I must confess, I wasn’t always this cool. There was a time in my life when my taste in music was far inferior to what it is today. A time when I thought that Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown was the pinnacle of rock music. A time in which I wore either an AFI or Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt every single day as a way to signal to my peers that I was not interested in being friends with any of them. This time was mostly spent roaming the streets of Orcutt on my bike. Drinking Monster Energy and riding back and forth between Jack in the Box and Taco Bell.
Summers were spent indoors as my taste in music expanded behind closed doors. To me, I was the only one who listened to music outside of what was on the radio or what my parents listened to. I was the only one who really, truly thought about music. No one understood me. Of course, that was bullshit and just what Gerard Way wanted me to think so that he could sell more My Chemical Romance albums for me to listen to in the dark.
But there was no place to go where I lived to do anything music-related. There wasn’t any kind of music community in town by the time I was in high school. No cool place for music fans to hang out at. Either you played sports, or you studied, and those were pretty much your options. On my recent trip back to my hometown for the first time in years, I couldn’t help but wonder how different my life would be if a place like Paradise Records and Trading Post had existed 15 years ago.
What to Expect
Orcutt isn’t really a town you aim for. It’s a town you will pass through if you are exploring wine country or are on your way to the beach, but other than that, it’s just a place where kids grow up. Paradise Records is located in a strip mall that had a rotating cast of businesses while I was growing up, the actual space of this shop was once a Vons, then it was a Fresh and Easy, before it became a Dollar Tree, before that too closed. Now it’s a massive record store filled with so much cool shit you could browse for hours.
For a town this size, Paradise Records and Trading Post is absolutely huge. They boast of having the largest record selection between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Despite this, the record selection makes up maybe ¼ of the entire store. Like one of my favorite shops in Colorado, this time machine of a shop has everything. Electronics, art, video games, trading cards, vintage slot machines, comic books, and more. If someone collects it, then they probably have a bunch of it.
But we’re here for the records.
Record Selection at Paradise Records and Trading
I was expecting a pretty thrifty selection here, and although it definitely leans in that direction, there was a very wide variety of records here. I would say it leaned about 95% used, but there was some new stuff sprinkled in for the kiddos. The organization here is on the looser side, so expect to do a little bit of digging.
As far as genres go, it’s about as scattered as you’d expect for the location. Mostly collections that belonged to the recently deceased. Don’t expect to find a Sex Pistols first pressing, but if you dig around enough, you’ll find some reasonably hard-to-find records at very fair prices. As you might expect, there are tons of hilariously strange records in the bargain bins here. I found a pressing of the local high school’s marching band from the 1970’s. Doesn’t get much rarer than that.
Pricing at Paradise Records
Things are priced to move pretty quickly here. It’s not an upscale record shop that has limited space. This shop takes anything it can get its hands on and throws it on the shelf at a reasonable price. There were some higher-priced records behind the register, so if you are looking to spend a little bit of money on the right record, this place is still worth checking out. But this is definitely a quantity over quality situation.
My Thoughts on Paradise Records and Trading Post
Paradise Records and Trading Post is the kind of shop that made me want to start this silly little website. If this shop were in a major city, it would be packed with indie kids and adults wearing vintage punk t-shirts. A hub for nerds, music lovers, hobbyists, and collectors of all kinds. A “third place” for people who don’t play sports. A record store that is so much more than just a record store. I can not express how important it is to have places like this in small towns. I’m existentially bummed that it wasn’t around when I needed it most, but I am so very happy that it’s there now.
Selection – 6.5/10
Prices – 8/10
Vibes – 10/10
Records Purchased
Address: 4869 S Bradley Rd #127, Santa Maria, CA 93455