Rolling Stone ranks Sound Garden and True Vine among greatest 25 record stores
Baltimore gets two notches on Rolling Stone's list of the best 25 record stores in the country.
The magazine looked high and low for its online listicle, and named Fells Point's the Sound Garden - no stranger to awards - and True Vine in Hampden to No. 2 and No. 17, respectively.
Along with Chicago, Seattle, and New York, Baltimore is the only other city to have multiple stores on the round-up. Time to pull out that #localpride hashtag on twitter.
The Sound Garden is by now an institution in the city. At 10,000 square feet, it's musical nirvana. They buy and sell everything from vinyl to Blu-rays, and own a sprawling collection of old and new. Also, it has a pretty charming celebrity flickr gallery, where you can see Jonathan Richman besides Orlando Brown and Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis.
True Vine doesn't just own rare vinyls, they own entire rare vinyl collections. The small Hampden store - recently relocated to a new place just around from the old shop - has an encyclopedic stock list. And they also carry loads from local artists.
The True Vine is at 3544 Hickory Ave.; Sound Garden is at 1616 Thames St.
Photo: 600Block.com
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
Comments
I remember my first beer.
Posted by: Brennan Huff | September 17, 2010 11:12 AM
I grew up in Syracuse, NY with Soundgarden there. They're identical. I had no idea Baltimore had the 3rd store. I was pretty psyched when I moved here to find that out. Super local pride!
Posted by: Sean | September 17, 2010 11:37 AM
i have a handful of friends who used to live here and now are all over the country, and they still talk about how they miss soundgarden.
as a matter of fact, everytime they come into town, the first stop is always thames st.
Posted by: ryan97ou | September 17, 2010 12:00 PM
@ Brennan. I remember my first Steve Martin album...;)
Posted by: Madisonn Smarrtt Ass | September 17, 2010 12:54 PM
Which was first The Sound Garden or the band Sound Garden?
I'm guessing the band.
Posted by: Scott | September 17, 2010 3:26 PM
Isn't it a crying shame that a great store chain like Record and Tape Traders was allowed to be slowly put to death by a corporation from Georgia?
Posted by: BMAC1206 | September 18, 2010 7:40 AM
Baltimore Sound Garden opened in 1993 and then they opened the Syracuse store in 1997. http://www.cdjoint.com/faqs.cfm
Sound Garden the band formed in 1984. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundgarden
Posted by: Matt | September 18, 2010 4:08 PM