Lost Weekend Records

About Lost Weekend Records

Our Mission Statement :: Lost Weekend Records is located at 2960 N. High St. in Columbus OH. Our mission is to continue the tradition and legacy of independent businesses and vinyl record stores in the Clintonville and Columbus communities. We are always willing to go that extra mile – we are proud to have a “High Fidelity” level of knowledge without the elitist attitude. Whether you are a die-hard record collector, a DJ that needs samples, a casual music lover, or just a ‘scenester’ that likes to hang out, we want you to feel welcome here.

Being a part of the community means, to us, helping people and the other stores in the area. If we don’t have it and can’t find it, we’ll send you to someone that does. We carry music by many local and regional bands and musicians, as well as books by local authors. We regularly have events here at the store with music by local artists, and are proud to be such a ‘hands on’ business. We strive to get to know each of our customers and give them the personalized attention they deserve.

History of Kyle & The Store :: Picture it – It’s the early 80’s, Kyle is 16, driver’s license new in hand. He drives down to campus and sees all the indie record stores up and down High Street – Bent Back, School Kids (now Used Kids), Moles, Singing Dog, Magnolia Thunderpussy. Kyle realizes that there are all these really hip stores with rare and out of print records that you couldn’t find at the National Record Mart / Record Town kind of places. There was a whole ‘scene’ – where musicians, artists, authors – you know, all the cool kids – would gather. It was then that Kyle first had the notion that he’d like to open his own someday. At any rate, it got him interested in music and record collecting.

In 1986, Kyle moved to Atlanta, GA to go take classes in Music Business at the Art Institute of Atlanta. This led to an internship at RCA Records. He did that for a year which led to working as the Internal Office Product Distributor – i.e. he delivered the mail – for RCA / A&M / Arista and associated labels. After two years, he moved back to Columbus, OH taking a job as the Assistant Manager at the National Record Mart in Westerville. He also stayed involved in at the label level, becoming a college rep for CBS Records in 1989. (They were bought out by Sony in 1990). He worked with numerous bands on the Columbia and Epic labels including Living Color, Poi Dog Pondering, Bob Dylan, Social Distortion, and more. He was even awarded a Double Platinum Record for his work with Pearl Jam upon the release of “Ten”.

In 1992, Kyle left the record industry due to disenchantment and the ‘corporatization’ of the industry and his own personal distractions. For the remainder of the decade, he worked at call centers for Ticketmaster, CompuServe, and Chase Manhattan. During this time, he started creating his own music, and playing in a few different bands including Truman Carter, Bubba Ho-Tep, and the Broken Circle Gospel Deluxe.

In the late 90’s, due to the loss of some close family members and friends, Kyle started thinking again about his own dreams, and decided he wanted to get back to doing the things he was passionate about. In 2000 he took a job at Waves Music, which instantly rekindled his interest in opening his own store. When NRM went bankrupt, Kyle took the opportunity to start wholeheartedly working toward his dream. Over the next year he pulled together his collection and bought as many records as he could. He went to all the other independent record stores in town to get an idea of what he really liked about each of them, so he could incorporate all those things into his own store.

He started renting a small space at 3341 N. High St. (a space formerly occupied by a handful of other record stores – Bent Back, Good Vibrations, and Tongue & Groove). Talking to his friend Lance about calling the store “Weekend Records” (as it was originally only going to be open on the weekends), he accidentally said “Lost Weekend Records”. After thinking about the slip up, he liked the sound of it and the images it conjured up – The 1945 movie, the weekend John left Yoko, the contest for a “lost weekend” with Van Halen that MTV had done, and the fact that due to his other job during the week, he just lost his weekends – and it stuck.

On January 16th, 2003, Kyle opened the doors for the first time. Initially it was only open on the weekends, and the occasional very late Thursday night. Eventually, it went to evenings during the week and all weekend. After eight months, he quit his part time job and opened the store full time. The space was thirty feet long and six feet wide – it was basically a hallway. He knew that for the store to be successful this would have to be a stepping stone, and that he was going to have to move to a bigger location.

In mid-August of 2004, Kyle closed the doors and started working on a new location. He found a large space at 2960 N. High St. that was available. After a couple of weeks of working on the space and moving thousands of records, he reopened on September 1st, 2004 where it remains to this day. For the first year, the space was shared with “The Comic Garage” and owners Lance King and Dave Baratier. When they left, he took the opportunity to expand the store and add lots of new inventory.

Our Goals for the Future :: We are proud of the store, of being a part of the community, and of the events we do. Going forward we want to continue on this path. We are also always looking for ways to be more productive and to improve the store in any way. In the beginning, we sold only used vinyl and some CD’s. Now we sell used DVD’s, Cassettes, and VHS tapes as well. We’ve also started to slowly trickle in new vinyl and books. Eventually, we would like to expand our offerings to include all types of music memorabilia. Of course, we’d like to thank our customers for their continued support, as they’ve gotten us where we are today. If you have ideas or suggestions about the store, please email us!