Needle To The Groove Record Shop

Great place with a great collection of vinyl! Staff is amazing too! In historic Niles, CA. you get all of the nice charm of the town with plenty of personality. I pretty much make a trip out to this place every week. I highly recommend NOTG Fremont!

Great store. Great selection. Great prices. Nice mix of classic rock, jazz, r&b and old blues. Very cool place!

A great store with a great selection of records, at a very reasonable prices too. I will definitely come back.

One of only two places I go for good used vinyl. Been going here when they were in a cave/​garage in Niles. Dan and company are very friendly and all records are super clean.
I love going here for records and vinyl talk then over to Broncos for pizza.

Great selection and, perhaps more important, decent prices! I found several albums I had never seen before.

This store is one of the hidden gems of the bay area, one of the only stores I will shop at in the bay. Dan is the man, the prices are more than reasonable prices great selection and new stuff coming in all the time. I have bought and sold many lps here and also witnessed many transactions while in the store, the prices paid are also more than fair, in my experiances. The best thing about Dan and needle to the groove is that in addition to the fair prices he is a conservative grader and the condition of the general stock is immaculate. I think it says something that I drive about an hour each way to shop here and I go a minimum of a few times a month.

These guys are crooks. I know my collection was worth money. Dan wanted my collection when I spoke on the phone. When I arrived, he insulted me by saying the boxes are worth more than the records! What an ass.
He flat out lied!

I’m going to begin my first review for the corrupt porthole of overly needy whiners and the tech savvy with histrionic tendencies by defending what I believe to be one of the only great mom and pop record stores in the East Bay.
I have been a foaming supporter of this place since it began. They always get new and hard to find gems, all the employees there have been helpful and are fully capable of answering questions no matter how menial. They’ll even let you use their bathroom. Can’t say that about many record stores. At any rate, they have a great ever evolving collection of jazz, hip hop, R&B, rock, and Reggae. Gems everywhere without the too cool for shoes vibes that other stores have. Just some solid individuals that are down to get good music into the right hands.
Hey Xian!!! This goes to you and anyone that puts a shred of stock in what dude or dudette is squeaking. I’m SURE that you were a perfect angel when you were digging. I’m CERTAIN you weren’t going through records like an infant goes through wrapping paper. And I BET you only replied in respectful well crafted grown up responses when Tom politely asked you to treat the records with care. Speaking of care, perhaps you should craft your negative reviews with more fact and less reactive speculation coupled with absurd claims. You never know who’s paying attention. Do some more tweeting for your dismal audience and leave small businesses that are beautiful alone.

It was National Record Store day over the weekend, so I decided, to visit one my favorite records store in the Bay Area. Before opening, there was a line of about 15 – 20 people waiting to get some of the exclusive limited records for RSD. The shop gave everyone a numbered ticket, so everyone that waited before you got a fair chance to look through the RSD records. Also, customers were limited to one copy per customer. I wish other record shops were this fair and organized on RSD/​or Black Friday, but that’s an entire other review that I will save for later. I was almost the last person to dig through the RSD records, but still managed to pick-​up two titles from my wish list. Furthermore, the shop was having a 20% sale on LP’s & 50% off 45’s. After, about two hours of digging. I found some amazing Jazz, Metal, Psych, Post Punk, New Wave, Soul, & Hip Hop titles, and the 20% off was the ultimate cherry on top. I had another great haul here, and I accomplished another short-​term goal. LOL

Got my original post taken down but I stand by it. Apparently they pay to have negative feedback removed. I came here and the old guy in charge of the store was rude and hounding me and refused to answer basic questions. I got a really nasty vibe and won’t be coming back.

i had a really unpleasant experience with the person working there that day.
my complaints were acknowledged by the owners, presumably.

Great shop! Charming, well kept and friendly service. The jazz selection was killer the day of my visit and the staff is very knowledgable. Prices are adequate which is a relief since these days you never know. Niles is a good surprise and the trip (from Oakland) is fast. Highly recommended!

Great shop, I’m glad to see them in San Jose now. Good selection of good condition used vinyl at reasonable prices.

Dan is very cool and helpful. Great location in the town of Niles and there is a Farmers Market across the street too. Dan cleaned all my LPs and I made some purchases. Very grateful he is in business and able to provide this service to the Bay Area. Check him out!

