With just a few spare hours in Arizona, I hit up Bookmans Entertainment Exchange in Mesa and Phoenix to dig for vinyl heat (Pic: Liz O.)
If you’ve spent a good amount of time in Arizona, you probably know about Bookmans. I’ve only been to Phoenix a few times and all of those were quick-turnaround work trips, so I hadn’t heard of the bookstore chain until the Saturday after DJing with Klub Nocturno at Crescent Ballroom, when we had enough time to hit up the locations in Phoenix and Mesa.
Bookmans is a lot more than a bookstore. It offers everything from books to guitars to video game consoles. What immediately struck me from visiting two of the five locations is that the range of what they stock varies between stores. I was (obviously) there for vinyl, which you’ll find at both the Mesa and Phoenix outposts, but the digging experience was as different as if I had gone to two independently owned stores.
I’m sitting on the floor of Penny Lane Records digging through bins of 45s while eavesdropping on the other shoppers. It’s busy at around noon on a Saturday and the names dropped are varied. Clairo. Phoebe Bridgers. Crystal Castles. “Have you heard Slowdive?” one person asks. “They’re shoe— there’s a name for it.” A mom, who is probably right around my own age, is hyping up Korn and System of a Down to a disinterested kid. Trust me, this is not a conversation you would have overheard anywhere in 1999. I’m trying not to laugh. Need to concentrate on the old soul records in front of me. Ooh, Ann Peebles!
Inside Salt Box Records at Hello Stranger in Little Tokyo.
There’s some good news for L.A. crate diggers. Salt Box Records is back IRL. The record shop operated by modern funk musician and DJ XL Middleton recently reopened inside Little Tokyo venue Hello Stranger after focusing on Instagram drops and pop-up events for the past few years. The soft open was last week. I stopped by on Friday afternoon and left with some heat.
