St Louis = vinyl HEAVEN

TroyD

Just got back from my trip to good ol' St Louis.

While I was there, courtesy of Uncle, I figgered I do a little roaming around for vinyl.

So, after a small delay and a little research....I come up with three very promising record shops.

Vintage Vinyl...this is probably the most famous record shop in St Louis. It's in the trendy University City district. Pretty decent selection of rock LP's however, they do a brisk online business so if you are looking for some obscure titles, you are ok but the big ticket items I'd surmise never make it to the racks. Decent selection of jazz. I picked up a couple of things but all in all, pretty underwhelming.

Euclid Records...I've bought a couple LP's off them on ebay. Great selection of new vinyl. Medicore rock selection but a terrific jazz selection. If you are into jazz, this is a good stop.

Now for the money shot:

The Record Exchange

Holy ****. I nearly crapped myself when I walked in. THIS is a record store. It's in an old library building. You name it, he's got at least 6 copies. No kidding, I spent 4 hours and barley scratched the surface in this joint. The classical section is just to DIE for. All of the shelves are litterally overflowing. Underneath the shelves (where you can flip through the LP's) are more shelves crammed full. In front of the shelves are boxes, again, full. Again, in four hours, I didn't even scratch the surface of what this place has. The staff is great, if you are looking for something, they will dig until it's found. The great thing is most of the stuff isn't marked, ie if you find it in a box...so for the most part, 5 bucks. The stuff in the bins, which has been sorted, are priced accordingly but still not outrageous. I picked up a stack of original Everest classic pressings, a MINT Japanese pressing of Jimmy Smiths organ grinder swing (didn't realize it was a Japanese pressing until later), RCA Living Stereos, Blue Notes, JATP's, Verve's.....the whole works.

If you dig vinyl and are withing distance, you NEED to hit this place.

BDT

skipf

Do they have a website for online ordering?

TroyD

http://www.recordexchangestl.com/

BDT

F1nut

Someone is in heaven.

TroyD

Nah, I'm back but I'm not nationwide.

BDT

michaeljhsda2

Glad to hear you enjoyed your stay in my home town. I remember when his store was 2 blocks further south on Hampton Avenue with very limited space, maybe 1100 sq ft. When the public library relocated to a new facility, he bought the old library and filled it up immediately. If my memory serves me correctly, he stated in a local newspaper article that the current store contains only half of his entire collection!

hearingimpared

TroyD wrote: »

http://www.recordexchangestl.com/

BDT

Thank you sir!

treitz3

michaeljhsda2 wrote: »

Glad to hear you enjoyed your stay in my home town. I remember when his store was 2 blocks further south on Hampton Avenue with very limited space, maybe 1100 sq ft. When the public library relocated to a new facility, he bought the old library and filled it up immediately. If my memory serves me correctly, he stated in a local newspaper article that the current store contains only half of his entire collection!

Reheheheheheaallllllllllllly?

Thanks Troy.

reeltrouble1

OK, so what did your bring me???

RT1

cubdog

I keep seeing this and wonder if St Louis and Heaven have ever been mentioned in the same sentence before.

cubdog

BaggedLancer

TroyD wrote: »

http://www.recordexchangestl.com/

BDT

Weird...I can't view any albums on their site except for the few on their home page? I click LP's and it's all blank.

cubdog

BaggedLancer wrote: »

Weird...I can't view any albums on their site except for the few on their home page? I click LP's and it's all blank.

Same thing here.

cubdog

miner

michaeljhsda2 wrote: »

Glad to hear you enjoyed your stay in my home town. I remember when his store was 2 blocks further south on Hampton Avenue with very limited space, maybe 1100 sq ft. When the public library relocated to a new facility, he bought the old library and filled it up immediately. If my memory serves me correctly, he stated in a local newspaper article that the current store contains only half of his entire collection!

Looking for LPs for the first two 'Mamas Pride'; "Mamas Pride" & "Uptown and Lowdown". If you can help out a fellow Polkie I would appreciate it. Can't find them here in Tejas.

michaeljhsda2

I'll stop in there on Thursday and see if he has those albums. Mama's Pride is very popular here in St. Louis so the local market price might be kinda high. I'll let you know about prices and condition. If you want you can PM me and I can send you additional information x 4.

michaeljhsda2

Here is an excerpt from the Mama's Pride website http://mamaspride.tripod.com/info.html
"Their first two albums are out of print and have not been re-released on compact disc. Each of these albums are sought after collectors items. According to Pat Liston, he has approached Atlantic Records, on more than one occasion, about obtaining the rights to the recordings so they could be re-released on compact disc. Pat was able to verify that Atlantic has the original master tapes to the first two albums. However, Atlantic is not willing to allow Pat (or anyone else) the use of the masters in order to press CDs of the albums. Word has it that Atlantic is not even willing to discuss a deal at this time. (Editor's note: With all the other recordings that Atlantic has re-released over the years, you would think they would be willing to come to some sort of agreement. Instead, the masters sit in a vault somewhere of no benefit to anyone. Why Atlantic is holding onto these tapes and refusing to release them is a mystery. Maybe if enough fans were to send e-mails to Atlantic Records, a division of Time-Warner, requesting that these albums be released on CD, something might happen.) "