Southern California, home to the stars, sun-drenched memories, and some of the finest record shops on the West Coast of the United States. Through the rich musical history that has driven the area’s art scene for decades and continues to do so, many locals have been inspired to get involved. Whether you were starting a punk band in the eighties or learning about Hip-hop throughout the nineties, there is an inherent magic to So-Cal that keeps the creative juices flowing, and they all need a place to call home. That’s where Run Out Groove Records of Burbank comes in.
This humble operation began as exactly that: two longtime Burbank residents, Jeff and Ellen, simply collecting and reselling pristine used pressings of beloved vinyl. Quickly, their tireless passion for the medium grew, and their small, mostly online operation exploded into a cornerstone of contemporary So-Cal culture. Their dedication to vinyl permeates through their shelves, balancing used vinyl and new titles with a single underlying goal: Bring people together through the power of music.
Glide had the pleasure of asking Jeff and Ellen a few questions about Run Out Groove, their latest location, and how they curate their expansive collection. You can read our full conversation below.
https://runoutgrooverecords.com
How did Run Out Groove Records end up opening shop in Burbank? What made the community such a perfect fit for the shop?
The quick answer: The Magnolia Park neighborhood of Burbank is within walking distance of our house! Beyond that, we knew that stretch of cool shops along Magnolia Blvd had the vibe and foot traffic we were looking for when we were envisioning a record store.
What was your initial vision for the shop, and how has it evolved since?
We wrote the business plan for Run Out Groove during the pandemic with the assumption that, when the world opened back up, people would want to be around other people again, and one of the things that brings people together a lot is music.
The plan was designed in phases, starting with a smaller test location that was mostly a nicer storage for the collection, but also selling more online. The store would only be open on the weekends or by reservation, but otherwise, we would just be in there, pricing and shipping records all day. However, almost immediately, people started knocking on the door, wanting to take a look at the collection, so we started adding more days to the schedule each week. However, we always had plans for a larger location that included elements of what we have now, like the listening booth and the stage.
We were originally trying to focus on used records, with some new pressings around for key titles that were notoriously hard to find or expensive. One of the evolution points was leaning into new releases more than expected, after we kept getting requests for new artists.
California is no stranger to a record shop. What makes Run Out Groove such a beloved shop, and how do you guys continually stand out in a competitive area?
Record stores are funny, as a business. For years after the heyday of the “mega store,” record stores dealt mostly in used product, so it was all about the depth of the inventory and reasonable prices. Now that the sales of new records are back where they were in the 1980s, the days of dirty, unorganized record stores with grumpy old men behind the counter don’t fly with three generations that have gotten used to buying things online and whose parents didn’t bother to teach them how vinyl records work.
You would be amazed, but just the fact that we greet everyone nicely when they come in the door makes us more competitive than a place that chases people out of their shop because they need help with a shopping list. We don’t stop there, of course. We work with labels to host early listening events and release-day parties. Almost every weekend, we have in-store performances by local artists. Not long ago, the mastering team behind Blue Note’s Tone Poet series [Joe Harley and Kevin Gray] came by for a “fireside chat” with a bunch of fellow jazz obsessives. Hell, just having a working listening booth blows people’s minds these days. There isn’t a week that goes by that we aren’t teaching a new collector how to work a record player or clean their records.
In addition to records, Run Out Groove offers a curated selection of art, books, and vintage concert T-shirts. What is that curation process like? How do you decide whether an old tour poster of a tee is of sufficient quality to hit the shelves?
[Store co-owner] Ellen has a weekly circuit of antique and discount stores, where she hunts down most of the vintage shirts. On our days off, we’re usually at estate sales all over Southern California, trying to find unique artwork, vintage books on music, and, if we’re lucky, a record collection that the surviving family didn’t pick over. Once we get it back to the shop, she spends hours researching what we found, what the market is dictating in terms of price, and so on. We’re basically specialized antique dealers.
What is the rarest/most expensive piece of music memorabilia you’ve seen walk through the doors? Are you ever tempted to keep a piece for yourself?
We’ve seen a few copies of one of the holy grails of record collecting, original pressings of The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today, otherwise known as “The Butcher Cover” in various states of original cover reveals. Those will easily fetch $1,000 or more, depending on various factors. We’re more into rare jazz and are proud of our collection of original pressings of legendary records by Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, and Miles Davis.
I’ve been more than tempted and have actually kept a few items I had never seen before (and never since), such as white-label promos of The Clash’s “London Calling” and Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” that were in such stunning condition I couldn’t let them go.
You guys also buy used record collections. What is the biggest collection you’ve had to flip through? How do you decide whether to put a used vinyl record out for sale?
One of our largest was actually one of our first, this massive jazz collection that became the foundation of our jazz section early on. It took multiple trips with both of our cars to bring it home and months to catalog. Another time, one of our neighbors, a longtime musician himself, sold us his collection, and most of it was so good that we had to price and catalog it on the spot because people were so excited to get their hands on these gems.
