What is Nerd Alert Records?

We are an 100% independent, D.I.Y., vinyl-only, online record store owned and operated by married couple, Bonnie Molleston and myself, Tony Peters since its birth on May 28th, 2008. We decided to open this store in May 2008 as an at-home job for a pregnant Bonnie. Taking a two month break from my day job working at Nintendo of America, we spent a couple months gathering stock and readying a web store with no prior knowledge of running a music store and absolutely no contacts or outside money. It was built from our money, our credit cards, our hard work – a textbook definition of D.I.Y.

As record collectors ourselves, we strive to put as much information as possible about the records we sell our listings so that all of our customers know exactly what they are buying. And if you happen to be a collector, you know how frustrating it can be to play the roulette wheel with stores that do not bother to list variant/color/pressing information.

But – at the same time, there are plenty of music lovers who simply want the record to listen to, not to collect. To see that these customers types be represented in our store as well, we go out of our way to amass as much music from as many genres as possible, regardless of record label, artist image, etc. We’re in the business of music, not anonymous judgment.

Our business has no employees, no corporate sponsors, no outside investors – everything that is done for/to the store is done by us. That means that there are no hoops to jump through in order to talk to someone who can actually help you out. You’ll never talk to some space cadet kid who doesn’t even care or know about the products they are selling.

What and who do the two of you listen to?

Tony: I could list for-ev-er, so here’s what is on the top of my head (in no particular order): Alkaline Trio, 311, Less Than Jake, NOFX, No Use For A Name, Lagwagon, All (Chad years), The Descendents, Sage Francis, Atmosphere, Murs, The Coup, Rage Against The Machine, The Falcon, The Larry Arms, Rise Against, Against Me!, Ozma, The Vandals, The Aquabats, Nerf Herder, RX Bandits, Saul Williams, Tenacious D, The Offspring, Bad Religion, Pulley… …see, for-ev-er. I grew up on mid-late 90s 3rd wave ska and So-Cal punk, with a healthy dose of present day hip-hop.

Bonnie: Coming Soon

Do you collect records? And if so, can I see your collection and/or trade with you?

For sure we collect! We started collecting and active listening to vinyl in the past couple years, so there are gigantic holes in both our collecting collection and our listening collection. Though not complete as of this writing, our collection can be found over at CheckMyVinyl.com, either by searching for user nerdalertrecords or by clicking here. As for trading, again, we would be more than happy to do so with anyone. We will trade records from either our personal collection (see above) and/or from the store. When checking our collection, be sure to only ask about records that have the “Willing to Trade?” option marked as yes.