seattle lost its best hiphop store last year: Respect Records...sorry to see them close up shop...they knew what was up...
but for the kind of record buying i'm imagining a mpc-forums member would be interested in, there are plenty of used shops to hit up:
University District-
up and down university way there are a handful, usually worth checking out once a month or so, they'll have rock and jazz, your basic used bins...easy to find the stores, they're right on the main strip there...I don't even know their names, they're just "the stores on the Ave"...
Capitol Hill-
Platinum has been there forever, you'll get basic new stuff...good for if you know you're looking for the latest 50 cent single or something. Some decent used, but only rap and house and stuff, no real OG soul or jazz...
Zion's Gate- jamaican music-based (lol nice description sorry)--i haven't been in there forever, I got sick of dude's white dreads and high prices... but dude brings in new dancehall 7"s and stuff you don't really see too many other places. He'll have used hiphop for too much and you could buy ten copies of sister nancy bam bam on ten different labels in ten different formats... maybe i should go in there... nahhhhhhhh lol
jive time- they gots soul and jazz, but beware the repress... they have three stores around town, and cycle the stuff from one store to the next...if it doesn't sell at the capitol hill one, they move it to the fremont one, and then to the fremont antique mall store. Good for a monthly hit-up for sure... Get your muddy waters electric mud or skull snaps bootlegs here.
Everyday REcords- same chain as in Portland, so this is a pretty good all-over store... they get their stock from the whole northwest, and push it around en masse between their portland and seattle stores... so instead of seeing the same stuff you saw last month in there, you'll see something they just shipped up from portland, and vice versa. Possible mega gems, maybe.
what else in town...
oh yeah in queen anne hill there's a Easy Street records, go there for rock, new and used...
belltown neighborhood downtown has Singles Going Steady, insane punk and hardcore collections...
pioneer square has bud's jazz records, which kinda sucks for jazz records (go figure!)
what else
Fremont-
Sonic Boom for rock and occasional jazz, pretty good stuff...
Jive Time number two: soul and jazz and rock... can be priced weird, but pretty good selections.
Fremont Antique mall- right across the street, it's a weird outpost of the jive time records that didnt sell during a 6 month stay. Get your songs in the key of life or bob james records for a dollar here.
inbetween fremont and the u district is a good stop you go to Dick's Burgers from the sir mixalot album cover and get a cheeseburger then go next door to look at a bunch of bill haley and the comets 45s at Golden Oldies...
Ballard neighborhood-
another sonic boom. **CUE SIDE RANT** Basically here's what I'm saying: you go into this store for the pure quintessential Seattle Experience. A bunch of college smarties in indy rock styles (albeit a few months/years behind the SF style), who rode their fixed gear bikes in their skinny jeans...buddy holly glasses and greasy hair and a army hat and what they got tight hoodies on or something? And their girls are exactly the same, same dress same make you wanna punch them in the face stuff exactly. Ballard is Seattle boiled down to the essence right now...maddening, really. A bunch of tryhard billyburg wannabes who really can't hang nowhere but here. Like they took a trip to visit their cool cousin somewhere where stuff really is worth talking about, and came back to elementary school with a new york accent. Horrible.
Sonic Boom in Ballard is the headquarters of these people, I think. Go in here and they'll be playing some doodoohead whiny band that will make you want to kill your kitten or something... "oh you're looking for hiphop? we have dizzee rascal and the streets and jay Z right over there" (why did it become acceptable for these motherF'ers to include Jiggaman about 2 years ago? was it the internet blogs or something? pitchfork.com? ...annnnnyyywayyyysss back to the fracture at hand...) and you're like "nah dood why don't you take off your wristband and try to swallow it in one gulp" or something like that and you storm off where were we?
Bop Street.
in ballard avenue, on some serious house of vinyl steez. Dude's obviously insane, he must have 100 thousand+ records in there... ask to go in the basement and pretend you're DJ Shadow or whatever. Sure, he has 27 copies of brubeck "time out," but he's got a buttload of records of all styles... pricing can sometimes be a chore, but definitely remember to hit up bop street.
Quincy Jones grew up in Seattle, it used to have a huge jazz scene...it's not ALL lame lol... The whole northwest is full of good records, the weather 8 months out of the year makes people stay inside...good movie towns, lots of records...board games, i dunno...
Portland probably has more records per capita, there are more younger people there into doing creative stuff too...it's cheaper to live there and the people aren't as stuffy and up their own anuses...Vancouver is way more international, they got the hong kong and commonwealth influence happening...I haven't bought records up there in a long time, but they used to kinda have some good ones...I'd live in Vancouver if they didn't harbor so many terrorists up there...and watch so much hockey...
summertime in seattle is unbeatable, try to make it for summer. seriously.
yeah and if you couldn't tell, we have a bunch of coffeeshops here... :shock:
