Daydream Records Sets Up Shop

Music City’s record retail landscape welcomed a newcomer with the Nov. 1 arrival of Daydream Records. A 200-square-foot space in the Shoppes on Fatherland near Five Points, Daydream is packed thoughtfully with some 3,000 carefully chosen LPs, 7-inches and cassettes spanning punk, jazz, metal, psych and more. From the complex’s parking lot, No. 203 is the first unit on the left; walk in and you’ll find titles — used copies only — both familiar and rare, at all price points. 

You’ll also meet proprietor Daniel Halal. The 39-year-old has worked in the record-store biz in his home state of Florida since 2003, while also logging time as tour manager for Miami doom-grunge legends Torche. He decided to move his operation here when his partner Lara Lookabaugh — who spent the mid-2010s playing with righteous Gainesville noise-punk power trio Soda — started a new job at Vanderbilt. With Record Store Day Black Friday right around the corner, I recently spoke with Halal about the Nashville record store scene and where Daydream fits in.

 “I’ve been working at record stores a really long time, but hadn’t worked the counter in a while,” says Halal. “There’s great record stores here, but it also feels like there’s room for more variation.” 

He notes that his space is too small to host the kind of community events that are a much-loved feature of some shops, though he’s happy to just put a record on if you want to learn more about it. He makes it a point to keep a keen eye on the market value of his stock, pricing it so that he discourages flippers but isn’t putting records out of reach of shoppers who actually want to own them.

“There’s stuff we could probably charge more for, but it’s not a museum,” he says. “A lot of record stores make that mistake. Squeezing every penny out of a record is the worst thing you can do. You go in there, then return five years later and the same shit is on the wall. Is this a record store, or a vanity project? That shit makes me crazy. We don’t need that.”

Daydream Records is at No. 203 inside the Shoppes on Fatherland at 1006 Fatherland St., and open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday with “other days by chance or appointment.”