by Adron

Mission: Record Recon in Seattle “Metro”

I’ve given myself another transit and biking mission in addition to the upcoming posts on the Pittsburgh “Record Recon” missions. Find and recon the record stores in the Seattle “metro” area (obviously right, because I live here!). That includes a lot of territory and I’ll break down with maps and logistics where each of these record stores are and in the coming weeks I’ll be producing a series of videos on each of these shops.

The “Eastside” of the Seattle “Metro”. (Click for larger viewable map)

Now if you’re more interested in just reading about my music collections, reactions to new music, reviews, and all that then check out Vicious Shred. Between that blog and this blog, I try to segment my music specific things from my transit, transportation, and traveling adventures. With that said let’s roll on the record recon!

The Eastside (Seattle “Metro Area”)

Bellevue, Redmond, and the east side in general. This includes the area in the giant pink area. One could generally say “the area between the two major lakes of the area and the wooded northwestern lands of Redmond and Woodinville”. Not that a lot of that area is relevant because the east side simply does NOT have many record stores. However, there are a few, as you can see, which we’ll dive into.

The three record stores (garages?) on the “Eastside”. (Click for larger viewable map)

If we zoom in on the available record stores for the east side they’re all in two places, one is in north Bellevue and the others are in the Totem Lake area. There are only two efficient ways to get to these two area: 1 drive to either of them or 2 bike to either of the locations. Neither are walkable without multiple hours of free time to get to and from them unless you’re located directly inside of these specific areas. Fortunately in *these* suburbs I’ve got some excellent bike route options to get to both locations.

The second option, “Frank’s Garage” is literally Frank’s garage located in a suburban single family home off of any commercial corridor. This is super cool, but also I’ve noted that Frank’s “store hours” are only 1-5pm on Sunday. So that might have to get nixed if I can’t make this trip on a Sunday.

Mission 1

UPDATE: Recon Mission completed on June 14th, 2023. The trip, and record store reviews are available for Vortex Movies & Music and Silver Platters.

(Click for larger image)

A key bike route is along the Cross Kirkland Corridor, which perfectly maps to nearby locations of all three of the record stores! This means that I theoretically could visit each of the record stores in one trip, efficiently stringing them all together in one voyage! Note that time, I’m going to set myself some specific challenges for this voyage:

  1. Ensure the trip time is less than 1 hour and 18 minutes. Think I can accomplish that? I’m pretty confident I can beat that.
  2. Check out both “Vortex Movies & Music” and “Silver Platters“, and for this first voyage to Eastside record stores I’m going to skip Frank’s since I can’t make a Sunday trip.

With that, this I’ll dub “Mission 1: Seattle Metro Eastside Record Stores Voyage“. But with the Eastside locations covered, let’s move on to the *actual* Seattle record stores.

Seattle (The actual *city*)

18 Record Shops – That come back in a maps query. There could be more, and if I zoom in…

My first observation, is that there are none in West Seattle, which seems really odd. I’m finding it hard to believe there isn’t a record store over there, as I’m 100% positive that Easy Street Records & Cafe is over there. Which, I’ll get over there for a full review in the coming weeks as it is easily one of the best record shops in the country let alone Seattle.

I’ve done a secondary query and there is indeed multiple record shops that don’t show up in the above, with the addition of Easy Street Records & Cafe showing up in a query of just West Seattle. Then I did another deeper zoomed map query of University District and sure enough, several additional record shops showed up: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games in addition to the two shown on the map above.

This is going to be multiple missions compared to the Eastside, as there is no single route that would travel through all of the record stores as there are just too many of them. But with a bit of study and logistical prowess I’ve attained from years of cycling all over Seattle, I’ve got a few plans following a few strategies.

With those extra queries, the 18 record stores in the map turn into 22 stores in Seattle proper! Clearly, if you’re into vinyl and live in Seattle you’d never have to leave the city, it appears Seattle has record store coverage almost everywhere! With 18 stores I’m going to guess I can maybe drop into 3-6 stores per trip, but it could very well be just 2 or more depending on which ones I’m aiming for. Based on routes and clusters of record stores here is the first two that I’ve deemed a priority.

Mission 2

Mission 2 record reconnaissance will be into the University District of Seattle with a goal to visit 4 stores: Neptune Music, Hi Fi Lo Fi, Seattle Records and Innervisions Posters, and Al’s Music, Video, & Games. There is another store that has theoretically opened at 6215 Roosevelt Way NE called Satisfaction Records & CDs that I’ll roll into this mission. It was in Ballard, but as I searched through the characteristics of that mission I had to back track and add it to this mission! Thus, it’s very likely this will be a recon mission with 5 stores!

Mission 3

Mission 3 record reconnaissance will be into a trio of neighborhood areas: Wallingford, Fremont, and Ballard. This is extremely familiar territory since not long ago I lived in Ballard and also long ago I lived in Ballard. This reconnaissance run will be the hardest to date at this point with 6 record stores to visit! Will resources be enough? Will time be available? Will the store open hours be enough? It could be tricky but I think I can pull off 6 stores in one trip!

Overall, this mission holds a special place in my heart and mind as it’s in old stomping grounds of 2022 and before! In many ways I do miss Ballard and wish we could have stayed in the neighborhood but alas, to the east we went. But just before we left, one of the old well known record stores closed, which this trip will be a hats off homage to the long years of service of said store – if you know you know. But either way, this trip is gonna be fun to record and fun to log the visits afterwards.

Mission 4

Mission 4 is going to be intense, and I might have to split it in two considering the 9 record stores to recon! I like to spend at minimum 15 minutes checking them out which would put just the time in store at 135 minutes minimum, but likely will be more if even one of. the stores has a great selection that I need to recon more intensely. My personal estimate with that many stores, it would add at least 3 hours or more to the entire recon mission just based on in store time.

Mission 5

This mission will include a nice trip, albeit long at 3 hours and 7 minutes, it’ll be beautiful ride and an absolute shit ride. This recon trip includes three record stores. One being the Silver Platters SODO location should be pretty good. Then followed with what I understand (and know) to be two of the coolest parts of the city with two a respective awesome record store in each neighborhood.

Tacoma (Not Seattle, but I had to include it!)

Mission 6

Mission 6 could be so intense from a trip distance, I might just need to interject a train into the mix! After all, trains leave from downtown Seattle and go straight into Tacoma, which would make this trip exponentially easier! But when the mission is on the calendar I’ll narrow it down and confirm the logistics.

Mission 7

Seattle “Metro Area” North is a string areas north of Seattle and south of Everett. I’d go into detail but it’s unnecessarily complicated. Suffice it to say, this trip is going to be long at a suggested 2 hours and 9 minutes, with a significant amount of the trip via trails, amazing. There is still about 15-25% that is on roadway “bike infrastructure” which, in this area, translates to shitty car sewer stroads. But I’ll make due, this is going to be a very interesting recon trip. It’ll also be really interesting if the record stores will validate the trip effort! Hopefully there is a jackpot or two to find among the two.

The other thing that isn’t immediately noticeable in this trip is how much of the trip is actually dedicated trails! There are of course some roadways but significant portion of the trip is extensive trail routes! I’m really looking forward to that aspect of the trip.

Mission 8

In mission 8 the route is about 50% trail and 50% car sewers so that is going to be a bit of a challenge. Either or though, at some point I intend to complete this mission! These two stores seem fascinating and could be interesting collections unto themselves.

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