El Paso: Atomic Wax

The store started as a man-cave. Raul Garcia kept finding records he loved, then kept finding space for them, and then kept finding people who wanted to share in what he’d found. That slow accumulation became Atomic Wax El Paso vinyl.

Garcia opened Atomic Wax around 2015 in the San Carlos Building on Texas Avenue — a historic block at the heart of downtown El Paso, within view of the Franklin Mountains. As you approach, you start hearing music. One day jazz, the next an obscure punk record, the next Bob Marley. The music meets you first. Garcia came by this collection through a simple philosophy. “Just a love of music,” he says. What started as a personal stash grew into something the Sun City needed.

Sun City’s Vinyl Room

Walk in and you’ll find Aerosmith beside Bessie Smith. B.B. King next to the Temptations. Marvin Gaye beside Kenny Burrell, Los Lobos beside Bob Marley. African, Latin, jazz, reggae, punk, hip-hop — Garcia doesn’t specialize by eliminating. He specializes by accumulating. That breadth has made Atomic Wax a favorite for serious record hunters. Garcia often has hard-to-find African and Latin pressings that don’t turn up anywhere else in the region. Finding them here feels like it sounds. “It’s like serendipity or an epiphany almost,” he says. “That’s a magical vibe.” Sound Decay Records on S Stanton Street covers the underground punk and metal end of El Paso’s vinyl scene.

Raul Garcia started with a man-cave and stayed because the city kept showing up. Atomic Wax has been proving him right since 2015.

I’ve been here ♪