Clients dip in and out, some making more of an occasion out of the transaction than others. Some may return within a day or two, in need of more to satisfy their fixation. Others are not quite as addicted.
Nevertheless, the record store and its workers welcome every music freak with open arms, no matter their upbringing. And for those new to the market, hesitancy is more easily melted than the wax of a crisp new vinyl.
Travis Harvey, owner of Muncie’s Village Green Records, was “a living library” to his friends growing up, introducing them to all sorts of new sounds.
Harvey began developing a relationship with VGR founder Jared Cheek, eventually inhabiting the “open shell” of a shop and making it his own, using the store as a means of inspiring the creative community of Muncie through his expertise.
“Instead of being a living library to only my close friends, now I was able to begin to reach out to a broader audience,” Harvey said. “I was able to influence people of every walk of life because they walked down the street and came in and could receive that relationship that I was sharing with just my friends beforehand.”
Indy CD and Vinyl is located in the heart of Broad Ripple, Indianapolis’ well-known arts district. Founded by Rick Zeigler in 2001, the shop was originally located in Salt Lake City before Zeigler decided he wanted to move closer to his hometown of Muncie. Since moving to Broad Ripple, the shop has become Indiana’s largest independent record store.
Annie Skinner made the trip with Zeigler from Salt Lake City to Indianapolis after working in the Utah original shop for only a year. Currently the manager at Indy CD and Vinyl, Skinner has now worked in record stores for about 13 years.
With her many years of record store know-how, Skinner is aware of what attitude is necessary to make a record store warm and welcoming.
“We really try and not give off that High Fidelity vibe. When we train new people, we don’t want that,” Skinner said. “I think that’s part of the experience — feeling welcome, but also we’re non-obtrusive. We let people have their experience.”
Harvey is also aware of the stereotyped notion the public has of record store owners as being “hoity toity, thumb-up-their-asses kind of people.” He avoids this mentality at all costs, knowing how poor of a business model it creates in the end.
Instead of pursuing pretentiousness, Tyler Damon, a clerk at Landlocked Music in Bloomington, Ind., believes record store owners should push themselves and expand their listening spectrum in order to connect with clientele.
“There’s not a genre I can think of that doesn’t have some sort of merit or value or an artist that I might like,” Damon said. “I think that as soon as you can recognize that, you’re in the position to help people find something that will improve their life ultimately and help them really love music that much more; that’s the most important thing.”
MUSIC’S RAW POWER
For many, entering a record store is much more than a shopping opportunity.
Harvey said some wander into his shop in search of musical therapy.
“You’d be surprised how often people come in here asking for me to go with them into their deeper, darker emotions to try and help them,” he said. “They’ll come in with a death in the family or a friend has passed or a suicide or a break-up or any number of things. They’ll be looking at me as this person that could help them — walk them, through music of course, through these things in their lives.”
Harvey links this therapeutic effect with humanity’s desire for a music high, comparing its draw to that of several other sources of relief.
“There have been numerous experiments and tests and research done over the years that music has this ability to dig deeper into people’s vulnerable spots — places that have the biggest influence on inspiration,” he said. “They have found that sports, athletic things, foods, even drugs — there are all these things that still can’t quite get as deep to the inner core of mankind or of the soul as music can. That sounds completely absurd and crazy but I’ve experienced it.”
Damon was once a regular customer at Landlocked Music before he was hired. When he first began shopping there, Damon said he probably seemed like the “annoying freshman that was always around and always bugging them.”
Nevertheless, he now sees the role his shop plays in Bloomington’s creative development, serving as a source of nourishment to the many regular music connoisseurs that frequent the shop.
“The ongoing conversation between brick-and-mortar record stores and people, where you go there and shoot the s--t about that sort of thing, is really important,” he said. “Socially speaking, that’s the most rewarding and prominent thing.”
Although it is not always the case, there are several record stores within walking distance of Indy CD and Vinyl. Skinner acknowledged that while competition does exist and that each store has its own focus, at the end of the day, the record shops all want their customers to be well fed with music’s raw power.
“The common goal is to supply people’s needs, even if it’s something we don’t have,” said Zach Molina, a clerk at Indy CD and Vinyl. “I think it’s more so being able to be supportive of not only the other places, but the availability of something that someone is looking for because that’s more important to us than having someone wait around when we know it’s available.”
WAX TO THE MAX
Started in 2007, National Record Store Day (RSD) stands as a momentous occasion for stores across the country, uniting regular music enthusiasts with wandering newcomers, all in the name of independent record stores. Much like any other holiday, RSD has a set date on the calendar, falling on the third Saturday of April.
But what truly perpetuated this recent attention shift towards these shops? The resurgence of vinyl.
In a 2012 study done by Digital Music News, it was reported that vinyl sales grew for the fifth straight year. In addition, Nielson also reported that vinyl sales rose 17.7 percent, equating to 4.6 million records sold and a new high for the format otherwise known as wax.
Indy CD and Vinyl, Landlocked Music and Village Green Records are all seeing this return to vinyl.
Molina said “audiophilic” people have always existed, only settling for tangible mediums of music listening.
In a similar light, Harvey believes the digital wave of downloading has pushed music listeners away from their laptops and into their vinyl collections, with the sole reason being a more attentive listening experience.
“Nowadays with the whole digital thing, it’s so easy to listen to something but also to just throw it away,” Harvey said. “It’s not that important. You’re not really investing in it. You’re not really taking the time to really taking the time to listen to it and digest it
“When people start buying vinyl, I think it surprises them that they pay more attention to it.”
Ryne Kempin said he is big fan of vinyl and a regular customer at VGR. For him, the experience of buying vinyl is incredibly personal.
“Vinyl is something unique in the world of manufactured experiences. Whereas DVDs, CDs, BluRay, VHS and audiocassettes have some amount of lifeless, mass-production flimsiness to them, vinyl is lovingly made by an individual, whose signature is etched into each LP at the point of manufacture,” he said. “It actually means something in the grand scheme of things, in addition to having a life of its own.”
Molina shares a similar opinion.
“No one sees a burnt CD in somebody’s house and says, ‘Oh my God. Where did you find this?’” he said.
Despite working at a record store, Damon encourages illegal downloading for the sole reason of encouraging customers to have tangible copies of their music.
“I think people should steal as much digital music as they can possibly attain,” he said. “I think to have this tangible, archival edition of a release as an art object is ultimately more valid than any number of ones and zeroes, as I’ve heard it said.”
As for the future of the format, Molina believes vinyl will continue to run its valiant course.
“I’d say that it seems like the technology that threatened the tangible mediums of music has been in place long enough to where it seems like there’s not much in addition that they can do that’s really going to revolutionize the way people go about music,” he said.
