Aquarius Records Storefront for Milk Set

Aquarius Records was an independent

record store A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

in San Francisco, California, established in 1970. Aquarius was known for carrying an obscure selection of psychedelia, metal, and world music, and had an extensive mail order catalog. The store's selection was relatively small and was chosen and annotated by the staff of music aficionados. They claimed to have coined the modern alias ''dronology'' for the drone music genre. It is the subject of the documentary "It Came From Aquarius Records" that premiered as part of the 2022 San Francisco Documentary Festival.

History

The first Aquarius Records store was located in the

Castro Castro is a Romance language word that originally derived from Latin ''castrum'', a pre-Roman military camp or fortification (cf: Greek: ''kastron''; Proto-Celtic:''*Kassrik;'' br, kaer, *kastro). The English-language equivalent is '' chester''. ...

area of San Francisco. The first store was on 19th Street, followed by two locations on Castro Street, including one next door to Harvey Milk's camera store. Chris Knab bought the store in 1972 and in 1978, he co-founded the independent punk rock and new wave music record label,

415 Records 415 Records was a San Francisco record label created in 1978. The label focused its efforts on local punk rock and new wave music acts of the late 1970s through the late 1980s, including The Offs, The Nuns, The Units, Romeo Void, and Wire Train. ...

, with Harvey Milk's friend and his, Howie Klein. Around 1983, the store moved to 3961 24th Street, in

Noe Valley Noe Valley ( ; originally spelt Noé) is a neighborhood in the central part of San Francisco, California. It is named for Don José de Jesús Noé, noted 19th-century Californio statesman and ranchero, who owned much of the area and served as m ...

. In 1996, new owner Windy Chien moved the store to 1055 Valencia Street in the Mission District. Aquarius Records closed its doors in 2016.

Notes

External links

Official homepage
of Aquarius Records ( Archive.org copy of June 2016)
History
of Aquarius Records
Aquarius Records' page on StylusCity
Music retailers of the United States Independent stores Retail companies established in 1970 Mission District, San Francisco Companies based in San Francisco 1970 establishments in California {{US-retail-company-stub