Just about a week ago my wife and I were camping with some friends up in the north west corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Okay, actually we were in the northern central portion, but we took a drive over to Charlevoix, MI on the east cost of Lake Michigan.
This wasn't our first visit to Charlevoix, but it was for our friends. My buddy had been looking online and noticed that there was a record store in the town called Chill Retro. Being avid vinyl collectors we decided to check it out.
We made the hour long drive from Indian River over through Petoskey and on to Charlevoix. My wife and I weren't surprised in the least when we pulled into town and were immediately stopped by the draw bridge that opens to let boats pass from Lake Charlevoix into Lake Michigan. We have been under that bridge a couple of times on our trips to Beaver Island.
The downtown area is beautiful and in the summer months it is pack with people as you can see here. Especially during the Fourth of July weekend. If you ever get a chance to visit Charlevoix and spend some time strolling the streets I highly encourage it.
That isn't really what this post is about though...
Back to Chill Retro.
Chill Retro is actually a pretty unassuming building from the outside. If you don't know what you are looking for or don't have it programmed into your navigation you would likely drive right past it and miss out on all of this vintage vinyl!
Here you can see my buddy flipping through the countless bins of stuff. They actually had it very well organize for the quantity of stuff available. I know I said vintage, but that wasn't completely accurate. They did have a section of modern stuff and new releases that I didn't look at too closely. I prefer to find those hidden gem items that have a relatively low cost.
In addition to the records this was also a fairly large antique store. Since that isn't what we were here for I decided to focus mostly on the records. My buddy and I both picked up a decent stack of records. I am not sure what he spent, but my total bill came to right around $60. Not too bad for 8 pieces of vinyl considering the most expensive one I bought was $18.
That Bon Jovi album in the middle was in my hand to purchase as soon as I saw it. Given that my wife is a huge Bon Jovi fan I typically always go right to the "B's" first when I am in a new record store. At $18 it was the most expensive album I purchased on this trip.
The Pat Benatar one has some really good songs on it, but I was disappointed that it doesn't have "We Belong". That is a song that I really want to get on vinyl some day. They had a couple of other Benatar albums too, but none with the songs I was looking for.
If you have never seen the movie Eddie and the Cruisers, you should check it out. It is an oldie but a goodie and it has some pretty awesome music in it from John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Even if you have never seen the movie, you are probably familiar with the song "On the Dark Side".
I have been wanting a Waylon Jennings album for a while now and this one fit the bill perfectly. All of his greatest hits! You can't really complain about that! I was also really excited to pick up another Jazz record to add to my collection. Night Train is a pretty iconic song and getting it performed by the Oscar Peterson Trio is a real treat. This will be the first OPT album in my collection. I can't wait to give it a spin. I love finding compilation albums that give me a bunch of songs by different artists on one album. I picked two of those up this trip. The first was this The Sound of Solid Gold album. As you can see it has 22 classic hits on it. It would be oldies music, so think Tommy James and the Shondels, The Hollies, etc.
Finally, my last two picks were these records. The Rock Fantasy isn't actually as rocking as you would think. I was hoping it would be something like 80's hair bands, but it is more early 70's rock like The Zombies etc. I am shocked that my friend didn't grab the Van Halen one before me but I think the reason is because he already owns it. I quickly snatched it up and added it to my pile.
In all, I am really happy with how this trip turned out. We both grabbed some really great stuff and it was a fun morning filled with a whole lot of "dude, check this out"'s.
Retro Chill has a great selection but I recommend you make it a day trip so you can really absorb the beauty Charlevoix has to offer!
All pictures taken by myself or 
