Thirsty Moon Records

It’s closed. Time to voice my true feelings.
Just because something is either psychprog or krautrock from the ‘60s or ‘70s and from the Czech Republic does not mean it’s automatically good. T-​Moon stocked some cool reissues (Roxy Music, Karma by Pharaoh Sanders, etc), and they had free experimental magazines, but the majority of what I bought there in its 8-​year life was mediocre garage, made with well designed covers to loosen the purse strings of record fetishists. Thirsty Moon’s behind-​the-​scenes motto must have been «form over function!»
Luckily, the stocked Record City across the street is here to stay.

Cool shop. The woman working there was extremely knowledgable, friendly, and had a great vibe about all things music. Really customer service oriented, and had an amazing selection of psych, fuzz, prog repressings and originals. Very unique store.

If you’re looking for an obscure record or just want to try something new and interesting… this is your place! They can also do special orders for that hard to find LP.

Great punk/​metal/​soul/​other record store. Have a good mix of everything — particularly the garage/​indie punk style. I have gotten a bunch of Thee Oh Sees/​Ty Segall/​Sic Alps style stuff here. Very knowledgeable staff who know the inventory like the back of their hand. Prices are fair

This is a great store for punk, metal, garage, psych, etc. It was the last store I went in while out in San Diego and it was one of my favorites. Good selection of mostly new and reissued titles. I ended up walking out with 2 albums, one of which the store employee put on while we were chatting for a few minutes. Really friendly staff with a great vibe. Diggin it!

Great record store with some awesome finds and friendly staff. The lady working let me play my record in the store while I was browsing through the catalog of rarities and classics. Always ask up front to see if they have something that is not on the shelf — they were listing third man record rarities that weren’t on display.

Horrible place! The guy worker was Rude! I went there looking for a special Christmas gift! He was awful, I don’t know much about records and needed some help he acted like it was most difficult task simply finding a very specific record! There were no other customers in the store! Would never return there again if he knew anything about music or vinyl he most certainly was not great help for me! I would suggest Record City don’t take any chances on having a jerk make money from you!

I love this record store!
1. It’s right next to record city so that’s 2 shops you can visit in one trip.
2. I’m a punk enthusiast and they have tons of compilations and obscure foreign punk! It’s awesome, picked up a «Tune for a *ucker» for some crazy Japanese Hardcore and was not disappointed.
I will definitely come back to pick up that Italian punk compilation!

Fantastic resource for interesting and obscure music. For me, it brings the adventure of record/​DC hunting in hopes of finding something special.
When I moved to SD a few years back, I thought I would have a difficult time as I had spoiled by AKA Records. But thankfully, SD has quite a number of record stores clustered within the same vicinity, each catering to different tastes and styles.
THIRSTY MOON is at the top of my list as I have run the gamut with so much music that it’s getting difficult to find new things I haven’t heard. I’ll walk out of TM with obscure Japanese Psychedelic from the 70s. Great metal, punk, and kraut selections as well. The guys that own this store are in bands themselves and you get the feeling that each title was hand-​picked by the owners, which is my kind of place. Knowledgeable staff too. Highly recommended.

Didn’t get anything but was super impressed by selection, layout and décor. They have great compilations of old, obscure music in funk, psych, soul, garage and international pop. They even have a krautrock section!

The guy that works here knows EVERYTHING about music, and not in a snotty pretentious way, but in a im gonna help you find good music way. It’s small but what they lack in size they make up for in quality. It’s in between fifth and sixth and kind of hard to find but you really need to seek them out. I wound up having to park a little bit away but i found a few cool places around it. There is a spa (i forget the name) and a tattoo shop, sleeping giant.
I bought two records here and they were both in excellent shape and i enjoy them very much. One was a reccomendation from the guy that worked there (sorry i forget his name too).
there are a couple spots in the back i think so it may be worth your while to see if they are open!

Great little record store! Helpful staff too!

