Looking for new music or a cool new place to hangout? Wooden Tooth Records is your new go-to place.
Just inside a hard-to-find café lies a hidden gem called Wooden Tooth Records. Wooden Tooth is a small, independent shop that opened in 2015. Located inside Café Passé, this store holds a variety of music, from 1960s Japanese Pop-Bossanova to the Smiths.
The music it carries isn’t like most record stores.
“We try to carry stuff like all over the board,” said Wooden Tooth employee Kellen Fortier. “We don’t really carry so much of the modern pop stuff. We feel like other places can do that better than we can, so we just want to fill more of a niche for like cool, obscure things and open peoples eyes to new music.”
Genres at the shop include rockabilly, classic rock, old school country music, underground rap and local favorites.
The shop is connected to Café Passé’s backyard, which has a beautiful patio filled with wooden chairs and tables and string lights. More importantly, it has a wooden stage where local bands and artists come to perform, thanks to Wooden Tooth Records. Besides hosting small concerts, the shop does a variety of things like host vinyl listening parties and have cool giveaways. The alternative feel that the shop has to offer ties in perfectly with the coolness of Café Passé.
Wooden Tooth is unlike any cliche record store, with the grungy feel and the extremely filled capacity that these stores have. The owners decorated it in such a way that local art and music are incorporated.
“We opened this place because there was really a void of record stores in Tucson and we just wanted to be able to provide like cool music at a good price,” Fortier said. “Basically what I love about working here is that I get to hang out and listen to records all day. I meet awesome people from all locks of life and I really can’t complain about it.”
Neither can we.
Wooden Tooth Records is the hidden gem of the Dirty T, with no other place like it.
This hidden gem won’t be hard to find for much longer. Wooden Tooth is moving to its own storefront location and is planning its grand re-opening for April 16, which happens to be Record Store Day. You can find its new home at 416 E. Seventh St. The store will give away free stuff and put out new records for the grand opening. Go and give this rad place some love and see why we love this hidden gem.
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