Keep Music Evil!

"Exiled Records" in Portland OR is by far the BEST record store on the west coast. Their psychedelic rock, experimental rock and independent rock collections over there are impeccable. I have been introduced to a lot of good bands over there and Scott is very friendly.
Then "Mississippi Records" is a fucking phenomenal place to buy records here is PDX. The collection over there is also very very good. And the prices are a little cheaper that Exiled.
Also "Crossroads Music" is a great place to find used records, they also have an extensive collection of psychedelic records.

Yes, those places are also good. Good shout out for Crossroads. But man, to say Exiled is the "best on the west coast" is a very bold statement. Not sure if I could say that as I've never record shopped from Vancouver, BC all the way down to San Diego. Have you? That's a massive distance and a lot of record stores to hit up.

Exiled though is a good store but personally I have found Jackpot to have better finds, or at the very least, the same. Both stores stock mainly reissues and rarely ever originals. I like Jackpot's own label as well.

Jelly's in Worcester, MA
Armagedon Shop in Providence, RI

NEW ENGLAND LOVE!

And I'll add to your list tyzack:

Forced Exposure out of Malden, MA.....they might be mail order only but they are indeed New England LOVE! Great selection!

As far as a good selection goes it is very hard to beat Exiled. On the topic of reissues Exiled has most of the good ones and has very good originals as well. Plus the section on experimental rock, pysch is very well researched. I bought most of my original Van Morrison, Zappa, Eno records there and a lot more. And if you are so interested in originals you should check out "Jive Time" in Seattle, they sometimes have really good original records a little expensive but you want the originals. Also Mississippi records has a lot of originals, I bought my Doors albums from there.

Jackpot is a hipster hangout with the most pretentious collection I have ever seen. This is my opinion feel free to have your own.

I've been into Jackpot maybe half a dozen times and it's always been absolutely empty. There's never been anyone in there except the staff. Perhaps all the hipsters hide when they see me coming

There are two locations. Downtown has its share of local customers and as it is near Powell's, tourists will also pop in. That said, it can also be dead quiet. I have often popped into the downtown Jackpot and have been the only customer. Jackpot on Hawthorne though is usually busier simply because of the neighborhood and street it is on.

I don't NEED originals my point being that if they are selling reissues (both official and unofficial) then I do not want to pay large sums for them, which some record stores do try to get away with. Jackpot has been guilty of this on a couple records I have stumbled on but for the most part their prices seem decent.

I think original Zappa, Van Morrison, Doors LP's though could be found at Everyday Music for a decent/OK price? I say this because these artists were on major labels and their LP's were pressed in large quantities. They're not too difficult to track down. But I have also found that Everyday Music sometimes tries to get away with prices that are unrealistic.



Well, we are talking about Portland and the town has its fair share. I find the biggest hipster hangout to be the East End bar. Some good bands play there but man, pop in on any given Friday at about 11pm. If you are not wearing a cravat, cordouroy jacket, have your hair styled like the guys in The Horrors, or wearing the PDX required black rimmed glasses and full color sleeve tattoo then you will stick out like a sore thumb.

Ah, I see. I've never managed to get to that neighbourhood. I guess I'm unwilling to venture too far from Voodoo Doughnuts.

I'll venture further afield next time.

Well there should be little excuse not to. Voodoo now has two stores, the tiny one in downtown next to Berbati's and a larger one on the east side not too far from the Doug Fir. I also heard they are (or might be) opening one in Milwaukie; a neighborhood in the outer SE. Also, they now have large pink vans that drive around the city, park and sell doughnuts.

So, next time you are in Portland and craving that Voodoo Blood Filled, Maple Bacon or Dirty Bastard doughnut, you should have no problems finding one!

Everyday Music is an OK store. Yes you can find LPs over there but most of them are dead. the grooves are burnt out and but they still want money for them. I am still to find a cheap Zappa record, which is not not burnt out groove wise. To be fair I have been to the downtown Jackpot only twice but I did goto the one on Hawthorne 4-5 times and it is filled with pretentious people. But still I think Jackpot is pretentious.

And as far as reissues go, well this is the time and market for reissues. There is so much un-predictability with the new bands that the record labels based on the online (internet) buzz are putting out the familiar records, which people (including me) are lapping up. There is so much good shit, which was out of print but is all now in print, a tad expensive but not as fucking expensive as BJM LPs that have been reissued. I fucking hate this whole 180gm shit! I don't wanna pay $35 bucks for a LP. I am happy with a 120gm LP, if I am so much in love with it I will buy another one.

Yeah you're very right Rocky, 180gram vinyl is a rip-off most of the time, but I've never had an 180 gram vinyl LP warp. Some of my other LPs eventually end up warping. Must be due to the humidity where I live, or from them being over played. I don't know

I agree about the 180g marketing ploy. Man, BJM's 180g LP reissues are fucking expensive! $45? Sorry, but uh...no. I remember a time when $45 would buy you a shitload of albums from record conventions (showing my age here, but in the pre-digital age this was often where the hard to find shit was found. Either that or at garage sales).

The reissue market has been going for quite some time. The 80's saw a load of reissue companies putting out rare, hard to find or private press records (more often than not these were bootlegs cut from LP sources and not master tapes). Today is no different but what has changed is when they use an LP as their master source they can digitally clean it up enough so that you can't hear the needle from the vinyl source that the reissue was cut from (which wasn't the case on many of the old 80's/90's reissues). Ultimately though, it is still a second or even third generation recording.

As these are essentially bootleg reissues that do not access the master tapes the bands will also never see any of the money from these albums. There are good, legit reissue companies though that genuinely want to put out a good, affordable product as well as pay the band money for access to original master tapes and a share of profits.

Can I ask what you are prepared to pay for excellent/mint condition, original Zappa LP's? Also, which Zappa albums are you looking for? Some will obviously be worth more than others.

Mannequin, how do you store your albums? Could this be a cause of your records warping? I have a lot of vinyl and have never had a record warp UNLESS it wasn't stored/filed correctly, direct sun hit it or original shrink wrap was still wrapped around the cover.

I have been cautious in buying reissues and have so far bought the ones where the artist directly repressed the copy or the original record company did (in this case Mo-Fi technology has really delivered imho). But yeah you are correct the original records sound waaaaaay better than the reissues there is no doubt about it.

for the Zappa LPs I have been looking at "Freak Out" saw the original for $50 , "we are only in it for the money" once I saw a beat up copy for $20. But my main hunt has been for "uncle meat", I did see a reissue sometime ago but the source was suspicious so I passed it by.

Mannequin how are you storing your LPs? I am an amateur at this but still I have not had a LP warp on me. Yes back in the day most of my cassettes used to get warped during Monsoon (when I was living in India) but nothing dramatic has happened like that over here. Also if you do get a warped LP and want to repair it then you could try this simple technique. Wait for a warm sunny day, take your warped LP and place it over a uniform surface outside (make sure the surface is clean before hand) and then place some heavy glass on top of the LP (old window glass would do) making sure that the whole LP is covered and then up some weights on top of the glass and let the whole set-up bake in the sun for 3-4 hours. This trick might work if the LP is warped slightly.

Gerosa Records in Brookfield Ct.
Brass City Records in Waterbury Ct.