I'm going to Hollywood this weekend. I will be running the merch booth at the Mojave Lords show at the Viper Room on Saturday night. I'll be getting in on Friday. What toy and record stores are the best in the Hollywood area?
Headline on Melrose Vacation in Hipstertown Scoops on Heliotrope/Melrose or Chinatown Toy Jungle in Little Tokyo, then Spitz for food you can avoid TAG
Record stores not mentioned - Mount Analog in Highland Park is a must. Permanent and Wombleton are in that neck of the woods as well and worth a look. There are some other shops around there too, but nothing that blew my mind. If you make it into the valley - Freakbeat and CD Trader. Both are on Ventura Blvd, Freakbeat is in the east valley closer to Hollywood, CD Trader is a few miles west. Both have surprisingly good selections of stuff and for my tastes they are far better than most of the hyped up shops in the hipster areas (e.g. Origami Vinyl in Echo Park). I tend to go to these two, Mount Analog, Permanent and Vacation the most, even more so than Amoeba. I'll second the recommends for Vacation and Headline (L.A.'s longest running punk shop still around) and Amoeba of course, just by sheer volume they'll have something you want.
