Record stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island & Connecticut!!

As I think others have mentioned in this thread, if you bring Elaini at Deja Vu a Diet Coke when you come in, she will cut you even more of a deal.

A couple weeks ago, coming back from a day trip to York Beach, we made a detour to Mel's Record Shop. Nice store in a cute neighborhood. Popular prices across the board and he cut about $30 off the total of the stack I brought to the counter. I took good advantage of the jazz collection sale somebody else mentioned, picking up some good World Pacific and Pacific Jazz titles, two of which were still sealed with the original department store price stickers on them.

Not worth making a special trip for, but I'd absolutely pop in if I was in the area.

 

A question for the people who have visited the new Bullmoose in Portsmouth: Would you say the amount of records is more like 2017-2018 or when they drastically reduced the amount of used titles they used to stock?

When first I visited the store in late 2017 when I got back into records they had a much larger selection, particularly of used records. The store was created by combining 3 equally sized tenant spaces in one building into one space by busting through the demising walls. When you entered through the door on the left they had a long double sided browser of records running front-to-back down the center of the smaller portion of the store. It contained mostly new LPs with some selected used LPs. This space also contained the cash register counter. Walking through into the other two spaces they, had a quite large selection of used titles running along the outside wall of right-most space. I seemed to remember it ran along most of the outer wall and there were some additional racks of records across the aisle from those browser bins. I could easily spend several hours in this version of the store. I usually came back with a good selection of both new and used titles. Back then they had far more used titles than new.

Their old location used to be about a 65 minute trip from my home. In 2017-2018 I had a job that required my doing field inspections in Haverhill on a weekly or every two week basis. If I got free from this meeting in a short time, I would go to Bullmoose. This cut the outbound travel time in half and meant I could sneak over to Bullmoose every month or two. Plus a bonus was I got to claim the mileage to and from Haverhill to my house. My job went on hold in spring of 2018 and several months passed. I finally drove from home on a Saturday in the late-summer of 2018, only to find out there had been big changes, none of them for the better IMHO.

The smaller 1/3 of the store near the cash desk was still the same. It had the same browser rack of mostly new records running front to back down the center of the space. The used records located in the right-most bay of the store had been gutted. It was a shadow of it's former self. I quickly decided that this Bullmoose was definitely not worth a special trip and the 65 minute drive. I would only go there if I was in, or passing through, Portsmouth and had the extra time. I started going to the Salem store on the way home from Haverhill. It was only 15 minutes out of the way. It seemed they were not too much different from the reduced inventory at Portsmouth. I have only been back twice. Frankly, I could have bought what I picked up in Portsmouth, just as easily in the Salem Bullmoose by driving only 25 minutes.

Until I saw this post I ASSumed they had renovated the old location. So to you long-time Bullmoose Portsmouth veterans: How does this new store compare for buying records? I don't care at all about books, CD's, or videos. Is it closer to the classic Bullmoose of old or more like the version that had significantly less used records? TIA.

 

Again, I have to point out that the used record stock at the old Portsmouth Bull Moose location was not theirs - it was brought in by an outside vendor. If his area shrunk, it could have been either party's decision. Maybe he (it was definitely a "he" - I met him several times) didn't want as much space? Maybe Bull Moose needed some of his space for more of their own inventory? Maybe their deal changed so he cut back on space? We'll never know unless someone from Bull Moose comes here and tells us.

Regarding the used inventory at the new Portsmouth location, I would guess that it has been cut by about a third. But to be honest, if you ever browsed that section in the old Portsmouth location, a lot of the used LP stock didn't really move. I would see titles sitting there for quite a while. By shrinking it, maybe he can keep it fresh and move more out?

I also think that Bull Moose at the new Portsmouth location is now buying/selling used LPs. There is a section of used LPs that have Bull Moose sales stickers on them next to the usual used stock with the outside vendor's price stickers.

 

I was last in the new location a month ago and they were still in the process of getting organized. As a result the selection hadn’t changed that much.

