second annual Record Store Day arrives amid growing vinyl resurgence

Polyvinyl chloride records nearly fizzled out of existence in the 1980s and ’90s. Compact discs, with their conveniently portable size and polished sound, became the preferred package for recorded music. But vinyl has experienced a steady resurgence in recent years, as more and more collectors dust off old record players and drop the needle down to the sweet sound of amplified crackles and pops.

Local collectors attribute the vinyl resurgence to a variety of factors. For one thing, the album art is much bigger on a record sleeve than on a CD case. “It’s more of a piece of art at that size. It’s like the difference between a painting and a postcard,” said Alden Ulery, manager of the Loaf & Ladle in Portsmouth.

Others point to the general vogue of vintage items in American culture. “The technology has gotten so far, people just kind of want to revert back and be nostalgic,” said Michael Bray, manager of Bull Moose in Portsmouth.

Still others insist that the purity of the vinyl sound exceeds all other forms of recording. “There’s nothing that sounds like vinyl, really. It has a much warmer sound,” said Bruce Pingree, manager of The Press Room.

But Pingree, who never stopped collecting records during decades of near fanatical music listening, doesn’t pretend to fully understand what spurs a new trend—or revives an old one. “Who knows. Why do fads happen?” he said.

Regardless of the reasons for the surge in record sales, shops across the Seacoast and around the globe will celebrate Record Store Day on Saturday, April 18. In just its second year, the holiday has already spread to upwards of 1,000 independently owned stores in 17 countries. And the whole idea originally hatched from the head of Chris Brown.

Brown is vice president of operations and marketing at Bull Moose, which has a total of 10 locations in New Hampshire and Maine, selling records, CDs, DVDs and video games. He said the concept for Record Store Day first entered his mind in the summer of 2007. “The idea just kind of popped into my head,” Brown said.

He began pitching the idea to contacts in the industry and brought it up publicly during a conference for indie music stores in Baltimore that fall. About 600 companies signed on, and the inaugural celebration took place on April 19, 2008. Metallica kicked off the nationwide event with a performance in San Francisco, and numerous stores hosted live bands throughout the day. The feedback was almost universally positive from customers, artists and store employees, alike.

“We didn’t realize just how fun it was going to be,” Brown said. “It was just like a big love fest, really. It was just really cool that way.”

Brown traveled to Europe last year and roped in other companies in England and elsewhere. Stores in Canada, Japan, Italy, Iceland and other countries will also participate this year.

A number of limited vinyl and CD releases will be available only on Record Store Day, including recordings from Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Ben Harper, Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello, My Morning Jacket, Modest Mouse, The Decemberists, The Smiths and others. A number of highly limited 7-inch singles, most with only 1,000 to 3,000 copies released nationally, will be available at Bull Moose.

In addition, several major artists will perform live shows around the nation on Record Store Day, including Chris Cornell, Erykah Badu, The Breeders and Queensryche. Members of Disturbed will sign CDs at the Bull Moose in Portland, Maine, prior to their show at the Cumberland County Civic Center that night. Ani DiFranco will offer a free performance at the Bull Moose in Scarborough, Maine, on Friday, April 17.

Here in Portsmouth, members of industrial metal band Static-X will be at Bull Moose for a signing on Saturday at 5 p.m., before their show at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom that night. Although Static-X has a new album to promote, Brown said many of the bands taking part in Record Store Day have nothing to gain from it commercially, including Disturbed. “They’re just doing it out of the goodness of their heart, just because they want to be a part of it,” he said.

But Record Store Day also showcases local artists. Local rock band The Minus Scale will perform at the Portsmouth Bull Moose at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Singer-songwriter Dan Blakeslee, who played at Bull Moose during last year’s event, will perform this year at Odyssey & Oracle, a new independent record store on Albany Street in Portsmouth.

Odyssey & Oracle owners Josh Johnson and Jayson Kohl will use Record Store Day as a grand opening event for their new store, which offers records and CDs, as well as vintage bicycles and clothing. Located in a small space around the corner from Brewery Lane Tavern, the shop opened its doors on March 21.

Johnson said he rented the space and brought Kohl on board after Kohl quit his job at Bull Moose, where he worked for about seven years. Both co-owners are musicians and record collectors, and Johnson knew Kohl’s experience as both a store manager and music aficionado would be valuable.

“He’s like a record guru. The walls at his house are covered in records and CDs,” Johnson said.

Kohl sifted through his collection of around 2,000 records and added about one fourth of them to Odyssey’s stock. The store’s records are divided into categories like “Metal/Hair Bands,” “Garage Rock/Frat” and “Psychedelic Rock/Hippie.” Along the front row, record covers from Joan Jett, Bob Weir, Donovan and ABBA were visible on a recent afternoon. Some of the records are priced as low as $1, and few cost more than $10.

