Perhaps the best thing about shopping at record stores in small towns like Grants Pass, Oregon, is the small number of hands that pass through the new arrivals bin compared to other shops. Albums that would last mere minutes at Music Millennium or Twist and Shout can sit for days or weeks in the bins at record stores with more rural clientele. Even so, expectations for these record stores can be low when you’re a pessimist like myself. But every once in a sweet while, you have these moments when you’re 1 bin and 5 minutes deep into a record store and think to yourself: “I’m going to spend more money here than I should.” This was the case on my visit to Time Machine Records.
What to Expect from Time Machine Records
Let me be perfectly clear: Time Machine Records is a great record store. Perhaps the best record store I’ve been to that isn’t in a major city. The selection is much bigger than you would expect, given the quality, and it has it’s got all the personality you want in a shop that seems to be ran entirely by it’s owner.
Parking can be a little tricky for the shop itself, as the shop is located on a busy street and there’s no real parking lot to speak of. Once you make it inside it feels very much like being in a passionate music fans listening room. Tasteful yet personal decorations dot the store: band posters, action figures, that kind of stuff. Other than that, the shop feels very organic and in the DIY style people who frequent a lot of record stores will find it familiar and cozy. As far as Feng Shui is concerned, there is plenty of room to shop without bumping elbows and the lighting is such that you won’t have to squint the first 5 minutes until your eyes adjust.
Selection at Time Machine Records
As far as the layout and genre distribution are concerned, it will be familiar to those who used to frequent the stores in big cities. A very large rock/pop section that takes up most of the store and dedicated sections for all the usual suspects: Country, Rap, Hip-Hop, International, and Electronic. This isn’t a specialty store of any kind but the selection is so well-curated across every single genre that it can almost feel that way no matter what section you are shopping in.
Overall the shop skews heavily toward used records. Maybe 90% from what I saw. But, this isn’t a record store that will take any old used collection off the street, filling its shelves with $5 Cat Stevens Records.
Rock and its sub-genres are one of many places where this store punches above its weight. Dedicated sections for Surf rock, Prog rock, and Psychedelic rock were a welcome sight. The punk section is also particularly well-stocked for a shop of this size. If you are an avid collector of punk records then this is a shop that is worth going out of your way for.
Records are also divided between new records and used records within each genre (New Rock Records, Used Rock Records, etc.), which is a nice organizational touch I’m sure a lot of people will appreciate.
The more financially able shoppers among us will probably want to make their way to the rare records bin which is filled with a ton of cool stuff, like this Pink pressing of Hoe Cakes.
Aside from records, there is a nice selection of used and vintage equipment available. Again, this is a pretty small town so it was nice to see that there was a store that had such a good stock of vintage audio equipment in working order.
My Take on Time Machine Records
I’ve talked before about how, for me, a really good record store should be a reflection of its owner. Record shop owners and employees are the curators of people’s music taste in so many cases, whether they know it or not. Time Machine Records is a great example of this. There are records for everybody here but at the end of the day, the owner of this store is stocking his shop with music that he would listen to. Why own a record store if you are going to do anything else?
Records Purchased
Welfare Jazz- Viagra Boys
Nevermind- Nirvana
Address: 761 NE 6th St, Grants Pass, OR 97526