Just like Spain, Portugal is the classic example of culture being reduced to the minimum by a dictatorship. And it applies to music of course.
When diggin for Portuguese records, you will find it mighty difficult to dig out something musically relevant from the 60's or the 70's, the golden era for most diggers. All you will find is fado. I'm not dissin on fado, but it's not really the psych type of shit most foreign collectors are looking for. Anyway, thanks to a large diaspora, a lot of foreign records arrived in Portugal through the years, especially French records.
Anyway, there are exceptions, as always. Some bands succeeded to get around the censorship, by being creative, by eliminating harsh lyrics for example. Ok, it's kind of a constraint, but it required hard balls to release cultural products in Portugal until 1974.
Fortunately, since then, Portugal and especially Lisbon opened their gates to the rest of the world and let music flow. Today, it's pretty easy to find vinyls in Lisbon.
Here are a few interesting spots.
Carbono : the ultimate experience in Lisbon. When walking up the Avenidad da Libertade, take a right at Rua das Pretas and keep going straight. Pretty easy to find.
Both new and used vinyls are in great quantity, with the quality also. Customers mostly buy CD's, so you may be alone diggin in the vinyls crate, either on the ground floor or underground. Yea, 'cause there's a basement, where the "euro bins" are. Not the best "euro bins" you'll find, but it's already pretty cool to know there are some, just for the sake of tradition.
They have a good library section, a bit pricy but I guess it's worth the price.
A word of advice : get your head straight before getting to the counter, meaning "have the right idea of how much you'll have to pay". All along the diggin process, I saw the signs "LP 10 euros, 5 LP's 40 euros", and I ended up paying the full price (50 euros) just because I didn't pay attention. Same thing with cheaper discounted records... stupid.
Flur : on the dock of Santa Apolonia, right across the street from the subway station. No sign, just half a paper sheet stuck on the window.
At first, it looks disappointing. But then, you'll understand the intent is not to sell everything and anything. There's a real selection of independant music, Flur being a place of small labels. Well, small... if you consider Stones Throw a small label for example. At least it's indie. That's the spirit of this shop, and there are some good stuff, such as releases by Finders Keeper, Now Again, Warp and more obscure labels. Mainly electro, with a bit of hip hop, soul and world music.
Market stands on Avenida da Libertade : the kind of random place you find while browsing the city. A lot of stands have vinyls, but few of them are interesting. Actually, only one or two are worth a scrupulous dig. The one I bought at, located in front of the Sofitel hotel, was full of Portuguese, but also French and American music. On the first day, I browsed the LP's ; interesting stuff, such as African music. On the second day, I browsed the 45's ; there were plenty of them. The guy really knows what he's got, and knows the value of his stash. So, if he tells you that this 45 is worth 15 euros, you will have a hard time trying to bargain. I think I missed a good opportunity by being stubborn. On the other hand, he sells a lot of his LP's between 5 and 10 euros. Don't miss this one, you might find some good shit.
Bairro Alto : avoid this place for buying records. Some shops have small crates, among other things, with records in really bad conditions (both covers and plate), and sell them for ridiculous prices, over 20 euros most of the time. Actually, it looks like the only purpose of these crates is to attract people inside and cheat them on other stuff such as clothes.
I haven't been to places like Louis Louie and Vinyl Experience though, and it seems V Records relocated or disappeared.
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