Motivation
I’m a big fan of music—house, disco, boogie, funk, and jazz—and I’ve been collecting vinyl records for years.
After moving to Los Angeles, I finally had the time to dive into something I’d always wanted to do but never had time for: record digging.
So I looked up how many record stores there are in Los Angeles County and found out there are about 101.
That felt like the perfect number to turn into a project—visiting them one by one.
Background
I have been a DJ for over nine years and have been collecting records in Japan during that time.
You can see some of my performance from below videos.
However, most of my vinyl collection has come from online web stores and D2C services like Mercari—a popular marketplace in Japan where you can often find records at reasonable prices.
Because of that, I wouldn’t consider myself an advanced record digger who specializes in digging through physical record stores.
Instead, this project is also a personal challenge: learning how to dig properly at storefronts and discovering records in a more hands-on way.
Content
I came across the article on record digging
I'm a big fan of Danillo plessow, aka Motor city drum emsemble, and this article helped me understand how to find good records by actually going out physically and exploring stores.
This article suggest starting locally, so I decided to start digging from my own neighborhood, which is Buena Park. (Some might argue that Buena Park is not technically part of LA, but let's not be too strict!)
Go for it as soon as the idea comes. I'm heading out 4 record stores in Buena Park.
Store #1 - Audiophile USA records
First, I arrived AudiophileUSA Records near the Los Alamitos area.
First, I saw the records on the wall. I found "Troupeau Bleu" by French band Cortex sold $100.
I want to avoid expensive shopping at the right start of the journey since you might find a good dealer later on.
Then, I checked $5 bins where you can find some 80s stuff.
Even though there was no listening station, the owner was kind and he let me play records and listen to them at stores s[peakers.
When I'm looking for boogie, I'm trying to check the year of release.
If it is 1980, 1981, 1983 or 1984, there is a high probability that it sounds good for me, so I will give it a try for listening.
Finally, I bought two records.
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Cashmere "Do it Anyway you wanna"
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Q-FEEL "Dancing In Heaven Orbital Be-Bop"
Store #2 - Bionic Records
I have already known this record store specializes in metal music, which does not fall into my territory.
But, I went there anyway hoping that there are small disco/boogie bin and I came across hidden gem of disco and boogie.
Here you can see jazz/funk bin!
However, I could not find a record I want to buy.
That's OK since I know I need to be cool with it for this journey.
Store #3 - Radiation Records
Same as the previous record store, I knew I could hardly find records I want to buy here because music genre is different to mine.
I did not buy any record from here but if you are into indie music, I think you can find a lot of good records you wanna buy.
Store #4 - White Rabbit Records
This is the last record store I visited on the day.
This is the record store I was most looking forward to among record stores I visit on the day since I noticed they are dealing with a lot of disco/boogie records according to google reviews.
I was able to find a record that lived up to my expectations.
Also, there was a world music corner, which is my favorite genre, at the back of the store.
I found a interesting compilation of afro disco but I passed this time due to my limited budget.
The records I got from here —
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Black Ivory "Mainline"
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Quartz "Camel in the city"
Summary
What I learned is— - You need to make sure you bring a pair of earphone and fully charged iPhone since there are few record stores with listening stations.
Here's a V-log of record digging.