Bonez M.
Yelp
I'm someone who loves to support local record stores, and I have been to Jacknife a number of times. It's a smaller establishment with a narrow space and they mostly have cassette tapes in the front and vinyl in the back (along with a smaller but growing selection of VHS). I don't care about cassettes, so I won't focus on that aspect of their inventory-- if that's your thing, perhaps this is a great place to go, I really have no idea. As for the vinyl, the selection is okay... my focus is on classic rock, 70s soul, and 80s pop. I love other genres as well, but I don't buy punk or hip-hop vinyl, so I've never perused their bins for that sort of thing, but it certainly exists within this space.
I love combing through dollar bins at record shops to find hidden gems, but this place doesn't have one (totally fine). Instead, they have 3-4 bins of records priced at "$4.99 or six for $20". Not a bad deal, works out to like $3.33 each when you buy six. I went there the other day and pulled out 12 of those albums (so $40 total), most of which were scratched to all hell. One of them I was planning to give to my daughter as a gift, and I found that same record in better condition in the general stock bins, priced at $20 (to be honest, this one also had a few scratches). There were two dudes working there, and I assume one or both of them owns the place (no evidence, just an assumption), so I asked them a pretty simple question-- "would it be possible for me to buy the $20 record at a $2 discount in order to satisfy the 'six for $20' requirement alongside the other 11 records?" Even typing this, I know that this is somewhat of a confusing request. Essentially, I am asking them to include a regularly-priced record within a bulk purchase at a very small discount, because the one they priced at $5 appears to be so scratched that it is almost unplayable. At the end of the day, I was asking for a $60 purchase to be discounted to $58. To be fair, they have every right to just say "no, that's not the way this works", but instead, they chose to be total dicks about it. One of them snapped at me and said "our prices are lower than Goodwill" (not true) and "if you don't like the price, don't buy it!" At that point, he ripped the records right out of my hands and put them back on the shelf, and both of them had a good laugh about the whole exchange.
I'm not upset that they ultimately said no to my discount request-- it was the way they handled it. I'm a frequent customer to this store, but I'll certainly never go back again. I asked whether or not a $2 discount would be possible and they turned it into a physical altercation. Furthermore, their pricing and quality control is kind of shit compared to other record stores, I'm sorry. The silver lining is that I went to Gimme Gimme Records in Highland Park the very next day and found the EXACT same album I was looking for in their dollar bins, and in PRISTINE condition! That place doesn't seem to put anything on the floor that isn't in great condition, even in the dollar bins. Jacknife, on the other hand, is perfectly content to overcharge for flawed vinyl, and you can pretty much bet that anything they put in the $5 bin is going to be virtually unplayable. The people here are obnoxious and combative, and it's really not worth your time to walk through the door. There are MANY better record shops in the area with nice owners and staff who will make your experience worth the trip. Jacknife represents all that could possibly be wrong with local record stores.