With regard to the far corner at the old location, back in the day they had a few of their own titles that got moved to the front section. What had really decreased was their selection of bargain new vinyl marked down at 25/50/75% off.

I hope that the new location gets built out properly. At last visit, their racks were still on a painted cement floor. Their insurance company will love that once winter comes. Personally, I think they rushed the opening to keep the doors open. They would have been better off finishing the store with a proper build out and having a grander opening. They likely wanted to keep the foot traffic consistent with their summer months, but they forgot that the old location got a lot of visits from day visitors. The new location will appeal more to the diehards who would have waited IMO.

 

The outside vendor has his stock in Northwood, NH - RS Butler Trading Company (I believe his in-laws are the owners). I think that Bull Moose probably requested the reduction in titles when they were tight on space. I stopped into the new Bull Moose digs a couple of weeks ago, and didn't notice an expansion of vinyl. That might be in the future, though. The only real expansion I saw was in the books area. They only had a small book section due to space, but other Bull Moose stores (South Portland, Keene, NH) had large book sections. If you're looking used and can get to Northwood, he keeps a good selection there. It's pretty big, with a huge section of cheap vinyl (most of what I bought has been in the very good range). It's not a destination, though, unless you like antique stores ( the town has an "Antique Alley" of many stores).

 

Huh. Add a VHS rental section and it sounds like it'll look like a Hastings location from my high school days.

 

They do sell used VHS tapes for 30 cents apiece. Props for anyone that still has a player in working order.

 

I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the Newbury Comics in Nashua, NH last Tuesday. They had been slowly cutting down of the amount of vinyl they carried over the last few years. The last time I was there was RSD 2022 in April and nothing had changed. This Tuesday all of that had changed. They also seemed to have decent stock as opposed to a bunch of browser dividers denoting artists with no content in the bin. The main browser bin at the back of the store seemed noticeably longer than it was in April. Their LP display wall at the right front of the store had been retained from RSD. The store manager knows me on sight and came over to say hi. When asked he said yes I was right, the vinyl had expanded quite a bit. When I went to check out he asked if I had seen the vinyl on sale that was discounted and was subject to a buy 2 get one free sale. I hadn't seen it and he brought me over to another browser that was 8 bins total, 4 high, 4 near the floor. He explained these were records that had been around a while and they want to clear them out to make room for a whole bunch of new releases that were coming soon. I ended up walking out with 12 disks, 2 free, 2 reduced by $12 and $14 plus as always no state sales tax. The other thing I noticed, but didn't ask about, was the quality of their vinyl selection seemed to have improved. More MoFi than I ever remember, including 4 or 5 One-steps. There was a slew of MOV releases too and several ORG releases. They seemed to have upped their game, or maybe the pressing plants have started to catch up with things.

Pre-pandemic, this Newbury Comics was a regular stop for me. It was worth a trip even if that was all I was doing. Then it was startied to downsize even in late 2019. The same was true with the Burlington location. When I made my first trips back about a year ago it had downsized even more. For me it was no longer worth a special trip. Sure if was going to the mall for something else I might stop if I had extra time. I haven't been back to Burlington for about 2 months, so I can't comment on if they have expanded their LPs. I am in Burlington next Wednesday and I will pop into the mall to check that store out. Meanwhile I think Nashua will become a regular visit again, instead of a stop only if I am in the area anyway.

 

I’ve seen a similar increase in vinyl at the Portland ME store.

 

I went ham on that clearance sale this weekend. The stores I shop at (Newbury Street and Harvard Square) are always well supplied with vinyl, but I'm glad to hear the suburban stores are being restocked as well.

 

I decided to take a drive out to the new location of Bull Moose in Portsmouth, NH. The new location is about 3 miles south and east of the old location on Congress St. Frankly I was pretty underwhelmed as soon as I drove up and that impression continued as I went inside.

