The fact that Saturday, April 12, is National Record Store Day might leave reasonable people scratching their heads.
Why, in an era when you can have instant access to almost any song at the click of a button, do record stores still exist?
We visited Mystic Disc to find out.
The one room shop has occupied the same spot on Steamboat Wharf in Mystic for 42 years. It hasn’t changed much at all, even though the music industry has changed all around it.
Tower Records and most of the record store chains have gone the way of Blockbuster Video, disrupted into extinction by the digital economy, but this place is thriving.
It’s like stepping into a time warp, a classic used record store. Every town used to have one. On every wall, there are album covers and memorabilia. Even the ceiling is covered in music posters. Down below, there are bins full of vinyl, more than 8,000 records including the overstock in the back room.
The shop’s owner Dan Curland hasn’t just heard all the alums, he has lived them.
Framed on the wall behind him is his actual ticket to Woodstock. He spent all three days right in the front row, captured on camera by film crews for all eternity.
He was 17 then. Now he’s 74. Still carrying the torch lit all those years ago in the Catskills.
Curland doesn’t do much business online. All his transactions are face to face. That said, if you call the old landline telephone, he will always answer. He’s at his post every day, as he has been since 1983.
Customers drive hours out of the way to pay him and the store a visit. Some, like Tammy Hart, are collectors. The Boss is her favorite. The license plate of her car is “Jungleland.”
“I’ve been collecting since I was a kid,” she said, noting that part of the appeal for her is “just having something tangible you can hold in your hand.”
Joe Santos brought his whole family this weekend, in honor of National Record Store Day.
He too is hooked on the ASMR aspect of analog audio. The thunk of the needle and the crackle of dust don’t feature on digital downloads. And there’s the packaging, the posters, the liner notes and the lyrics. Not to mention, the joys of browsing the bins and stumbling on something special.
He can’t get enough.
“It’s a heck of a lot better than Spotify,” he said. “This place is a lot more fun.”
Music lovers flock to stores like Mystic Disc the same way readers still like to browse small independent bookstores, despite the convenience of Amazon.
Curland understands that. In fact he caters to it.
“Because their lives are so much done on computers, and ordering online, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be so personal and close to the thing that you’re doing,” he said.
He’s there to remind them there’s more to life than doom-scrolling. It’s sweet revenge. There was a time when digital downloads almost destroyed his business model.
“To be honest, around 2007-2008, I was dying here because of Napster and downloading,” Curland said.
There were just enough die hard vinyl fans to keep the place afloat, almost all of them Luddite Baby Boomers. But it was tough going.
What ultimately saved stores like his, according to Curland, was hip hop.
“Kids were going out and finding old jazz records and old soul records and sampling 10 seconds or 15 seconds,” he said. “You can’t do that on your phone. Or it’s very difficult.”
Nowadays the majority of his customers are under 30 years old.
Nico Parlagreco is one of them. Born in the digital age, he’s a convert to vinyl. He used to work at the shop after school.
“Easily the music quality is better – 100%. But having a physical thing in your hand is, like, come on!” he said.
Curland said the younger generation are ideal customers. He gets to pass along his knowledge and enthusiasm, mentoring the next generation of audiophiles. He’s also delighted his shop isn’t just a museum piece. It’s a thriving business.
“I have a couple thousand records at home. I don’t need another record. But these kids are starting out with nothing.”
More than that, the store provides a community and a free education.
“This place is a barbershop,” Curland said. “Not everybody comes in here to buy something.”
He’s fine with that.
Sometimes kids come in, just out of curiosity, having never seen a turntable before. He’s ready to evangelize any and all who walk through the door.
“The most important thing you can do in your life is to listen to music because it helps you through good times and tough times,” he said.
“If you’re having a bad day, you listen to music and you find someone had just as bad a day as you. They wrote a song about it. And if you’re in a good mood, same thing.”
He claims to be agnostic about formats and genres. He claims there’s no such thing as bad music. To him, that’s a matter of personal taste. To each their own.
His personal preference is vinyl. And clearly a sizable number of people share that passion.
“When I go home every night, I go to my porch in my apartment and I say to the universe, ‘Thank you for letting me do what I do. And thank you for all these customers.’ They’re all very important to me, because without them I’m nothing.
All in all, not a bad way to make a living.
