Thursday, November 10, 2011

Viennese Record Shops - #47

Viennese Record Shops

When I'm visiting a city, the best way to get a feeling for the place, is, to check the local record shops. There's always something there, that one can't find locally at home. Some places boast a fantastic range of outlets (London for the sheer size of it or Helsinki because of the very high quality) and some you wouldn't even recommend when you'd be paid for it (Edinburgh for the record shops that look more like the local city dumps, but then you're bound to visit the place more for the whisky than anything else and then it's a very nice place).

Having just returned from Vienna and been there to a fair number of record shops, I can only attest, that the place is brimming with excellent outlets. I've never ever brought so many Free Jazz, Noise and Avantgarde records back from a trip abroad. Also the weird and strange segment is well taken care of (as well as the more normal Rock and Blues and Jazz). There are lots of independent stores with an excellent selection catering to every need in the book (new and second hand). I'm not giving any names here, but none of the about ten shops I visited was a failure. Some better than the others, sure, but always interesting and I didn't leave one place without having bought a load of albums. Vienna is not as stuffy as one might think, this is a very modern city with lots to offer to a record collector (as well as for the times one's not searching through the racks).

Cheers

Devon

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