The new location is iocated in an L-shaped strip shopping center. The new location only takes up one bay of the shopping center and the signboard is what stands out. The rest of the storefront is very nondescript as can be seen in the picture below. From the parking lot the only way you can tell there is a record (CD. video & bookstore) store in this space is by the sign. It has been 4 years since the last time I went to the old Congress Street location before it drastically reduced the amount of used records and floor area devoted to records. I would say this new location is more like the downsized Congress St. location. I think this location now has about the same amount of records as the Salem, NH location.



The records are located up front on the right hand side of the store, just behind the storefront glass. As I walked through the door and saw where the records were, my first though was: "It that all there is"? The main browser area consisted of 4 +/- 30"x 60" 4 bin browser racks back to back with a single +/-30" x 60" browser racks turned 90 degrees and acting as end caps. This set of browsers were about 5' x 20' in total. The new rock records were located in the upper bins in the 4 browser bins visible in the picture below. They continued and wrapped around the front end cap, and further wrapped around and took about 40% of the back side browsers. The remaining 60% of the back side (right) browser were various other genres. The rear end cap was jazz.The bottom bins of the both end caps and the 4 browser bins of the front (left) side consisted of overstock. The bottom bins of the back side (right) browsers were all box sets.


Moving to the right outside demising wall, there were some newer featured box sets up high on a shelf. The right half of this wall had 2 rows of wall mounted bins containing used records. Below that, there was a continuous series of browser bins also containing used titles, plus a bin dedicated to new arrivals.

A couple of other minuses:

• The new albums have maybe 5-10 divider cards dedicated to specific artists. Example: "Beach Boys", "Beatles", "Bee Gee's" etc and then a jumbled bunch of LPs starting with the letter "B". You have to flip through ALL of the "B's" because these records are not in alphabetical order at all. This is what Bull Moose seems to favor as an approach. I like Newbury Comics approach where they have dedicated divider cards for mosts artists and a small amount of misc. "B" artists. This make for much faster browsing because you can just flip through only the specific artists you want and ignore the rest. If there isn't a card for the artist you are looking for, you only have a small amount of misc artists for that letter to look through.
• This minus combined with the way Bull Moose files the LPs the way I just described, makes for some REALLY annoying browsing. They had the LPs crammed into the bins so tightly you had to remove a couple inches of records in the bin to allow you to quickly flip through the rest. These records were crammed so tightly, they were hard to remove and even harder to replace. I'd pull out 10 to free some space to flip and when I was done only 8 or 9 would go back in. Arrrgghhh!!! This is why I only looked through the new releases. It took 75 minutes and I was out of patience when it was time to look through the used LPs.
• People mentioned the painted concrete floor. That is a dedicated floor paint that was used. I am a bit surprised they didn't mix an abrasive in with the paint. It will be interesting to see if they have problems with slippage in the winter or even wet weather. This won't be my problems as you will see below.

Bottom Line: Honestly this store is not worth making a special trip and my driving 75 minutes just to shop for records. If I have other business in Portsmouth and the available free time, sure I might just stop. Now I think the Salem, NH store has just as much stock and is only about a 25 minute drive for me.

 

I agree and hope they look at the store’s potential given the space’s size. Hopefully new management is up to the task after the founder sold to the employees a year back.

Given how slapped together the move was, I’m not so sure that they wanted to vacate the old location, with the landlord thinking that a restaurant or other similar business could result in a higher rent. It’s a hot area and the store, for as much as we liked it, didn’t fit in.

 

I have seen employee owned businesses that are well run and cater to their customers and have great customer service. But I also have seen successful businesses that were turned over to the employees and quickly go to hell in a hand basket. They are poorly run and seem to cater more towards the employees than the customers. There seems to be no "adult supervision". I guess it depends on how knowledgeable the employees were about the operations and management of the business. Also is it just a job for them or a job where they truly like what they do?

