Dead Wax Records

Dead Wax Records is an independent, owner-run vinyl shop on Cherokee Street in the Marine Villa neighborhood of south St. Louis, a stretch known for its antique row, murals, taquerias, cafes and bars. Founded in 2013 at 1959 Cherokee Street by Jeremy Miller and Jake Kamp, the store outgrew its original space, moved across the street to a location twice the size, and now occupies 2100 Cherokee Street. The owners also run a sister shop, Weirdo Records, on Gravois Avenue, opened in 2020 as vinyl sales kept climbing.

The focus here is curation rather than volume. Stock is heavy on used vinyl but also includes new, sealed and genuinely rare pressings, along with CDs, cassettes and a bargain bin worth digging through. Genres run from 1950s through 2000s rock and pop to soul, funk, jazz, blues, punk, metal, psych, garage, experimental, industrial, hip hop, reggae, country, gospel, soundtracks and some classical. Collectors will find LPs, 45s and 78s, deep jazz sections with original Blue Note, Riverside, Impulse, Prestige, Verve and Milestone pressings, private-press oddities, and records by St. Louis artists such as Chuck Berry, Miles Davis and Oliver Sain.

The shop buys, sells and trades. It offers honest appraisals and full collection clean-outs, pays fairly for collections of any size and genre, and will travel for the right one. Comic book collections, VHS tapes and cassettes are also of interest.

Regular visitors point to the same things: an eye for quality that keeps filler out of the racks, prices that frequently sit at or below Discogs comparables, and owners who know the inventory and enjoy talking about it. Some inventory is listed online for international buyers, but the best finds are deliberately kept in the store, where music and conversation happen in person. Dead Wax takes part in Record Store Day and hosts occasional in-store events, and the Riverfront Times has named it the best place in the city to buy vinyl.