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Posted on: April 21st, 2014 No Comments

Grand Junctionites go vinyl on Record Store Day


Photos by Jerimie Richardson

(Patrons filled Triple Play Records in downtown Grand Junction for Record Store Day 2014.)

Not every incident of lovemaking involves a soundtrack, but many do. The current crop of Colorado Mesa University students was likely conceived with the sonic aid of a compact disc. Their parents, however, were probably first generated to the gentle, considerate sound of a long-play vinyl record, or a 45 single.

Even if the record was filtered through a car radio, many of our students have old-school vinyl to thank for their very existence, if only once removed. For many others, collecting vinyl records enhances their quality of life. It is for those true believers that the internationally observed holiday of Record Store Day was first celebrated in April 2007.

Occurring the third Saturday of every April since then, Record Store Day has been embraced by the music industry at large to help combat its overall decline.

Record Store Day 2014 in Grand Junction was an especially hectic vintage of the holiday. Despite the spring rain, there was a line of 20 to 30 people waiting on the sidewalk in front of Triple Play Records in downtown Grand Junction just before the doors opened at 10 a.m.

The first thing these hardy, music-loving souls were greeted with as R.S.D. officially kicked off was the sound of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me” blaring over the in-store stereo.

Triple Play owner Rock Cesario liked what he saw in the crowd gathered inside his store.

“It’s just so great to see people getting into the oldest and best format for music,” Cesario said, adding that, “It seems busier than last year.”

A Grand Junction native, Cesario opened Triple Play Records in 1988, and the store will celebrate its 26th anniversary in May. These days, Triple Play is a family affair, as Cesario’s son, Matthew Pasquale, has become a full partner in the operation.

When asked about the state of the record store business, Pasquale said only that Triple Play is he and his father’s sole means of support. Slinging used copies of Ted Nugent’s “Intensity In Ten Cities” or the re-issued 45 of the Myna Birds has consistently put food on their table and a roof over their heads for quite some time.

As for Record Store Day, Cesario gives credit for the holiday’s original inspiration to the comic book industry.

“Record Store Day is modeled after Comic Book Day,” Cesario confirmed. In addition, Cesario is both suspicious and disdainful of the old guard major label music industry’s recent interest in Record Store Day.

“If they’d have set the price for a new CD at $10 a long time ago, they wouldn’t be in the trouble they are today,” Cesario said. “The major labels are greedy. They didn’t participate in the first couple of Record Store Days. It wasn’t until three or four years ago when they realized they could make money. Then, they raised the price of new vinyl by 35 to 40 percent.”

That’s the bad news. The good news is that R.S.D. is an anti-corporate, grass roots, family holiday.

The Hennessey family, Mercedes, 16, and Ethan, 12, stopped by Triple Play to pay their vinyl respects along with their friend Colton Mahoney, 16. Mercedes purchased a Crosley Charles Schulz “Peanuts”-themed mono turntable, and her little brother bought an Elvis Presley record to play on it. When asked how she got into record collecting, Mercedes demonstrated that, apparently, not all peer pressure is negative.

“My friend has a huge record collection,” she said. “So, I thought I’d start.”

(Left to Right: Mercedes Hennessy, Colton Mahoney and Ethan Hennessy didn't leave Triple Play Records empty-handed on Record Store Day, Saturday, April 19.)

Also participating in Record Store Day this year were music icons across the country, like the Boston post-punk demi-gods, the Pixies, who used Record Store Day as a beachhead to release a double album off their first original material in more than two decades.

Artists as varied as Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Allman Bros, Jerry Garcia, Notorious B.I.G., and the Brian Jonestown Massacre all released new or commemorative vinyl products for this year’s observance of the holiday.

For all the romantic notions about vinyl, there is something to be said for the convenience and sheer selection of digital music providers such as Spotify or Pandora. Spotify, for the outlay of just $10 a month, essentially gives its subscribers access to the entire Library of Congress worth of music. Realistically, few record hounds have the dollars, storage space or milk crates necessary to build a collection as near infinite as that.

Record store lifers may want to believe in the miracle of Record Store Day simply because, to them, a world without vinyl is as hellish a dystopia as anything dreamed up by horror auteur, George Romero. Time may prove that the MP3 or whatever digital sound file that succeeds it are just young turks, like the eight track, the cassette or the compact disc, trying, and failing, to permanently dethrone the vinyl record. If that’s true, then Record Store Day is a feast celebrating that triumph.

There is a poster hanging in Triple Play’s front window of Tacoma, Washington singer-songwriter Neko Case with a quote that reads, “Independent record stores are the only music teachers I’ve ever had. The world would be a dark and lonely place without them.”

jlrichardson@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

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