BEST VINYL RECORD STORE

We probably shouldn't admit this, but we were in hot pursuit of a vinyl LP by the Love Generation, a 1960s pseudo-psychedelic rock band no one's ever heard of -- including most of the local record dealers we visited. (One of them tried to sell us a Love album; if we want Arthur Lee, we'll ask for him!) Finally, we headed for Memory Lane, all the while humming that musical question, "Why didn't we start there in the first place?" The Lane's specialty has long been out-of-print records, tapes and compact discs, but we hadn't wandered its aisles in a while -- a mistake we won't be making anytime soon. Not only did we leave with three Love Gen LPs (the forgotten band's entire output), but the clerk tipped us off to a non-LP 45 by the group and recommended a couple of other similarly obscure ensembles. But not before we'd browsed nearly 120,000 LPs and singles, lingering for almost an hour over the colossal jazz vocalists section, where we scored a still-sealed Art Tatum platter that hasn't left our turntable since. Shame on us for having briefly forgotten Memory Lane; we won't be doing that again.

Readers' Choice: Zia Record Exchange