empty sleeve

a blog about record shops

Category: Secondhand

Antik Teknik, Istanbul

This place is round the corner from Vintage and Rainbow 45. Worth hunting down as it has a couple of hundred records inside. I found a Euro-disco LP I’d had on my wantlist for a while but the super cool thing about the store was all the electronics. Walls of them. I don’t know much […]

Plakhane, Istanbul

Whoa! Plakhane is a super nice store. Air conditioning, polished floor boards, great racks, listening table, sweet Turkish cuts! Thought I was never going to find it and had almost given up after a good half hour of fruitless laneway wandering, then I found it opposite a kind of car park. The dude behind the […]

Rainbow 45, Istanbul

The guy at this store is so nice! He has been collecting and dealing for years and has many stories of his travels he’s willing to share over a complimentary tea. I have fond memories of lying back on the steps in the store (that lead up to a small cafe), in awe of Baris […]

Plakçi Hamit, Istanbul

Unfortunately the address for this shop is drawing blanks when I Google it. I stumbled upon this place so I didn’t have an address to reference in the first place. It’s near the other  record stores in Kadikoy so you could probably ask the staff for directions. This shop really had everything. Killer stuff and […]

Tune Up, Antwerp

Wow, cool store. They really care. Nice old wooden crates, spacious upstairs loft style. Big on their jazz and rock. Once you’re done flicking, why not take a seat and enjoy an espresso while the resident turtle blows you some bubbles, if you listen carefully I think he’d have plenty of stories to tell about […]

Record Collector, Antwerp

I read the reviews of this place on Record Junkie  before I made the trip and quite frankly I was put off! Having had the negative experience of being kicked out of a record store in Berlin, diggers comments about this place sounded all to familiar. I didn’t even bother writing down the address but […]

Boeken en CD Markt de Kaft, Ghent

I’m pretty sure I have the address right… if you catch the train from Mechelen  – which you would pass coming from Brussels I believe – get out of the station and follow the main road that has the tram line on it going into the main city square. It’s a bit of a nonsensical […]

Librairie Boulinier, Paris

Second hand book stores are where you can really strike gold! There is so much stock coming in constantly as Parisians come off the streets with pre-loved items they hope to get a few euro for. Stuff is priced cheap so they can keep stock flowing in and out again. Really worth a good dig […]

Crocodisc, Paris

Just up the hill from Boulinier, this place has been around since 1978! Imagine the records that have come through in that time… Heaps and heaps of stock. A buzzing place. Music playing loud. I got the impression that there are guys in there assigned to different genres, as there were about four staff members  […]

Flashback, London

Went here with some local dudes and new friends David McFarline and Julian Horn and (non) collectively, we found some good things. A real mix. Nice library section, found a cool LP on ‘Selected Sound’. Great jazz, got a Polish LP full of hot grooves, I’ve been wearing that one out. Flashback was the first […]