A few weeks ago, as I was browsing the record stores in Kingston, “Ghost Town” by The Specials came on. I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t long ago that the song could have been written about Kingston, but here it was a 93-degree Thursday and the city was buzzing.

Another irony: wasn’t there a time when record stores and vinyl itself were thought to be dead? Every record store I went to was packed. How could this happen?

The current renaissance of record stores in Kingston has been in the works for some time.

John Blue has been selling vinyl (and fancy hats) at Blue Byrd in Uptown since 1992. Not long after, Ed Butler started selling vinyl at the Wright Gallery on North Front Street (some may remember the yellow “We Buy Records” sign, which resembled the “We Buy Guns” sign at Sam’s Swap Shop next door).

Around the same time, indie music producer Doug Wygal in Brooklyn dreamed of moving upstate and opening a record store. When the opportunity to buy Ed Butler’s store arose, Wygal jumped at the chance.

“I was a big fan of Jack’s Rhythms in New Paltz,” says Wygal, “I wanted to do something similar.”

Wygal renamed the store Rocket Number Nine in honor of Sun Ra’s song. Rocket Number Nine celebrates its tenth anniversary this summer.

“We have customers who regularly buy $100 records and customers who only buy from our five-for-a-dollar box,” he says. “Some customers just want to browse records in peace, others want to talk about music and politics. All are welcome.”

Also on the North Front is Rhino Records. Rhino is also celebrating its tenth anniversary in the neighborhood, but the store’s history goes back much further than its sister stores in New Paltz and elsewhere in the valley.

“Rhino started as a record store on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1973,” explains owner Rick Lange, “and five years later it became a record distribution company. From there the story gets more complicated, but the short version is that the label was sold to Warner Brothers and as part of the deal we were allowed to keep the Rhino name!”

When asked if there is such a thing as a typical customer at her Kingston store, Lange replies, “Absolutely not.” However, regular customer Alexandra Larios has been buying vinyl records in the city since she was a teenager and recently made her first guest appearance as a DJ at the Stockade Tavern. Alexandra admits that she sometimes listens to digital music while working on her computer, but otherwise is a vinyl fanatic.

“I like listening to full albums,” she says. “I have a lot of old rock and roll and country records, but a lot of my current favorite artists, like the Felice Brothers, are releasing their new albums on vinyl.”

Other vinyl stores in Kingston include Sound Shack in the Red Owl Collective in the old Wonderly’s building on Cornell Street. Owner Sandy Rokoff restocks the boxes once or twice a week.

“Vinyl is definitive,” says Rokoff. “It’s what the artist imagined, the cover, the liner notes, the playlist. With the right equipment, the sound is fantastic, I like to say it’s like having the band in my own living room!”

And Kingston is far from the only city in the area that currently has excellent record stores. Just across the river is Rhinebeck Vinyl Vault on East Market Street. TJ Byrnes, who runs the shop during the week, explains the appeal of vinyl to younger enthusiasts:

“All the kids of Generation Z (born after 1996), that’s the streaming generation, they could never own their music and movies, so there’s a trend to own your music again and have a unique music experience instead of a curated playlist.”

Byrnes believes that the internet and indie record stores actually complement each other at this point.

“We’re at a really interesting point in the music industry right now where it’s gone back to being niche,” he says. “The consumer knows exactly what they want, whether it’s My Bloody Valentine or Motorhead. The internet has definitely presented some challenges to brick-and-mortar stores, but it’s educating customers about bands they may never have heard of. There’s an investigative element to it that I’ve never seen before, and it’s really cool to witness.”

Spike Priggen, owner of Spike’s Record Rack on Main Street in Catskill, agrees that the Internet has given record stores an unexpected boost.

“I think vinyl is so popular because we live in the digital age,” says Spike. “That’s why cassettes are so popular. It’s not because they sound better, it’s because of a reaction to digital. Kids hate digital, so they like cassettes.”

Spike also sees a kind of democratization in today’s world of vinyl collectors.

“Vinyl is for all ages and genders,” he says. “In the past, you never saw a woman in a record store, but now there are a lot of women in the store buying records.”

For those who have been collecting since the days when vinyl was the only option, today’s record stores offer not only a sense of nostalgia, but also a sense of continuity. It really wasn’t that long ago that in cities like Kingston, there were almost more places to buy records than you could count.

I’m not the only one who grew up in Kingston and still has vinyl in their collection from when Truck Stop was on Fair Street in the 70s and 80s. Woolworth had a really random collection of albums for half price if you didn’t mind holes in the covers. And in a time before there was endless information on the internet, Cam-Bo-Rec down in the Plaza also sold magazines like Creem and Circus so you could keep up with what was out there (they also sold cameras, that was the “cam” part.)

Almost all of the stores mentioned in this article are happy to buy and sell vinyl as well. If you have a few milk crates full of records in your garage or attic, don’t assume they’re just taking up space; haul them in your car and make friends with a local record store owner (be smart and do a little research beforehand; the Beatles’ White Album might be worth enough to send your grandkids to college).

Buying albums at concerts may be the safest way to ensure that money gets to the musicians, but local record stores are businesses in their own right that thrive on support. Even if your record player is currently missing a belt, most stores sell music in other formats, and you can always buy a cool t-shirt.

Other specialized indie record stores to check out are Ever Records in Woodstock or, if you want to go further afield, Hudson Valley Vinyl in Beacon or Darkside Records in Poughkeepsie. There are also plenty of stores that sell vinyl alongside books, comics, musical instruments or vintage clothing, like Rewind on Broadway in Kingston, Oblong and Megabrain across the river, Inquiring Minds or Woodstock Music Shop. Did we forget your favorite? Feel free to add it in the comments section of the online version of this article.

“I think vinyl is becoming more popular now, but I also think it’s here to stay,” says Alexandra Larios. “There are record stores everywhere, even Target sells records. Bands sell their vinyl at every show I go to. I think as long as people love music or their favorite band or a 16-year-old finds their parents’ record collection in the basement, there will always be people buying records.”