Record Gallery

The lack of reviews and customers for this business is not surprising. The stale cigarette smoke stench and the incessant repetitive «music» playing was bad enough, let alone a rude employee who didn’t respond to my, «good morning!’ as I walked in with my 9 year old music savvy daughter on my left, and my 2 year old on my right hip.
As an avid record collector, and living just around the corner from here, I could’t believe it took so long to stop in to this place. The selection was fitting to my taste, I found John Lennon and Willie Nelson albums to purchase rather quickly. My 9 year old began to look on her own through the vinyl and brought a Johnny Cash to show me, hoping to add it to the ‘buy’ stack I’d started. It was priced a bit high, so I instructed her to put it back, maybe another time we’d get it. As she was placing it back in the bin from where it came, the worker scoffed and rudely remarked, «We need to put thingssss BACK where we got them…» then mumbled something about online sales. He pulled the record from in front of her and proceeded to place it in the «Country» section, where my daughter was no where near. I tried to explain that she was indeed placing the record back in its home, where she pulled it from. He again scoffed and mumbled something else under his breath that was drowned out by the repeating noise playing overhead.
My daughter is not a first time record shopper, is well seasoned at organizing our collection, and most importantly, respects her elders. This guy lost my business and our respect. There was absolutely no reason to speak to her, or any customer, the way he did. I will keep my record shopping business on Green Street in North Beach where the employees don’t smoke inside and actually greet their customers with a smile.

Large 45 selection, and somewhat small LP selection. Mostly Rock LP’s and 45’s. It’s basically a guys personal collection that he sells and is very proud of. If you are a digger and looking for anything rare, be prepared to pay. Not much soul, funk, or jazz. Most of the 45’s looked like common dollar bin stuff but not for dollar bin prices.
Nice guy tho, just not the place for serious diggers or for those interested in soul, funk or jazz or deals on rare stuff. Fine for those who just want to pick up a Credence or Hendrix album to play at home but you can find most of the stuff at a thrift store for a fraction of a price. Everything looked in great condition tho, thrift store records are usually worse.

Totally awesome selection and got a great pair of Docs there! Don’t know what all the bad reviews are for. Great vintage clothing selection and lots of vinyl. You want it, they’ve got it.

Nice place, but hard to find, it’s tucked in the parking lot behind Katsu.

As others have said, this is the last «record» store in Alameda, as in the last place on the island where you can get vinyl.
I’ve been going there once every couple of months for the past few years and have never been disappointed. I usually pick up 1 – 3 used LPs, 1 – 2 new LPs (although their selection is limited), and a used CD or two.
As far as others’ complaints: I’ve never brought a screaming child to the store, so I can’t comment on that, and I’ve never felt anyone working there was rude. What I can say is this is a small business, struggling to get by in this bad economy, that I will continue to support because I’ve always been happy with my purchases.
I initially was going to give Record Gallery 4 stars, but they get 5 to balance out the haters.
Rock on, Beavis.

This store’s pretty cool.
Some ‘estate sale’ type stores with a theme (in this case: music) can be fun — this one included. I usually fancy the clothing selection, so props for that, and they have some good music @ pretty OK prices.
They have this funny, «Where On Earth is Alameda?» shirt (or something to that effect) that I want. If you live in town you’d especially get why that’s funny/​cool.
— Yea, the vibe inside the store can be a little stale/​cold sometimes, but I don’t think that deserves more than 1 the loss of one star.
When they moved to behind Katsu, my gf & I stopped by and they let us in even though they’d actually just closed which was nice of them.
Overall… I’m glad to have a store like this in Alameda (being as there aren’t any others like it on the island)!
4 stars.

Fabulous place! There is a vinyl collection here that will blow your mind from 2 live crew to Frank Sinatra. On top of that their like 50 cents. The people that work their are very dedicated to the business. I also enjoy looking through their vintage clothing neat textiles and such. Good music is always playing. Yes they have a tendency to be blunt but it gives the little place character. Prepare to have an interesting shopping experience.

