You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby

August 3, 2011 10:03 AM

Looking for good record stores in chicago: my buddy is coming this weekend for Lollapalooza, and to make up for the fact that we didn't get tickets for all three days, I want to take him around to some record stores. I know about Reckless and Dusty Groove in Wicker Park, but what else is out there? I'm in Andersonville, and we'll be in Logan Square tomorrow for Kuma's, so anywhere in between is highly welcome.
posted by Oktober to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (10 answers total)

What kind of music does he like?
posted by box at 10:18 AM on August 3, 2011

Transistor is a neat shop. They were in Andersonville, but they just moved down to a location on Lincoln.
posted by lholladay at 10:18 AM on August 3, 2011

Response by poster: He has pretty broad tastes, everything from old jazz and soul albums to punk rock, really. Not a huge country or hip hop fan, but pretty much anything under the broad umbrellas of jazz, funk, soul, motown, rock, punk, etc.
posted by Oktober at 10:23 AM on August 3, 2011

jazz record mart. When I was trying to find a copy of a recording of a Concord Jazz Festival, they were the only ones who could even track down a catalog number (eventually bought the disk from a guy in London, though).
posted by crush-onastick at 10:42 AM on August 3, 2011

Logan Hardware is a new but awesome record store. My husband and some out of town friends spent two full days there recently playing the free pinball and arcade games while browsing endless bins of music. BTW Kuma's is technically in Avondale. As a resident of this often overlooked neighborhood I feel the need to make the correction.
posted by yfatah at 10:43 AM on August 3, 2011

Laurie's Planet of Sound is a great store and, being in Lincoln Square, it's close to Andersonville. It's also only a block away from the Western Brown Line stop. Their music selection is fairly eclectic and they also have a lot of weird books and old board games and toys (now that I think about it, last time I was there they also had tons of back issues of these pretty bizarre magazines). Overall a very cool store.
posted by blairsyprofane at 11:26 AM on August 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Was just coming in to say Laurie's Planet of Sound. It was my fave record store (next to Reckless) when I lived in Chicago.
posted by scody at 11:43 AM on August 3, 2011

Val's Halla in Oak Park (near to the Blue Line) has been around forever in a couple of different locations in the area. Val knows everybody and everything worth knowing. Check out live music at FitzGerald's while you're in the neighborhood.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 1:47 PM on August 3, 2011

Jazz Record Mart is the best. I've been meaning to check out Favorite Records in Ukrainian Village (a guy who used to manage one of the Reckless locations opened it a couple of months ago).
posted by bubukaba at 2:04 PM on August 3, 2011

There's Bucket o'Blood books and records in Logan Square.
posted by bibliogrrl at 5:23 PM on August 3, 2011