Music News

Doug goes on the record: 5 places in Dallas to buy vinyl

This is what you call a wall of vinyl.

Photo by Doug McGrath

Editor's note: Doug McGrath is a music contributor with four decades of experience as a member of the Dallas music community. This week, he shares five places in Dallas-Fort Worth to buy vinyl records.

If you're into music, you already know that vinyl records are once again everywhere. Vinyl has benefits that other formats do not. It offers an enriched listening experience over cheap, digitally produced music. It lets you own your music and keep it on a shelf instead of renting it. Vinyl has nice artwork. And it comes in fancy preorder packages, bundled with T-shirts and other goodies.

I buy vinyl for all of these reasons. With new music, I often buy an LP after I've already purchased the title on CD or digital. With my favorite artists, I'll preorder vinyl from their label or merchandise site, or retailers like Amazon or Bandcamp. I make about 6-10 preorders per year. For hard-to-find vinyl, you can also buy from individual sellers on discogs.com.

Whatever the reasons and wherever you buy, vinyl LP sales have been on an aggressive upward trend since 2007 (25 years after the introduction of the compact disc), exploding from 1 million units shipped to more than 13 million in 2017.

Dallas-Fort Worth has multiple places to buy vinyl. In alphabetical order, here are my top five:

CD Warehouse Arlington
What's in store: 30,000 items
What's special: Good collection of metal, hip hop, rap, and R&B
CD Warehouse has built a loyal following since it opened near the University of Texas at Arlington in 2012. It's my go-to store for metal; I visit nearly every week. But they cover all genres — rap, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, punk, indie, pop, rock, soundtracks, Spanish, country, local, blues, comedy, electronica, underground — on a broad array of formats, both new and used, including CDs, vinyl, DVD, Blu-ray, cassettes, and games. They also do consignment for local bands.

Good Records
What's in store: 40,000 items
What's special: In-store events, staff
When Good Records opened on Good Latimer Boulevard in 2000, it carried on where Last Beat Records left off as the flagship Deep Ellum record store. In 2006, they moved to make way for a DART rail station, but they got a great, larger space on Greenville Avenue out of the deal. Good Records has hosted more than 1,400 in-store events (including one that I played in 2003), and they’re supportive of local music while also spotlighting national artists. This place is basically the soul of the Dallas music community. And if you shop on your birthday (with proof of DOB), they'll give you 20 percent off.

Josey Records
What's in store: 100,000 items
What's special: Vast collection
Josey Records opened in Farmers Branch in a former Boot Town warehouse right off 635 in November 2014; they've since opened satellite locations in Tulsa and Kansas City. It's a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and limited-edition T-shirts. Aside from their massive collection, they do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl, and are known to host fun album release parties where they even sometimes offer snacks. If you're a crate digger, they have a ton of old and used vinyl, as well.

Off the Record
What's in store: 2,000 items
What's special: Deep Ellum location
When OTR opened in 2014, it was a comfort to know there would once again be a record store in Deep Ellum. Their collection is small with a definite focus on new-release vinyl that's curated by Good Records. As a vinyl destination, OTR is more of a curiosity; but if you're in Deep Ellum and don’t feel like driving to Good Records, you can pick up the latest LP by a current artist. Their distinguishing feature is that this shop is also a bar that hosts great DJ nights and events. They also opened a Fort Worth location in January.

Spinster Records
What's in store: 2,000 items
What's special: Oak Cliff neighborhood
This is a cool, friendly store that services one of the city's hippest neighborhoods. They feature a small selection of current releases, as well as a nice sampling of fairly priced vintage vinyl. I immediately found a copy of a split single by Dallas bands Here Holy Spain and Descender on blue vinyl that I should have bought a few years ago. They also carry new turntables, novelty books, and T-shirts. They have a small stage for in-store performances and like Josey Records, they also have a location in Tulsa.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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