ARLINGTON, Texas—Every year on the third Saturday of April, local record stores are flooded with customers.
Lines form outside these locations, sometimes stretching down the block, and usher in crowds of music fans looking to purchase unique and limited-edition vinyl in celebration of Record Store Day, a semi-annual event that supports the culture of independently owned music stores.
With a handful of record stores in such a small area, some even located off the same street, Arlington fans of physical recordings have a lot of options to choose from before Record Store Day, April 18.
One popular option for music fans is CD Warehouse Records & Tapes, an independently owned record store since 1993 that specializes in a variety of affordably priced used records, CDs, cassettes and new releases. Some of these items, along with a plethora of band posters, line the perimeter of the hole-in-wall store, with even more being organized in rows that run across the floor.
“It’s the biggest littlest record store in Texas,” CD Warehouse employee Josh Johnson said. “Just about everything that comes out, we get.”
Popular with students
Being located next to the University of Texas at Arlington, CD Warehouse sees a large number of student buyers and even offers a 10% discount off any used items for UTA students and faculty who show their school ID. The store also provides customers with a punch card that earns them a free $10 used item for every $100 they spend, working to build a connection with new time shoppers and give back to loyal buyers.
“We get to know a lot of [customers] by name,” CD Warehouse owner Ben Oberg said. “They’re all super cool. A lot of them have become employees or friends.”
Another store for music fans to shop at is Truth Vinyl, a mashup record store-music venue established in 2016 that puts on weekly jazz nights, concerts and open mics in addition to selling vinyl.
With muffled music blasting out of its front door entrance, Truth draws in customers to its Serum Showroom, a modern lounge and bar area fit with a professional performance stage and illuminated by vibrant green LED light strips. Here, musicians jam and play live music nearly all nights of the week, entertaining a diverse crowd of music lovers that fill the showroom’s seats.
All genres available at Truth Vinyl
Set off from this is Truth’s vinyl room, a small, minimally decorated annex that connects to the showroom through an adjoined seating area. Rows of new and vintage records take up the entirety of this space, showing off a fraction of the store’s nearly 90,000 vinyl products.
“We don’t specialize in any records,” Truth Vinyl owner Rick Delzell said. “We have all genres.”
Truth organizes its vinyl records alphabetically with no designated sections for specific styles or conditions, allowing for new and vintage pressings to share the same shelves and be easily found all in one place. Although CDs and cassettes aren’t available, the store’s wide selection of records keeps a loyal customer base at Truth, helping it expand its collections and build a community of live, local music fans.
“Just like the records, it’s not limited to anything,” Delzell said.
Another popular music store, Forever Young Records, stands as Texas’ biggest independent record store, acting as a mecca for Arlington collectors despite its Grand Prairie address.
Forever Young carries hard-to-find items
Owned and operated by record collector David Eckstrom since 1984, Forever Young carries a wide selection of hard-to-find vinyl records and CDs, which span the main floor of the warehouse in rows, along with a variety of cassette tapes and DVDs which line two walls of the location. With over a million units of music and memorabilia in the 11,000 square foot warehouse store, the store acts as a one-stop-shop for fans of all different genres, decades and media.
“You can get a better price point somewhere, but rarely will you get a quality vinyl for our price,” Forever Young manager Gary Austin said.
Forever Young also has a designated Collector’s Den for those looking to spend a little more, with rare and special edition vinyl priced $75 or higher. Although pricey, these collector records are some of the most sought after and popular at Forever Young.
“For good collectable records, this is the place to sell them because I’m the guy who will respect them,” Eckstrom said. “And I’m willing to sit on them long enough to make a profit.”
As Record Store Day approaches, local music stores including Truth, CD Warehouse and Forever Young will be gearing up for the semi-annual event, stocking their shelves with collectables and celebratory pressings that draw in more customers than any other day.
“We get all the releases,” Oberg said. “We’ll have a whole table here and a line down the block.”