Road to Loudwire Music Festival, Day Two: Philly + Vinyl

The inaugural edition of Loudwire Music Festival is set for June 26-28, 2015, at Grand Junction, Colorado. Ahead of the fest, we’re hitting the road in a 2016 Kia Sorento, traveling the states and finding new adventures as we make our way from New York City to Grand Junction. Where will we go? What will we see? Who will we run into? Follow along right here at Loudwire to find out, and make sure to keep an eye on #RoadToLoudwire on Twitter and Instagram.

With our bags packed and the Sorento gassed up, Steve and I parted ways with our home of New York City early this morning, Tuesday, June 16. The first stop on our road trip was Philadelphia, and while we were excited to eat lunch at two famous cheesesteak joints, we weren't quite ready to eat it so early. Traffic was a piece of cake -- and the ride was smooth as could be -- for most of the morning, so we found ourselves sitting at Pat's and Geno's in South Philly by 10AM.

We quickly learned it's never too early to eat a cheesesteak.

Steve found himself leaning more toward Geno's cheesesteak while I favored Pat's -- but in all honesty, you can't go wrong with either one, as long as they're covered in whiz.

With full stomachs, we made our way to Repo Records, one of the oldest record stores in Philadelphia. The shop's walls were lined with rare discs; we found an original pressing of Faith No More's The Real Thing, a sealed (!) original copy of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication, and a mint edition of the Scorpions' forbidden Virgin Killer. Personally, I snagged two sealed records that I've never seen before: Urge Overkill's Exit the Dragon and Soul Asylum's sophomore LP, Made to Be Broken (produced by Husker Du's Bob Mould). Steve picked up an experimental lo-fi record from a local outfit, and also spent a lot of time rifling through the dollar bins in the basement.

After Repo, we had to check out the infamous Rocky steps:

Following that, we made our way to the nation's capital for another effortless drive; the destination was, as expected, beautiful. Besides the standards -- memorials, White House, et al. -- we checked out a few more record stores (Som Records, Crooked Beat and Red Onion), swung by the 9:30 Club and even visited one of the most famous addresses in D.C. (if you own any records on the Dischord label, you might recognize 3819 Beecher St.):

And because we didn't eat enough meat today, we filled up on some chopped pork at what might be one of the best BBQ restaurants in D.C., Kenny's Smokehouse:

Tomorrow, we'll mill around for a few hours in D.C. and then make our way to Richmond, Virginia -- while we're not sure what's in store for us in that town, we do know one thing: We're going to spend a lot of time at the GwarBar.