Employees are just too cool here to be decent to their customers - especially if you're a parent looking to buy surf equipment or clothes for teenagers. Even my 17 year old who is very noncritical commented that the clerk was a complete jerk......and we were in there buying a $600 surfboard. Lighten up Soundwaves - we get it - you all are the definition of cool.....but you don't need to act disinterested, rude, and bored any time someone asks for assistance in your store.

So, I'm on the search for some cool vans - the only place I can think to shop is Soundwaves. I reach the store and see a sign that says "Buy $100 worth of clothing or swim wear and get a $15 gift card." Pretty neat offer, but I just want to buy shoes. Then, I find this groovy dress - my total adds up to $107.

At the register, I get zilch, so I ask the clerk, "what about the gift card?" He says, "Oh, shoes don't count." Since when are shoes NOT clothing??? I then turn to the giant sign behind me which DOESN'T say "excluding shoes" and point it out. He takes an annoying sigh and yells out "ok, JANINE!" to call the manager over to the counter.

How freaking embarrassing. He didn't need to act like such a tool. How about, "Can you hang on one second while I get my manager?" I know you're working in a groovy Montrose music store, but get some manners and don't make you're customers feel like idiots! AND, put the dang exceptions to the offers on your signs.

I'm extremely surprised to see the scores this record store was getting and I felt obligated to write a review. I will limit the scope of my review to one thing: selection of music I was looking to purchase (indie rock). I have no knowledge of their selection of any other genres. I love local record stores and I haven't found one I liked yet in Houston. Based on the comments here, I thought Soundwave might be what I was looking for. My girlfriend and I are going to lollapalooza later this year and were going to grab albums from a few artists on the billing. Soundwaves had 0 albums from any of 5 bands we were looking for including EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, which is one of the biggest and most popular bands in independent rock AND they're from Austin (there wasn't even a divider for them). Needless to say, the selection is VASTLY overrated. If you buy your indie rock here there must be something wrong with you. I went down 59 to Best Buy and found 2 explosions cds and at least one album for 2 out of the 4 other bands (Best Buy had Rogue Wave and the Weakerthans, but we struck out on Battles and Yeasayer). To be fair my girlfriend did buy a pair of shoes that she really likes. Overall - There are two places I would buy CDs. One is a place where I could buy more popular CDs for cheap (Best Buy). The other is a place with a deep catalogue of diverse music (your typical record store). This is neither, don't waste a trip, at least as far as rock music is concerned.

This place is great. It's basically a skate and surf shop, plus a cd store combined. I've had success finding clothes I like there... selection not too critically different from the mall skateshop chain, but I'd say they have a bit wider of a range and more products. Stuff tends to be newer and better selected as well... many t-shirts I'd actually wear. Maybe it's less catered to skateboard brand logo shirts and more to shirts that just look good. I go for the CD's. Pretty excellent selection. A few things missing here and there, but I wouldn't dream of finding a selection like that at a store in America. It's like all the small boutique shops rolled up in one. Metal, jazz, indy, all have pretty good sections. Kudos to whoever orders the metal stuff. My one gripe is to beware of price. Sometimes stuff is priced better than competitors, but I have found several DVD titles (concerts) that were $5 more than the market price. I will probably shy away from buying DVD's there unless I've checked the price against market. The CD pricing always seems reasonable.

Applies to Soundwaves on Montrose - The staff are usually helpful & there's always someone who knows something about what you're looking for. It's cool without being 'too cool'.

Honorable mention goes to Cactus.