Great record stores: Stockholm!

The murmurings are true; Stockholm may be the best city in Europe for record digging. Unfortunately, I had only one day to dig and only had 90 minutes of sleep the night before so I was a bit worse for the wear. However, the three stores I visited and blasts of espresso kept me going until I returned to the hotel, crashed, and dreamed of 45's spinning.

First off I stopped at Record Hunter; a small shop that was very tidy and well organized. Not many 45's, but I found some nice LP's that were priced very reasonably. The geezer behind the counter recommended the next two stores for me to visit, thankfully...

First off, there is Skivbörsen (St. Eriksgatan 71, Vasastan), a tiny and funky basement shop that I dug right off. PILES of records, CD's and god knows what else piled up everywhere. Started looking through 45's and was pulling stuff out big time. CHEAP, too. I accumulated a BIG stack and the nice geezer behind the counter told me they had thousands more in storage and they would pull them out for me. Uh, yes indeed! I told them I wanted to visit another store and asked if that would give them time to pull them out which they said yes.

So, I was off to the next stop; the literally mind melting Nostalgipalatset (S:t Eriksgatan 101 - S-113 31 Stockholm). Nostalgia Palace is, quite simply, the best record store for 60's rock I have ever visited, hands down, no argument. The soul selection wasn't too shabby either (but not the best). While looking through the boxes of 45's, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Exotic sleeves from Sweden, Germany and beyond including some Beatles releases I've never even seen in books (but are now in my collection)! Spent a few hours here and realized that I had to stop or I would go broke! Walked ouit with an armful and headed back to the basement...

When I returned to Skivbörsen , they had started to pull out the storage 45's and they were in GROCERY BAGS!!! YES! Some TRUE digging at last; reminded me of stores on the west and south side of Chicago. I went through easily a few thousand records and pulled out around 100; he priced them up for me and most were UNDER A DOLLAR!!!! Found all types of stuff; 60s rock, early punk, Scandanavian beat, soul, new old stock 70's soul...There were more but at this point I was starting to see double so I just had to stop and walk back to the hotel. Hope to go back to Stockholm, as there were other recommendations that I simply didn't have time to check out. A magical city!!!!