Photo by Joe Piasecki
•This Week•
Vinyl is still vital
Soundsations’ Pete Grasso doesn’t mind checking the inventory
The classic LP has survived the rise and fall of the CD, and now Westside record shops left standing after years of struggle are riding a wave of renewed interest in the format By Michael Aushenker Technology — especially when it comes to media — is usually equated with progress, in which one format innovation replaces another, enhancing the user experience. Well, a funny thing happened in the world of music. The compact disc (CD), which was supposed to supplant the traditional vinyl record in the marketplace as the superior option, has itself been rendered obsolete by digital sales. As for the LP, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. On L.A.’s Westside, record shops left standing after years of struggling to survive the digital age are riding the wave of a national resurgence of interest in vinyl. On Saturday, wax specialists Soundsations in Westchester and Record Surplus and Touch Vinyl in West Los Angeles will participate in the annual brick-and-mortar booster National Record Store Day — only this time around, sales of music issued and re-issued in the classic
LP format are not just about surviving but thriving. In June 2013, The New York Times was among media outlets declaring a vinyl revival, gauged in equal parts by record sales, a vinyl fascination among listeners born after 1980 and a burgeoning trend of new pressing plants. According to the Times, Nielsen SoundScan estimated that 19,000 of the 339,000 units sold on the mid-May 2013 release of Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” (featuring the megahit “Get Lucky”) were on vinyl. Other albums experiencing disproportionate LP success included Vampire Weekend’s “Modern Vampires of the City” (which sold 10,000 on vinyl that same week) and the National’s “Trouble Will Find Me” (with 7,000). Catalog albums by perennial favorites such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan are constantly being reissued. Meanwhile, many young companies have joined venerable record manufacturers in the current marketplace. Brooklyn Phono, a New York City company launched in 2000, manufactures nearly 500,000 LPs annually, while Quality Record Pressings
“The rising tide raises all ships. It’s only to our benefit to help each other.” —Sebastian Mathews of Touch Vinyl
in Kansas, established in 2011, generates 900,000 a year, including reissues of Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton for major labels. Canoga Park-based Rainbo Records churns out 7.2 million yearly. “Vinyl never died,” said Touch Vinyl owner Sebastian Mathews. “It was always the best sound.”
Behind the music
Since its inception in 1972, Soundsations Records has changed ownership three
times and moved around several locations in Westchester. After working at Soundsations for three years, childhood friends Pete Grasso and Lee Wilson, both 27 at the time, bought the store in 1990. “It was a hobby that turned into a business,” said Grasso, now 51. “We always liked music.” Until recently, the store stood two blocks away on Sepulveda, but after being chased out of the location by higher rents, it occupies a corner spot on La Tijera Boulevard. Grasso estimates that, from 1995-2000, “CDs were coming in strong. We were lucky to sell one vinyl a month.” But things began improving drastically about four years ago, he said. Record Surplus, an anchor of the Westside vinyl scene since 1985, has also changed hands and locations over the years. Longtime employee Neil Canter took over Record Surplus from former owners Mike Colestock and Chuck Rose in 2008 after the store’s landlord died and his children “put the building up for sale and (Continued on next page) April 17, 2014 THE ARGONAUT PAGE 13