Hey there! Welcome back to the Listen Up, Nerds Newsletter. I wanted to say thanks to anyone who said a nice thing about the last newsletter, or shared it, or subscribed to the newsletter because of it. It means the world. Thanks again. There are quite a few new people here so I’ll cut to the chase: Listen Up, Nerds is a twice-weekly newsletter about music, ostensibly. Sometimes it’s about my personal connection with music. Other times, it’s a list of new releases or a review of an album/show. Today, it’s about the Music Retail Experience.
Over the weekend, I visited scenic Columbus, OH, where I attended Soupfest. Soupfest is a yearly festival where chefs of all cooking levels submit soups for judgment by a council of Soupfest organizers, musicians, and attendees of the festival. Soupfest means a lot to me. So much that I flew to Ohio in mid-March, when the midwest is at its greyest and grossest. The snow has melted but the chill from the wind is still at its iciest. The only thing worse than looking outside is being outside. But then, what’s better on a terrible cold day than a big bowl of soup? Well, the answer is several samples of soups of all tastes and textures, all served up in a big ballroom while bands play music and you celebrate with your friends.
One day, I’ll get into the big Soupfest story and why it means so much. That day is not today. I want to talk to you about what I did right before Soupfest. On Saturday morning before the festivities, I asked my hosts about local coffee shops that had food along with coffee. They pointed me in the direction of Cup O’ Joe, just north of Columbus’ Old North district, which is north of their Short North district. This is where I killed time before I could make my pilgrimage to the best record store in the midwest, Used Kids.
Used Kids could very well be the best record store in the country, but there are so many more record stores out there that I’ve never visited. It’s likely the best record store that I’ve visited. It’s not my favorite (Chain Reaction in Denver 😎), but it’s the best. Let’s dissect that qualifier a little bit. What does it mean to be a good record store? What is the ideal retail experience? What does it mean to be the best record store?
I asked a few people that I know to give me the qualities that they find emblematic of a good record store and the answers ranged from “community involvement” and “heavily-curated selections” to “will pay good money for my trade-ins.” I can’t say that I disagree! I find all of these things to be representative of what constitutes a good store. When thinking about what makes a store good, I honed in on what made stores bad or forgettable. I thought about all of the times I’d gone into a “Record Store” in some midwest town only to be disappointed by seeing over 20,000 used CDs and DVDs and then two small unorganized shelves of records, all brand new versions of Hendrix and Beatles records, selling for $45 each. I thought about the big record stores who have the footprint of a small grocery store and only stock Music On Vinyl represses of ‘90s grunge records and thousands of used ‘80s records that a thrift store would turn away.
So what do I think makes a good store? Much like any space, it’s a function of care. It’s about the selection and knowledge of buyers. It’s about the effort that goes into making a daunting collection feel as inoffensive as a grocery store. It’s about organizing and breaking the mold of the judgmental record store guy trope but still having a higher taste level than any other store. The care for the music, as well as the customer, is what makes a space different from others in the same industry.
A good record store has clearly marked sections that are close to each other in sound but not so close as to crowd shoppers into one area. Used Kids does a great job of this in a very funny way. There is a rock section, a punk section, and a “post-punk” section. The metal section is on the opposite side from the post-punk section, and the punk section is relegated to a few shelves in the front of the store. The store is centered around an expansive “Rock” selection but the post-punk section was thrilling. I was aghast and flustered by some of the picks at first. Lemonheads. Slowdive. Mogwai. These are NOT post-punk bands and yet... I don’t care. It served a good purpose. It kept the Rock section a little less crowded and kept me out of gen pop. I hate waiting for someone to move away from the Black Sabbath section so that I can see if they have any Breeders albums that I don’t have.
The selection of records was also staggering. If I lived in Columbus, I probably wouldn’t have to shop for records online. It’s a breath of fresh air to see a record store in the midwest that’s so dedicated to new music from all over the world. It also had the most Muslimgauze records that I’ve ever seen in one store. I didn’t meet anyone who was into Muslimgauze until way after college, so you can imagine that seeing 15 Muslimgauze records was a bit of a shock. This might also mean that nobody in Columbus is into Muslimgauze, but consider that if you WERE into Muslimgauze, you could pick up his music at your local shop!
We all have our favorite stores. I have mentioned it before in the newsletter but I do a good bit of shopping at Limited To One in the East Village because they have a lot of the more rare hardcore records that I want and I don’t have to go through discogs. That said, they don’t have a lot of the Electronic music that I’ve started to buy as of late. It’s also a mostly-used record store that specializes in rare presses and has markups because of that. Balling out at a lot of record stores for $200 could net you quite a few pickups, especially if you pilfered the used section. You’d be hard-pressed to walk out of LTO with six LPs for that kind of money. Chain Reaction in Denver is my favorite store because it’s community-based and a lot of the local punks go to that store. The new records bring in people who will sell old records, and the old records are just as good if not better than the new records. It’s a great cycle. I will always walk out of that store with new music. Like LTO, the selection is very single-minded. If you don’t want esoteric hardcore and metal, you’re out of luck. If you want some forgotten Rev Records LPs, then you’re in the right place.
So many of us have favorite record stores that we grant clemency due to a romantic reframing of drawbacks. Just like listening to vinyl records, we cherish the imperfection in the name of tradition. We love the feel of buying a record in person, no matter how inconvenient it can be. I always loved the drive out and back from downtown Denver to Chain Reaction. Sure, it was a bit of a trip, and I could walk to two record stores from my apartment, but I had an excuse to go to Edgewater Market for Meta Burger (The Best, and I mean THE BEST, Vegan Burger in the USA). I liked going to Wax Trax post-remodel and having to go to two different stores for two different transactions when buying Used and New records. Hell, I like going to Amoeba when I’m in California even if it’s a crowded mess every single time I walk in. Seriously, it’s like a Burlington Coat Factory but for records and I still love it!
But that’s what was so striking about Used Kids: It didn’t need any fluffing up. It didn’t need any excuses. It’s a hell of a shop. It’s a good record store that negates the need to shop online. It had what 99% of the people walking into that store could want, and it wasn’t anywhere near as big as some of the other stores I’ve mentioned on this list. It was clean, it was organized, and everyone who worked there was pleasant. I could buy new releases from local artists and international artists alike. I rarely see Indonesian hardcore at any record store in the United States but lo and behold, they had it through a domestic distributor. They had noise records from small imprints. They had used audiophile versions of jazz records. If you wanted it, they had it or had a way to get it.
I don’t want every store to be perfect. I don’t think stores should aim to be perfect. The quirks and inconsistencies give the world the diversity that makes it great. But, damn. Sometimes someone does something really well and you have to respect it. Seeing true greatness stand out is something you can always cherish. Thanks, Used Kids, for being a perfect waste of time for 90 mins before I ate more soup than I could’ve imagined.