To the people who gave this place negative reviews:
Think before you type.
1. Your 3 year old should be under your control and should definitely NOT be even gently touching a vintage drum set (kids fingers are not particularly clean and even if they are the oils on then can damage a drum set… Ignorance on your part). You should be a parent and be PARENTING not letting your kid run wild. How would you feel if my 3 year old wanted to play with your grandmother’s vintage vase? He has no duty to «childproof» his store due to bad parenting. I love this place. I have gotten to know the guy. He isn’t an «old fool» he’s in his early 40’s and knows more about music than you and any of your 5 friends combined do.
2. The guy doesn’t immediately greet you and make eye contact a lot, because (I have come to find out) he doesn’t like the over the top kind of greetings and hovering sales people that make people like him (and me) uncomfortable. He lets you go about your business and make your picks. If you ask him for advice his brain is like the library of congress when it comes to music. He is a wealth of information. You can’t get that at Borders. And you 1 star alot of great places on one visit. Maybe you should stop and think. Go there 2 – 3 times and have an informed opinion before you spout your big mouth off because you seem to be the first poster on a lot of great businesses that you obviously know nothing about.
It has moved to behind Serendipity (park on the street and walk through the Japanese restaurant as there is no parking lot). The Owner of the lot is being kind and allowing people to walk to his store. Don’t park in the Restaurant’s lot. Just as it was on Webster, street parking. This is the LAST RECORD STORE STANDING IN ALAMEDA. The Borders and all the WalMarts of the record industry and the, I HAVE TO HAVE IT NOW people are running little mom and pop shops out of business. I don’t know how a person could give this shop a negative review and be able to sleep at night. So go back to the iTunes store or Borders at (Towne Centre… how cool a name is that… puke…should have just added Ye Olde in front of it so I could Projectile vomit at the ridiculousness of it) and KILL a local business. One that sells New and USED cd’s and VINYL. So you can go back to iTunes and get an encoded stuff you can’t share with your friends for $ 10 or come in here and get what you want used for $ 4.99 or whatever it’s priced at, and it’s unencrypted and a real CD. And you should be buying music and not ripping the artists off. This is a good place to do it.
The thing about this store is that he has some really rare stuff, and he has mainstream stuff. If he doesn’t have it he will get it for you. I have talked to him. He is a good guy. I will ONLY go here for my music. As I suggest all you islanders should (if you are a true Islander. Unless you want to support Big box places like WalMart and kill another local business… How you people sleep at night is beyond me… must be medication or something…

I’ve always loved a good record store and the Record Gallery happens to be my favorite. I used to be intimidated to go in (maybe it’s the general look or what) but once I did go in, I didn’t want to go out. And now they have clothes??? hell yes. I can always go in to this record shop and find a an obscure cd I’d been hunting for, or score a poster that isn’t made anymore… all at a very decent price.
And about the frizzy hair guy… I’ve never had a problem with him, and the girl with the mohawk behind the counter, always super helpful and knows what she’s talking about. She totally is what the record gallery is about– unique, intelligent, and enjoyable.
maybe people who have problems with the Record Gallery should give it another chance, because it truly is a hidden gem in the east bay.

If I could give this Zero stars I would. How the heck does the crotchity old man that owns this store make any money?
I wandered in here one day with my daughter and husband to have a look around. I didn’t see anything I wanted but my husband picked up a cd and was walking around with it.
My daughter was wandering around and manged to wander back towards the drum set that is up in the back corner. A drum set, just sitting there. Of course she’s 3 and so she goes to touch it. Who wouldn’t? it’s a music store and there’s a drum set. All of a sudden from nowhere comes this old fart yelling, keep her away from the drum set! That isn’t for playing with! That’s a vintage 1977 blah blah drum set. You can’t touch it! It’s vintage!
Mind you my kid was merely touching the symbol with her fingers. Touching. Not banging. Not hitting. But touching.
Also the drums were not roped off, there was no sign indicating their god like status of VINTAGE. I mean if it was a vintage violin that’s one thing but drums. Are you kidding me!
So I turned to my daughter and said, look but don’t touch. And that old fart just stood there staring at us. Which made me uncomfortable so I asked my daughter to follow me, informed my husband we’d be outside and began walking out the door.
Then that old fool started saying crap to my back. Things like ’ people just let their kids do whatever they want’, ‘people think they can just touch everything’ ‘in my day kids were behaved’ and ‘who do people think they are.‘
Well I WAS a customer you ass. But I’ll never go in there again. My husband put back the cd and left the store too.
Oh and one last weird thing. There was a girl behind the counter on the computer the entire time the old man was having his tirade at us. she never once looked up. EVER. Not when we walked in. Not when we were being yelled at. So she’s either used to this old goat yelling at people or she’s a cow. I’m not sure. but either way this place scores a 10 at rudeness.
Congratulations!

