinyl."

Regular customers like Keith Martin have favorite stories about the woman they all call Eleni.

"When my girlfriend's mother's birthday was coming up, I wanted to get her Harry Nilsson's album '***** Cats' that John Lennon produced during his 'Lost Weekend' period. Eleni knew exactly where to look," said the Natick resident who owns more than 1,000 albums.

Bob Lesniak stops by regularly to add to a collection that ranges from early Elvis Presley through Gene Vincent to the British Invasion of the mid-1960s.
The owner of Lesniak Oriental Rug Sales and Service, he recalled a special treasure he bought from Deja Vu: a 1963 45 rpm record "with the original sleeve" of The Beatles singing the folkie standard 'My Bonnie" with John Lennon crooning lead vocals.

A vinyl collector since childhood, he relaxes by listening to music on a compact record player with built-in speakers he bought at Deja Vu.
When he needs to unwind, Lesniak stops by "to talk music with Eleni." "For anyone who's nostalgic and likes old music, Deja Vu Records is just what the doctor ordered," he said.

Tim Landers of Maynard insists he can hear the difference between the original version of The Who's "My Generation" and the re-mastered version.
"When Eleni found me the original 'Who: Live at Leeds' with 13 documents and posters at an excellent price, I almost danced in the aisle of her store," he said. "She'd put it aside for me because she knew I was looking for it. She's kind of unique that way."

Copyright 2011 The MetroWest Daily News. Some rights reserved

 

This line on their website cracks me up...

"No one has ever entered our store and left empty handed."

 

I have to agree. I lived in that area for eight years, and visited the store exactly once. YMMV ...

??!

 

I did.....

 

Me too.

 

Me three.

I really didn't like the fact that some of the LPs had no price and when I asked her for a price, she tried getting me to haggle with her but she wouldn't set a starting price. It wasn't funny, it was annoying.

 

Not a fan of the pushy sale.

 

Does it have a dollar section?

 

I don't think so. The owner is not that organized.

 

Oh well, leaves me out!

 

I'm amazed she's still there - haven't been near in a couple of years but thought for sure she'd be gone by now. She used to keep "good stuff" (that they'd take to shows) in the back and take you back to see it if you'd bought enough, but she drove a hard bargain on it.

 

Just a big mess if you ask me......

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My experience buying records from Elani has been great. I visit Deja Vu on a regular basis and usually come home with a fistful of really nice vinyl at great prices.

Granted... her store isn't a typical record store and it isn't well organized but the breadth of the genres and time periods in her store is amazing. I've scored some really nice NM LPs (e.g., RL green target pressings of The Band S/T & Stage Fright, Decca pressings of The Who LPs, an original pressing of Thelonious Monk's Criss-Cross, a Track copy of The Strange World of Arthur Brown, RCA shaded dogs, UK Decca classical LPs, Mercury Living Presence original pressings, etc.) here at reasonable prices without any haggling at all. Elani doesn't label prices on the LPs - which is understandable given the volume that she moves - but she'll usually take a reasonable, good faith offer. However, she will get cranky if she thinks that you are trying to take advantage of her, but who doesn't?

More than 50% of my classical LPs came from this store - most of it unplayed. She doesn't value rock records much so if you are willing to dig through the bins to find clean LPs you can get some great deals. Right now I'm listening to a mint copy of Little River Band's Greatest Hits that she gave me as a throw-in with a handful of classical and jazz LPs that I bought from her last summer.