Opening a business during the national economic plunge gave Johnson and Kohl some pause—but not much. They noted that the products they sell are cheap and functional, which makes them virtually recession proof. “People are always gonna buy records,” Kohl said.

This theory has proven true at Bull Moose, which had its best sales year ever in 2008. The company, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, has always carried records and has increased its stock of vinyl.

“Records never went away with Bull Moose,” Chris Brown said. “We kind of always knew that people wanted records.”

According to Michael Bray, the vinyl market is especially strong in Portsmouth. He recently transferred to the Portsmouth store after working for several years at the Bull Moose location in Sanford, Maine.

“I think it is insane,” Bray said. “In Sanford, the vinyl sales weren’t as much as anything else. Coming into Portsmouth, the vinyl aisle probably gets more traffic than any other aisle in the store.”

More than just retail shops, Bray said record stores serve as community gathering places where locals congregate to talk about music. “I see that every single day,” he said. “We have handfuls of repeat customers that come in and hang out here for hours and talk amongst the employees and talk amongst the other people in the store.”

Interest in shopping at record stores defies the burgeoning trend of simply pulling music from the Internet and loading it onto iPods. With all the technology available for clean sounding digital music, Bray said, many people are choosing instead to listen to music the way it was originally recorded, with all the pops and cracks. 

“I don’t have a record player and I feel like I should get one now,” Bray admitted.

Alden Ulery, on the other hand, has been collecting records since he was eight or nine years old and has amassed a collection “into the thousands,” he said. Most of his records are stored at the Loaf & Ladle in Exeter (Ulery’s parents own the Loaf), but a few hundred are shelved at the Portsmouth Loaf, although ASCAP regulations prevent him from playing them in the store.

Ulery credits DJs who began spinning records in the 1990s with helping to spark renewed interest in vinyl. But he is mainly drawn to records because of the compelling album art. Often, he must buy several copies of the same album—one with an undamaged record, another with a mint condition sleeve, yet another with an intact booklet, etc. By way of example, he pulled out a “junk” copy of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” which had a functional record but was missing the original booklet.

Finding parts for record players and tracking down obscure albums is part of the allure of collecting. Jayson Kohl, whose long hair and colorful wardrobe would seem appropriate on the cover of a late 1960s Pink Floyd record, has spent hours hunting down rare gems in the obscure genre of “northern soul.” He said many collectors will now pay large sums of money for albums that few people bought when they originally came out.

Pingree, too, has some collectors’ items in his closet. He owns several “novelty jazz albums” and spoken word records by the likes of William Burroughs. He also owns the first two albums by local punk legends The Queers (Pingree had unique access to these records, since he produced them).

After digging around for a while on the third floor of The Press Room, Pingree produced a stack of old records by bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Little Walter. The pile also included albums by the Ragtime Jug Stompers, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and other rarities. (Curiously, when asked to name their most rare and cherished albums, both Pingree and Ulery mentioned the debut record by seminal psychedelic rock band The 13th Floor Elevators before anything else.)

But Pingree said he is not one of those eccentric collectors who insist on having original prints and mint sleeves. As long as the record plays, he’s satisfied.

Pingree has been collecting records since he was in grade school, beginning mostly with popular albums by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. But he began diversifying dramatically as a freshman at the University of New Hampshire, when he started hosting “The Blues Show” on WUNH radio. “That’s when things really started to go haywire,” he said.

Pingree hunts down records for research purposes the way other scholars might scour library shelves. Old records can offer insights into the history of African American and Native American culture, he said.

“A lot of my collecting is related to what I do on the radio, but also connected to historical perspective,” Pingree said.

In addition to accumulating 45s, 78s and LPs of all sorts, Pingree also collects CDs. Ulery is more of a purist, sticking solely to records and shunning the compact disc. Jayson Kohl’s CD collection has long since surpassed his record supply—he estimates that he has between 4,500 and 5,000 CDs.

Finding records—especially during the vinyl drought of the ’80s and ’90s—is an art that local collectors have refined with much practice. Beyond a few niche record stores, collectors have relied on yard sales and other chance markets to expand their collections. Sometimes relatives will pass on worn stacks from their attics or basements. Some collectors trade and share with one another.

But record collectors have helped reawaken the slumbering vinyl industry. Many modern artists now request to have their albums printed on vinyl in addition to compact disc. According to Chris Brown, this has resulted in lengthy waitlists, as there are only a couple of vinyl manufacturers in the country.

The early success of Record Store Day reinforces the notion that record stores are not dead. The needle is dragging across the vinyl with growing regularity, making record stores as relevant as ever.

“The music industry is responding to what music fans want,” Brown said. “It seems like a no-brainer, but that’s the way it is.”

For more information on Record Store Day, visit www.recordstoreday.com.