So it’s obviously been awhile since any reviewers have been to the Record Gallery… so much had changed and it’s all good.
They must be under new management or something because everything is so much better than it ever was — even the musty, smoky smell is gone and the fingerprints on the wall have been painted over. Yea, it’s not Amoeba, and it doesn’t look like a swiss chalet, but at least it’s still an independent record store where you can buy good music — I have a very picky sense of music and even I walked out of there will a bundle of awesome records at a great price!
Did I mention I also got a killer new shirt? Not just a rock tee, but a real shirt — they now have clothes — perfect for the ‘hipster’ in me who hates traveling to Berkeley! It’s a small selection, but again, I still found something!
Oh, and that frizzy haired guy behind the counter was actually quite nice — maybe because he knew I was not just some bum looking to kill time. Show some interest, strike up a conversation and I’m sure they’ll return the favor.

I haven’t spent much time in small record stores since Amoeba opened. I feel kind of bad about this from time to time. I had a few minutes to kill on Webster street this evening so I stopped in here for the sake of nostalgia.
The frizzy haired guy behind the counter is wearing an Amoeba t-​shirt. Suddenly I don’t feel so guilty.
Generally there are two kinds of record stores: There are small, carefully stocked shops like Groove Merchant with all kinds of really cool rare stuff, obscene prices, and hardcore music heads behind the counter. And then there are places that smell like an attic selling anything the owner could find at various estate sales in the area. The Record Gallery is clearly in the second category. It smells like cardboard and cigarettes and apathy in here.
They have a listening station with a turntable and headphones available. That’s worth at least one star.
I dug through the stacks a little and didn’t see anything really exciting; prices were reasonable though. This place is fine if you really like Supertramp or the Allman Brothers but I can’t see myself going out of my way to shop here.

This is a new review, as I felt I had to try them again since I do live around the corner, love buying vinyl records, and they’ve moved. My previous review was one star, my new review is a little better.
Very light stock on used LP’s with the usual common titles you normally see, with a few exceptions. Well organized and alphabetized regardless of genre, which is fine. I didnt look at the compact discs or cassettes.
Their new location is much smaller, but is more brightly lit, cleaner, smells of incense instead of stale cigarette smoke, and looks welcoming. The staff, however, is not so welcoming. My previous review lamented how the staff made zero eye contact, and disappeared to the back of the shop to make a phone call and never came back out. My latest visit had the girl at the counter sigh loudly as I walked in the door with my son, I assume because she felt she had to turn off the Margaret Cho album she was playing and put something else on because of explicit lyrics. She then got on the phone to call a friend and talk about how bored she was.
I do hate up your butt sales people bugging you as soon as you walk in the door, but my experiences here have gone to the other extreme. I was going to pick up a record (New York Dolls LP, about $ 15), but I couldn’t be bothered interrupting the young lady’s phone call and left.
I can’t help but notice most 5 star reviews for this shop are from people who have made no other reviews and they usually don’t have photos. These one or two sentence shills should be obvious to savvy shoppers, especially since most of them were created between 7÷19÷09 and 7÷28÷09. I maintain that to go out of your way to visit this shop would be unthinkable.
Also, note that while this shop is only accessible through the parking lot of the Japanese restaurant next door, none of this parking is for customers of the Record Gallery, and you must park on the street to avoid tickets or towing.