Vinyl Lives

Any business that stays open for over fifty years safely earns the status of being an institution. Any record store that stays in business for this long earns the status of hero. Nestled between Summit Ski & Sport and the Bow Tie Beacon Cinema along the store-lined Springfield Ave in Summit, New Jersey, Scotti’s Record […]

In Vinyl Lives we spotlight and profile record stores around the country who offer music lovers an experience that goes beyond an iTunes purchase or a Spotify playlist. Vinyl has found a new resurgence and the good folks behind independent record stores are on the front line, directly responsible for curating a unique collection of […]

In Vinyl Lives we spotlight and profile record stores around the country who offer music lovers an experience that goes beyond an iTunes purchase or a Spotify playlist. Vinyl has found a new resurgence and the good folks behind independent record stores are on the front line, directly responsible for curating a unique collection of […]

In Vinyl Lives we spotlight and profile record stores around the country who offer music lovers an experience that goes beyond an iTunes purchase or a Spotify playlist. Vinyl has found a new resurgence and the good folks behind independent record stores are on the front line, directly responsible for curating a unique collection of […]

If there ever was a record shop where everybody knows your name, it might be Pure Pop Records in Burlington, VT. In fact it shares a distinctive downstairs entry way, identical to the set of the fabled NBC show Cheers. In the city that gave us Phish and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Pure Pop […]

Seattle, Austin, Portland, Chicago, Nashville….we know what we’re getting at here – all kick ass music cities. Everything from the venues, record stores, local bands gone big and music festivals, there’s no shortage of cool and hip. But what about Phoenix, Arizona? Well, there’s no way Phoenix even dares come close to top tier music […]

In Vinyl Lives we spotlight and profile record stores around the country who offer music lovers an experience that goes beyond an iTunes purchase or a Spotify playlist. Vinyl has found a new resurgence and the good folks behind independent record stores are on the front line, directly responsible for curating a unique collection of […]

Back in 2009 we launched a column here at Glide Magazine called Vinyl Lives. The column was dedicated to a deep love of record collecting and the tendency of that love to turn into an obsession. It was also focused on the resurgence of vinyl as the most optimal platform for ingesting music in the […]

While the stream of new vinyl continues to find space in the better record stores, a lot of stuff, both mainstream and underground, is once again easy to find (though I seem to have missed the boat on the last Dead Weather album at my local shop).  However, there is also quite a bit of very nice vinyl that may not find its way to every shop.

Last year, I showed up at Sound Garden, in Baltimore's Fells Point, about an hour after they opened.There were a few people in there and some of the more desirable titles had sold out, but I walked right in and found a lot of what I was looking for with no crowds and no hassles.  This year was a different story.  I got down there right before they opened and the line ran for about two blocks outside of the store.  When I finally got in the store about an hour later, there was still probably 30 people waiting to get in behind me.  Sure, I would have loved to have walked right in, but the bottom line is that Record Store Day was a much bigger event this year than last year and that alone more than made up for the wait.