Record Store Profile: Red Eye Records NSW

What is your store called? 

Red Eye Records

Where are you located? 

143 York Street, Sydney and online here 

Tell us about the people behind the scenes?

 Chris, the founder, started selling records at school in the late ‘60s (to get money to buy records), and still loves his job. Adam and Huddy manage the shop (they started at the shop 40 and 30 years ago). Berko and Matt Allison are our frontline buyers. Nick is our counter manager and main second-hand buyer. Michael is our online/webstore manager and second-hand buyer. Our counter team includes Simone, Sam, and Nyx.

When and why did the store open? 

We opened in 1981. Having worked in and managed other record stores in Sydney in the ‘70s it was time for Chris to open a shop with a bigger, and long-term vision. After 44 years, so far so good! And the plan is for many more to come…

What do your customers most know you for?

Being a friendly and inclusive shop with the largest range of vinyl LPs and CDs in Australia.

What is the most popular title you stock at the moment? 

Pulp’s new album ‘More’

What is the most popular evergreen title? 

We have a few: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours, Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon, Beatles – Abbey Road & Nas - Illmatic

What is the best thing about running a record store in 2025?

After 40+ years of ups and downs in our store it’s wonderful that people of all ages are excited again about music, and all types of physical product. It’s so good to see multi-generational family groups, school kids, professionals, old guys who’ve been coming in forever, tourists and more all mixing, and having fun digging in our racks. We love to chat, and find elusive gems for customers, often in-stock, or available to order from our second-to-none, comprehensive local and international supply chain. Talking to our customers face to face helps us learn about what they want, what direction music trends are heading, and we get great suggestions for our own listening pleasure that we may have missed, new or old. Win win!

What is the hardest thing about running a record store in 2025?

Trying to get stock of all the thousands of titles we want to keep, both on vinyl and CD, is a challenge. For vinyl it’s certainly been better the last few years with more pressing plants opening or increasing capacity worldwide. With CDs it’s more difficult with many labels deleting great titles from their back catalogue and not issuing some new releases on CD. Contrary to what you may think, CD sales are growing. Fortunately we can shop around the world to find some older CD titles still in print in Japan, Europe, The UK or the USA.

Another problem is the increasing prices, especially for vinyl. Unfortunately, with manufacturing costs up and the Aussie dollar dropping, it’s unavoidable. The good thing though is the quality of the records being made these days has never been better. With audiophile sound, solid covers, coloured vinyl variants etc, records are now perceived as a premium product.