When it comes down to it, selling records is almost like dealing in antiques (almost, we’re not there quite yet). There are a variety of factors involved, such as quality and condition, cultural importance, and demand. In our case, we rarely put anything in the top racks or on the walls unless it’s VG+ (Very Good Plus) or better. There have been some exceptions (our copy of Davis’ Kind of Blue is technically a VG on the media due to a light scratch that causes an audible tick in the quiet parts of “So What”), but most of the time, if it doesn’t make the cut, it ends up in the $5 bins.
Do you have any stories of finding rare or expensive vinyl in one of these collections?
We bought a collection not too long ago that was one of the most impressive modern jazz collections we had ever seen. The owner inherited it from his father, a massive jazz fan from the late 1950s through the 1960s. There was just one amazing record after another, but the part that really blew me away was an almost complete set of Herbie Hancock records in amazing condition. Each time we found one, we let out a gasp. It was hard to let them go, which is always a high-water mark for a collection.
Record Store Day 2026 is right around the corner. How do you guys prepare for an event like this? Are there any exclusive releases you’re personally excited to see?
This year will mark our fourth Record Store Day (and fifth RSD Black Friday). While I wouldn’t call us experts by a long shot, each year, we’ve learned a bit more about how to wrangle what is the largest single revenue-generating event of the year. We do a lot of research before we place our orders for the day from sources like our own social media followers (probably the most important), discussion forums on Reddit, and other social media platforms, tons of reading about each title and their significance… It’s a lot. We take all of that into account, not just from a “volume of comments” standpoint, but also from a sentiment standpoint. People can talk a lot about a release, but that talk can be mostly groans about the format, or that it’s yet another live album, or whatever. We use that sentiment along with information on the scarcity of a title, the artists’ popularity, and more, and try our best to “Moneyball” the buy so we have plenty of the popular titles while still making sure we get some of the smaller titles for the deep catalog fans, all while making sure we don’t end up with a bunch of a title that won’t move. If we make it through the end of RSD weekend and only have a few titles left, we know we played things right.
Run Out Groove consistently hosts exciting events, including upcoming listening parties for Mumford & Sons and Mitski. What can someone expect when attending one of your listening parties, and how do you determine which albums to celebrate?
We love early listening events (and so do the fans, of course). It’s easy to reduce these experiences down to just a bunch of people standing around listening to a record together, but it’s really much more than that. Music creates a community of people who come together because of a shared love of an artist. There’s a kind of magic that happens. People sing along, dance, share notes on the lyrics, and much more. Every time we have one of these events, we see people making new friends. Oftentimes, they’ll head out to the pub afterwards to keep talking about their love of the band.
Plus, there’s usually some pretty cool giveaways unique to that night.
Do you offer in-store performances, and what have some of the most memorable been?
We do! Most of our performances are from local artists who discover that we have a small stage in the front window and want to share their music with our corner of the world. It’s hard to pick one as “most memorable” from everyone who’s played so far, but probably our “most famous” was Fred Armisen, who played a couple of times at our original location down the street.
What local musicians or artists would you call friends of the store?
After Green Day crashed their own early listening event for Survivors, they became friends of the store. Members of The Airborne Toxic Event are known to stop by to say hey when they’re in town. However, since we’re in Burbank, we see a lot more actors and comedians in the shop than anything else. I’m still blown away that a few of them include a stop at the store when they’re out walking their dogs or whatever.
I saw in a photo from a Google review that you guys have a listening booth in your shop. How did this idea come to fruition, and do you see people using it very often?
People love that listening booth!
At our original location, we were so small that if someone wanted to listen to something, we could just throw it on the main system, but when we moved to the larger location, we wanted to make sure we had a formal listening station like older stores had for decades, but fell out of favor when CDs became more popular.
Before our location was a record store, it was a vintage clothing store with a changing room. When we were doing our first walk-through of the place, the landlord said we could rip out the changing room if we wanted to make more space, but I immediately went, “Oh no, I’ve got plans for that!” Even though it doesn’t have a roof, I made the sides look like a sound booth in a recording studio (specifically, it was based on a picture of Frank Sinatra at the studios at Capitol Records).
There isn’t a day that goes by that someone doesn’t use the listening booth. Obviously, it was designed for people to test used records before they make a purchase, but we’ve also had our fair share of people new to the hobby buy a new record and listen to it immediately. We also have had many people who ask us to show them how it all works because, to them, this technology is brand new.
What releases are you most looking forward to in 2026?
As I write this, we’re waiting on the arrival of the new album by Gorillaz (The Mountain) this week. A few weeks ago, the Foo Fighters announced a new album, Your Favorite Toy. We’re also looking forward to new records from Noah Kahan, Lana Del Rey, and Harry Styles. One of my favorites, Spoon, has been teasing a new album with singles in 2025, so hopefully, we see a full-length record before the end of the year. If we’re lucky, I’m also hearing we might hear new music from The Strokes and The Shins.
