This past Sunday the DC Record Fair returned to Penn Social for its semiannual event. If you’ve read my previous post about last year’s record fair then you pretty much have an idea on what exactly a record fair is, if not I’ll give you a quick rundown: a record fair is when multiple vendors and record shops from the surrounding area come together as a collective to sell records to attendees who pay a small fee to shop around. It caters to the occasional crate digger all the way to the avid Collector/producer/DJ. Each vendor has a different variety of records so the key is to find which vendor(s) will have what you’re looking for or even Price wise what you’re willing to spend.
This time I wanted to get there bright and early when the doors opened at 11 to get first dibs on digging through the crates. Sadly it being on a Sunday prompted my weekend laziness even more so my roommate and I got there around 1:45-2pm. Let’s just say I regretted that move because the line was to the end of the block just too even get in. I felt like we were in line at Kabin Lounge on a Saturday night just waiting for our id’s to be checked and finally granted entry once you pay the fee. Luckily for us our laziness was rewarded somewhat because after the first hour the entry fee goes from $5 to $2. The line outside moved fairly quickly plus strangely enough the weather was nice so it wasn’t a bad wait at all.
The line outside was a clear indication that once we got in it was going to be a tight squeeze. Penn Social is a very awesome place though at the same time isn’t the most spacious. Once we finally got in the hunt was on! My initial thought was to start upstairs then work my way down, but only after about 10 minutes of struggling trying to find who had what and what were the prices of each section I decided that downstairs maybe my better option until it started to clear out. Once I made my way downstairs I looked for which section was the emptiest just so I could get enough room to actually dig. After a while I started to realize why that section didn’t have many people there, all the good stuff was gone.
After some more maneuvering around downstairs and realizing it was way more crowded down there I decided to go back upstairs to give it a second attempt. I had better success this time just standing behind someone until they finished going through the records and taking their spot once they wrapped up. The first record I came across that caught my eye and would become my first purchase was “War of the Gods” by soul singer Billy Paul. This album I have played a few times on Spotify so it was nice to actually get a physical copy. I personally tend to stick with a few genres like r&b/soul, funk, hip-hop & jazz so the next mission was to find more booths with those types of records, makes your search easier when you can narrow it down.
After countless hopping around from booth to booth when spots opened up to even venturing back downstairs I was able to walk away with a few gems including Stevie Wonders, “Talking Book” and Musical Youths “The Youth of Today” while My roommate on the other hand managed to snag Michael Jacksons “Off the Wall” and Stevie Wonders “Fulfillingness’ First Finale”. Overall this year was way more packed then last year so you had to be there early to get the cream of the crop otherwise you were really hunting for what may have been overlooked. I will say though I enjoyed how this year there seemed to be more of a diverse crowd. I happen to see a lot of people walk out with one or two records I would never imagine would listen to records. Just goes to show where record collecting is going and how the culture is still growing. Pretty soon they’ll have to host the record fair at a bigger venue, until then Penn Social will continue to do their part in bringing everyone together for one common thing, the love of vinyl.
