As I'm typing this, a Record Store Day exclusive version of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" is playing on my turntable. I picked it up at Eagle Valley Music, and for the hipster elites out there reading this, that one sentence is probably enough to convince you this is the greatest record store you've never heard of. For everyone else, trust me when I say this place is the epitome of the old phrase that advises not to judge a book by its cover. It may look like an ordinary red storefront from the outside, but this is a place you could easily spend hours in and not have a dull moment as you add to your music (and comic) collection.
We were staying in Vail for a few days and a quick Google search for "Vail record stores" returned this place as the top result. After a day of sightseeing, we drove through Main Street in Minturn and came across this place relatively quickly, partially because the town is pretty small in a "blink and you miss it" kind of way. When we walked inside, it became obvious that this store was a labor of love and quite possibly the most charming record store I have ever visited.
First, it's spread out over a few rooms on the ground floor of fairly sizable house. The entryway has a few boxes to dig through, but the room immediately after is like the living room of your musically obsessed friend who was always finding stuff no one else ever heard of when you were getting wasted in college. Boxes upon boxes of new CDs, LPs and DVDs stretch out through the room, begging for your attention everywhere you look. A section dedicated to Frank Zappa sits alongside new releases from last month. The jazz section rests near previous Record Store Day exclusives organized by year. Action figures and comics line the wall on the right. It's like the greatest pop culture man cave I have ever seen and I seriously cannot explain how awesome this store is in words.
Perhaps the owner can. This guy was a phenomenal source of musical information and human generosity. We were talking about Phish variants one minute and then my Mom asked a question about the weather, and the next thing you know, the man is pulling up the forecast to advise us how to handle Vail snowstorms. The guy was a class act from start to finish, and if he does not have it, he can order it. I believe everything in the store is new, and even more impressively, the prices this man charges are more than fair. (Plus he threw in a bonus single from Blondie's newest album with my purchase, automatically nominating this guy as The Coolest Person Alive in 2017.)
I've been to massive record stores out in Los Angeles and Portland. I've been in an immaculate record store in Phoenix where each record was kept pristine in individual plastic sleeves. And there's a record store north of Dallas that has a gigantic statue of Mayor McCheese from a McDonald's playground sitting in one of its rooms for reasons no god can explain. But Eagle Valley Music is unlike any of those, and has enough charm, personality and variety to be worth your time. There truly is no other store like this one, and in a sea of copycat music outlets, that's worth acknowledging. read more