After the pandemic I am just now getting out a bit more. Until the last RSD in April it has been 2 years between visits to the Salem, NH store. Therefor I can not judge yet. You say the move of the Portsmouth store was hasty and that certainly would explain some of what I observed on my visit last week. I have visited the Salem store 3 times since April and things seem to be about the same as before. If I didn't know about the sale of the store, I wouldn't have noticed any difference at all. I guess time will tell how Bull Moose does.

In the meantime I will still make special trips to BM Salem. They do get records in that are not something my favorite local record stores carry. As long as Portsmouth stays the way it is now, it is only worth stopping by if I am in the area anyway and have some free time.

 

To clarify, my comment regarding the hastiness of the move is a case more of appearance (influenced by my professional experience) than any direct knowledge. Prior to the move, the old location was as well run as it always had been.

However, being skilled and knowledgeable in one area doesn't automatically mean that the store managers have similar skills when it comes to site selection, relocation and reopening. To the best of my knowledge since I became aware of the BM chain a dozen years ago, this is the first store relocation I know of. They did close the Old Port store, but that's a different pack-move-store process.

 

Yes I wasn't blaming anyone for the appearance of the store in terms of the new or old management. I just noted the appearance I observed was consistent with a hasty move and I am a newly retired architect.

I was very disappointed with BM Portsmouth, but I plan to set that straight soon enough. I am going to head out to Worcester and visit Joe's Albums. I have ordered online from them during the pandemic. Great customer service and I was pleased with the condition of the used LPs I bought there. This time I decided to order online and pick it up at the store. It will give me a chance to check them out. They seem to get in more audiophile vinyl than any local stores in my area.

 

As mentioned up-thread, Portland ME has 4 stores within a 1/4 mile of each other. Enterprise, Strange Maine, Moody Lords, and Electric Buddha. I took a trip there last Saturday and was happy to see good size crowds in each shop. Each shop has their own style and specialty, so YMMV, but the indie shop is alive and well on Congress Street (or just off it in the case of Enterprise).

 

I love OG Portland.

 

The best store in Cambridge is no more. Blue Bag Records is gone and a new store with different owners will be opening in that space later this month.

Blue Bag Records on Instagram: "Much changing of the guards in Boston recordland. Including us! #recordshop #recordstore #vinyl #records #vinylporn #vinylcommunity #vinylrecords #vinyljunkie #cambridge #cambridgema #boston"

 

Abraxas in Portland is closing. RIP.

 

Armageddon Shop has most of its catalog on Discogs now (well, for a while really). If you see something you want just call them. Buy Vinyl Records and CDs from armageddonshop at Discogs Marketplace

 

Hopefully it’s still a good eclectic selection with fair prices.

 

I hope so, but in terms of my own tastes, Blue Bag was something special.

 

Just got back from a trip to Portsmouth. Had to take my son to the Pure Hockey for a fitting and it happened to be across the street from the new Bull Moose. It’s exactly as many records as they had before the move. Same bins and all. They just have the new and used next to each other.

I hope it works out for them, losing the foot traffic of downtown has to be a big hit. Now it takes a specific trip to browse. You can’t be downtown and go take a look while the wife sits down for a coffee.

Yeah, it looks like they are still moving in and I am sure it will be rearranged more than once as they observe how the space is being used. Anyway. Same size and I found plenty of good stuff. Got a really clean copy of Bobbie Gentry - Delta Sweete for $3. Totally upgrade on the one I found at Goodwill years ago and only $1 more than I paid then. Also some good Doors and Who boots. There was a It’s a Beautiful Day boot there, too. I should have grabbed it, just for the novelty of it.

The rock at least has dividers. It’s a pain that you have to flip through every record in the other sections. Prices range from right on the money to the occasional score. I only saw a few things I would consider overpriced.

Also swung by the new(?) Savers over at Fox Run. Not too much but I found an Astronauts album and a signed copy of I’m Jessi Colter!

 

Nah, that Savers has been there for years. I got a nice load of Euro 12"s circa 1985-89 there a few years ago.

 

Huh. Never noticed it before. Well now I know.