What is the point of this store? Is it so that you can conveniently find vinyl that’s a little more obscure than big chain stores carry? I doubt it. On more recent ventures I have found myself looking for something specific, and they seem to never have the album I’m looking for. Is it a great place to find CDs that are little more difficult to find? Absolutely not! Their selection of CDs is sparse, to say the least. Perhaps it’s so that you can discover something that maybe you would have never heard before. I suppose, but why would you spend so much money on something you might not even like when you could just as easily use Pandora or Spotify, and if you’re lucky enough to find something you like order it online (knowing that it will be in stock). I know this sounds a little harsh, but I think I’m being realistic. Thirsty Moon could easily expand their selection, and they choose not to. This baffles me. There would be absolutely nothing wrong with having another rack in the middle of the store.
Yes, there are some legitimate reasons to shop at a record store like this. First and foremost you’re supporting local business, which I cannot and will never say is a bad thing. It’s a more genuine experience than shopping online. Everyone enjoys flipping through records and finding that gem they were looking for! Plus, you get to interact with a person, and if you’re looking for something and need assistance that is clearly a plus.
I still shop here on occasion, and I’m not going to say that this isn’t a place you should check out, but just don’t go in here with the expectations you might get from people that throw out five stars on just about anything.

Very small store specializing in prog/​psych/​kraut. Almost too obscure for their own good (I’m a huge psych collector and didn’t recognize half the stuff there) but they’ve found their niche and they’re sticking with it and more power to them.
Nice folks, and I’m sure if I was in town regularly they’d be able to convince me to buy everything there.

My new favorite record store in SD. A stones throw from Taang! and Off the Record, Thirsty Moon has a more limited selection of styles than the latter, but much better prices than the former. The vinyl and jackets are well taken care of and the staff is very friendly and knowledgeable. They have a special area for local groups and I was able to find some pressings for punk/​hardcore there that I couldn’t find anywhere else (including the interwebs).
I will definitely be a regular Thirsty Moon customer from now on.

Prog? Kraut? Psych? Yes, Yes and Yes.
Pretty much sums this little gem up. Small like a two car garage but they more than compensate with the substance of what they carry– assuming your into the avante garde side of the rock scene over, say, the last 40 years.
They also carry a healthy selection of new and used, proto and post punk.
If the above niches appeal to you, then this place should be a staple of where you hunt.

Bitchin collection of new records (vinyl). A lot of it is stuff that I already have ’cause I’m so really cool (actually, I’m just a loose bolt with nothing better to do with my spare time than hunt/​listen/​play music), but the stuff at Thirsty Moon is stuff that no one I know has. And it’s stuff that I tell my friends, «this is the best record I’ve heard this year,» but they don’t buy it.
Well, now I can just say, «go to Thirsty Moon, pull two random records, flip a coin, buy one and you can tell me what to buy next.»
Only downside here is the used record collection, which isn’t very strong.
Oh, one more plus, they have a cool door (which my friend pointed out, I was too stoked about the records to notice).

A brief message to fan of Thirsty Moon Records who may be spending time in San Francisco: you should check out Aquarius Records in the Mission.
A brief message to fans of Aquarius Records who may be spending time in San Diego: you should check out Thirsty Moon Records in Hillcrest.
Now, I’m not going to say that the two places are the same. Aquarius runs a online store and has a larger stock of CDs. Thirsty Moon is way more spacious and perhaps better organized, making it much easier to navigate. But the two share, for example, a love for things metal and black, death, or sludgy. I didn’t peruse Thirsty Moon’s entire stock, but rest assured that there’s more than that– and I get the impression that it’s all hand-​picked in some manner.
This is the kind of record store that I hope anyone with an ounce of music appreciation will continue to shop at for years to come. I would love to stop in again the next time I’m in San Diego.

Way too cool for me, and mean that in the most complementary terms possible. TONS of music you’re not going to find anywhere and lot from around town.
Guys are pretty cool too, but always keep me waiting for 5 minutes outside. I like the hand painted skate decks they had inside the wall.

A record store hidden in the alley behind Rite-​Aid in Hillcrest has got to be good – and it is. Thirsty Moon has tons of vinyl – anywhere from $ 10 to $ 30 – in all kinds of crazy genres. They’ve got garage, punk, soul, metal and tons of krautrock (wish I had to Google; it’s a genre of psychedelic or avant garde electronic music originating from West Germany).
They’ve got a small selection of CDs, too, in all of the same crazy genres.