Great quality used records for fair prices. I could have done without the selection of female alt/​punk screeching on the turntable, or the sales guy’s loud crunching of potato chips (the store’s pretty small), but ambience notwithstanding it’s a great find, and the sales guy was freindly.
I’ll be back.

Best record shop in Fremont. Don’t bother going anywhere else. Tom is the best. The selection is great and constantly changes.

Vinyl lovers’ alert – you don’t want to miss this small store. It is located just off Main Street in Niles. The store reminded me of the records stores I went to years and years ago. They have an amazing amount of albums and 45s and they are all well organized. It was great to go to a store where they value vinyl. All the records looked like they were clean. I bet they even have something you can listen to the records on before you buy.
It is very apparent that the people who own and work in the store love records. I had a pleasant chat with the man behind the counter. I suspect he might have been the owner. We talked about walking to the record stores when we were teenagers and the records stores we went to. He bought doo wop and so did I. Then he told me how he had Elvis Presley EP albums. These are extended play albums on 45s. They have become quite hard to get and can sell for a lot of money. I have several. The young Terry did not keep any of the sleeves these now 1k records came in, so the old Terry is not going to make any money on them. Years ago someone stole all my albums. They did not get any of the 45s and I have a lot of them. Maybe I will organize them.
I did wander in here with a good idea of what I wanted; I am always on the lookout for something from my favorite singer Jackie Wilson. The person helping told me that they seldom get any of his records and when they do they are gone the next day. I mentioned how Jackie Wilson sounded good to be when I was 13 and he still sounds good to me. He agreed the Jackie could sing.
I did buy a blues album, «Honest I do» by Jimmy Reed. I’m not sure when it made it on to an album; it was a top 40 song in 1957 and recorded by the Rolling Stones in the 60s. I should have spent more time looking. I would like to replace some of those albums that were stolen.
If I lived closer I would be a weekly customer and maybe I would find one of those allusive Jackie Wilson albums!

I stopped by this shop today! I was in the Niles area to have brunch with two of my former college buddies at The Vine. I made reservations and they told me that it would take about 45 minutes to get seated so I wandered around the little downtown area, waiting for my friends to arrive.
I fell in love the moment I walked into the store.
I ended up buying 3 records — Creedence Clearwater Revival Live in Europe, Johnny Cash Songs from Folsom Prison, and Daryl Hall/​John Oates Rock n’ Roll Soul Part 1.
I’m from Fairfield so I don’t know if I’ll be making the drive to the Niles area again anytime soon, but if I do, this is one place I know I will revisit!

So how do you tell if you really in a great record store?
1. While you are browsing you hear a loud whirring sound.
(they are doing this because they are using a special machine to clean deeply into grooves of each of the records)
2. They sell record players. (nothing is worse than a record store that does not sell record players, used, new or even broken. These guys have cool used.
3. There are cassettes. Yes. some of use still use our cassettes and we need a tape deck. Its a huge plus when the cassettes are cheap.
4. They carry Stan Getz. Oh yeah. i can hear it now.
5. Very cool music playing in the background when the whirring noise isn’t happening.

Literally the best place to buy used records in the Bay Area. Since I found out about Needle To The Groove in Niles, I literally don’t buy used LPs anywhere else. If you’re looking to be overcharged for the latest brand new records, maybe Rasputin is more your speed … But if you’re looking for thousands of classic records for cheap, this is your place.
The store is small, so they don’t have room for crappy record selection. You won’t be digging through tons of Angela Lansbury and Barbara Streisand to find something of value. They’ve got an extensive collection of classic rock & roll, jazz, older hip-​hop, funk, whatever you want. If it’s more than 10 years old, they probably got it. They even stock some bootleg concert tapes and other such rarities, and their stock is changing all the time.
Every record they sell (excluding the dollar bins) has been inspected, the disc washed, and the whole thing polybagged. You don’t see that anywhere. The selection is great, prices are extremely reasonable. They have a listening station set up where you can test out any record you want. Dan, the owner, is super nice and knowledgable, real cool dude. If you pay cash, they might even give you a discount.
If you’re interested in records, this is THE place to go.