Ahh, the salty sea breeze and cold drizzle of the Oregon Coast make me want to throw on a flannel and some slippers, and listen to an old album on an outdated medium. Thankfully, Off the Record in North Bend was there to help me satisfy that itch on my recent trip to the cute little seaside town of North Bend. While you may know this town for its fishing and crabbing, I now know it as the place where I had really good fish and chips and finally bought that Kneecap album I’ve been wanting. But more on that in a minute.
What to Expect
A beach town that’s relatively low on tourism, isolated from major cities, and has a killer record store, is my idea of heaven. The kind of place where it’s totally ok to be the angry grump that lives on the edge of town and never leaves his home. Why would you want to leave your home? That’s where the turntable is!
Now, usually when I think of record stores in coastal cities, I imagine a small shop on a busy boardwalk sandwiched between a saltwater taffy store and a seafood restaurant; slinging Olivia Rodrigo and Led Zeppelin records to parents of young teens who are trying to salvage something from the miserable family vacation. But this is not the case. In fact, it’s the opposite.
You will find Off the Record in a strip mall that is half abandoned and with no view of the ocean. But this is a good thing! Like the record store in High Fidelity, it’s carefully placed to attract the bare minimum of window shoppers; they get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here. The special effort you will have to make to shop here is well worth it, and the effort is reciprocated.
The store is surprisingly large for a town of this size and is easily bigger and better than many of the record shops in the record store capital of the world: Portland, Oregon. Records, CDs, and hi-fi equipment are all available in abundance.
Selection at Off the Record
This shop has a pretty old-school approach to its selection. Most of the stuff here is used, but there is a solid and steady stream of new records, so it’s a decent place to look for new releases. As expected the rock/pop section takes up most of the store, and there’s a solid country section with lots of old familiar favorites.
The bulk of the selection is high quality, so there are plenty of reasons to spend an hour or so digging through the bins. This is especially true if your music tastes lean into the 1970s and ’80s. But the rare records selection here is one of the places where this store really stands out. Three bins at the front are endearingly labeled “Rare and so very very expensive..” and are filled with exactly that. If you are a collector looking for the finer things in the world of record collecting, this store should absolutely be on your radar.
The sound equipment selection is also spectacular for a store of this size. There were tons of great vintage speakers, amps, receivers, and turntables if you are looking to join the cool kids club and get some vintage equipment to play your Sabrina Carpenter records on.
Pricing at Off the Record
Prices here were very reasonable from what I saw when browsing through. I wasn’t able to check every single rare record price against its Discogs price, but most were what I have found typical of most brick-and-mortar record stores. Everything was priced within 10-20% of the Discogs average price.
My Thoughts on Off the Record
This was a surprisingly large record store with a fantastic collection and extremely knowledgeable staff. I wouldn’t expect to find an album like ‘Fine Art’ by Kneecap at some used record shop in a town mostly known for crabs, but here we are. Not only was the store’s lone employee very familiar with what was in the store, but he was also able to solve one of my dad’s mysteries of what became of all the amazing artifacts at the Tower Records store he used to work at. (They were stolen by employees)
There is admittedly not a ton of record stores along the Oregon coast, but this is easily the best shop if your budget is over $100. IF, however, you are interested primarily in hip-hop, rap, etc, I do have to warn you that this store is particularly light in that regard, so do keep that in mind.
It is rare to find a record store like this in a town like this, and if you find yourself in the area, I highly recommend popping in to see what they’ve got in stock.
Records Purchased
Fine Art – Kneecap
I Got A Name – Jim Croce
Address
2227 Newmark St B, North Bend, OR 97459