this may not be appropriate, as I work at a record store. but which record store, in america, is the most pretentious (or at least is filled to the brim with assholes).

for my money it's got to be mad city music in madison, wisconsin.

Is that the one where they pack the racks so full of CDs that you occasionall find one with a broken jewel case? Yah, that place sucks. Personally, I've always liked Earwax (Madison and Milwaukee); the people who own it and the guy that works there are awesome.

As for the most pretentious, there's a place called Crossroads (I think it's a chain out of northern Illinois somewhere, but I could be wrong) that carries "Indie" records for twenty bucks a pop, and all the employees listen to is quasi-goth bullshit.

I've never bought music at Mad City, but I do go there for LP poly outer sleeves and liners. They're quality and priced very reasonably.

They don't seem to know much about the stuff I'm interested in and the guy there didn't know how to use the record vacuum they had. They didn't seem terribly pretentious though - just my experience.

I used to go to Atomic Records in Milwaukee - they were pretty fuckin'
pretentious from time to time. More punk than thou and such... people seemed to think they had a better selection than they actually had.

let it be records in mpls has been better in the past few yrs, but it used to be ridiculious. though this past spring one of the clerks started an arguement w/ me while I was buying something


city in america has a pretentious record store, they are probably all equally pretentious

I would agree with Atomic Records - they thought they had it all when all they really had was a wall of crappy bootleg CD-Rs.

The Tower in the French Quarter is kind of pretentious - they have a little rack for "zines", as if to say that they are "down". I think they're about 6 titles.

Let It Be in MPLS used to bother me. The last time I was up there they had greatly expanded their vinyl selection. Overpriced, yes, but containing some real old gems - a few of which I purchased.

I'd go there regularly when I worked in downtown MPLS, though I never tried to get too chatty with those who worked there. I remember one guy who worked there that shared some simillar interests and from time to time could point out good releases.

I vote for Mondo Kim's in NYC. I asked the clerk for a Jan Hammer CD (he rules, no matter what you say) and got the dirtiest look ever!

Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis in the 1980's gets my vote.

Aquarius Records in SF wins, hands down.

They put out a weekly newsletter where they review a bunch of that week's new releases themselves! And it's 99% totally obscure, weird shit! And they will totally slag something instead of telling you it's all wonderful just because they are selling it! I've seen people get kicked out of the store because their cell phone rings! The URL of their website is a .org, apparently because they believe themselves to be a service to humanity and not a commercial business! At least one of their employees writes for The Wire! And he put his own records in his "Best of 2003" list! What a putz!

I love the place, btw.

http://aquariusrecords.org

Aquarius Records in SF. See above post.

Also, Mod Lang in Berkeley.

And Subway guitars is the most pretentious shithole guitarstore I've ever be in. There is just tons of cool crap in there... in pieces, and the owner refuses to sell 3/4 of it. they have strings for $2 a set, though. they're not all bad, just pretty dumb.

Ben Adrian
San Francisco