The Ultimate Vinyl Record Carry Bag

I wanted to send a thank-you and review regarding the Record Roots Vinyl Sling Bag. I have been looking for something like this for seriously about 20 years, and I’m so excited to see it in production now. Bottom line: If you need to take records in and out of your house or apartment in all kinds of weather, this is what you need. I have been a radio DJ on a community radio station for many years–the kind of station where you bring your own music to do your show–and if it’s rainy or snowy, the show must go on. And then of course there are lots of other reasons to move records in and out of my house, heading to friends houses, crate digging at my favorite record stores, you name it. What I’ve been doing up to now is using the usual little tote bags that you get from record stores or record labels, and they’re okay-ish, but they’re really only made to hold like 5-ish records at a time. Plus they’re wide open on the top, and most of them are made of a cloth material that isn’t waterproof at all. So sometimes I’ve had to resort to putting records inside garbage bags, and then putting those in the totes, which is kind of a drag. I used some bike panniers for a while, which were somewhat better, but they still didn’t totally seal shut at the top, and they didn’t really offer any protection at all–they’re made for holding grocery bags, not records. This Record Roots bag is the perfect solution. It’s still very lightweight, but it has room to hold around 36 12’’ records, and another 10 7’’ record in the zipper compartment in front. The whole thing is made of a polyester canvas material that’s quite water resistant, and there is some padding built in all around, too. Then it has a hard insert at the bottom that retains shape, too. There’s a little extra room all around, so you can even get box sets to fit in here just fine! Most importantly, the top then zips up and tucks in, so you can really keep water out of this thing. I’ve never seen a zipper like this before, but it has like some kind of membrane that comes together right behind the zipper as you zip it up that really minimizes the potential for water intrusion. They don’t say that it’s fully waterproof, but it’s mighty water resistant overall, and I feel way less stressed taking records out in this bag. It holds a lot more records than the usual tote bags, too, which is perfect for radio shows or a particularly good haul at a record store. Thanks again for making this, Record Roots folks!