Philadelphia’s growing number of listening rooms and record bars is music to vinyl lovers’ ears

The concept behind the bar is plainly stated in a mission statement: “To Get People Together To Listen To Records.” The new cocktail lounge and vinyl listening room in Old City, the bar is modeled after Japanese bars and coffee shops known as jazz kissas, where audiophiles gather for deep listening to LPs.

“That means as many kinds of records as we can and as many kinds of people as we can,” says Joey Sweeney, the creative director of 48 Record Bar, the cozy 35-seat space above storied bar Sassafras.

The listening bar concept has been making its way around the world. It arrived in Philly in 2022 with the Listening Room, a speakeasy-like back room space at Stephen Starr’s restaurant, LMNO on the border between Kensington and Fishtown.

The vibe there was more uptempo and DJ-oriented than at a traditional listening room, but in November the club announced its “temporary closure.” There has been no update on when or if it plans to reopen.

In Philadelphia, record stores have survived and thrived in the streaming age. Vinyl signifies an authentic, curated experience in an algorithmic culture.

WXPN-FM (88.5) brands itself as vinyl at heart. There’s a club in Center City called Vinyl that doesn’t even play vinyl — it books cover bands. Philadelphia Record Exchange in Fishtown, Upper Darby’s R&B Records, Cratediggaz Records in Queen Village, and Main Street Music in Manayunk, among others, keep the spirit of vinyl alive.

Bars like Fountain Porter and Solar Myth keep turntables spinning behind the bar, and vinyl is the focus with DJ nights at the International and the Trestle Inn, where Women’s History Month is being celebrated with a lineup of all female DJs, many drawn from the Vinyl Tap 215 collective.

And coming up on April 27 and 28, vinyl lovers can celebrate spring at Vinylcon!, a weekend-long marketplace at the 23rd Street Armory that promises “a zillion records, tons of vendors, vinyl DJs, full bar, food trucks, and more.”

Adam Porter owns Milkcrate Cafe, a record store that offers “coffee, food, booze, and wax” with locations in Fishtown and West Philly. Porter, too, has experimented with a “record bar.”

“This is a major metropolitan city, so there have to be purveyors of good taste and champions crusading for good music that people haven’t heard,” Porter said.

He stopped doing record bar nights in January, but has future plans for pop-up events. “We’re a city filled with amazing selectors and record collections, but we’re underserved as an artistic community.”

48 Record Bar opened in December after a long gestation period. Sweeney, a musician and creator of the blog Philebrity began kicking ideas around six years ago with Donal McCoy, who co-owns Sassafras and formerly the Tin Angel, the Old City folk club just down the street that closed in 2017.

The idea was to convert the upstairs storage room “into a listening room not unlike you would find in Japan but with our own take on it, that combines the legacy of cocktail culture that Sassafras represents with a really amazing sound system and well curated music. It would be unlike any other space in the city.”

Sweeney and McCoy tested the concept in pop-ups at various locations last year, and have succeeded in creating that unique space, down to the surprise sight of a comfy couch in the bathroom.

On a recent Thursday night, every seat and padded banquette was taken in the intimate room during an evening themed around British folk music of the 1960s and 1970s. Sweeney cued up LPs by Iain Matthews, John Martyn, and Richard and Linda Thompson.

In a special event, there was live music as well, with Hannah Taylor and James Everhart of the Philly band Cosmic Guilt singing Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, and Shirley Collins songs.

48 Record Bar club members can pay $12 a month, where on Wednesday nights they can bring their own LPs to play, as well as getting first crack at ticketed events. For $40, they get that plus an LP of the month to take home. This month’s selection is Eccentric Boogie, a collection of rare funk from the highly regarded Numero Group label.

Deep listening events are also part of the 48 Record Bar experience. Last month, two $15sittings on a Sunday morning sold-out, with vinyl lovers listening to OutKast rapper André 3000′s instrumental flute music album, New Blue Sun. Coffee and pastries from Center City cafe Thank You Thank You were included in the price of admission.

“That was an amazing sight,” says Sweeney. “And the music was almost creating a sound bath over folks. People were meditating, or writing, or drawing, or passing notes to one another. And as people were leaving, they were saying, ‘I’ve never been to anything like this before. Please keep doing this.’”