On the Record by Bao-Vy Pham

Photo: The different records on the shelves of BLK Vinyl. Photo by Bao-Vy Pham.

On the Record

By Bao-Vy Pham

How Austin’s vinyl businesses have survived through the years

For decades, record stores have consistently been highly successful businesses. The feeling of walking into one of these stores and finally finding a record that you’ve either never heard of and just catches your attention, or have been searching for everywhere is like no other. When customers get home, they can play their purchased records and see them on the turntable spinning and producing sound with their own eyes. And once they’re finished listening to the album or single, they can add it to their ever growing collection. Austin boasts many record stores all around the city, and whether they’ve been here for decades or merely a few years, they have all helped music fans find their favorite artists’ albums in physical form. Every store has its own unique catalogue with different genres and decades, so music listeners can choose whichever fits them the best. Besides an abundance of record shops, Austin also has its very own record pressing plant, Gold Rush Vinyl. Gold Rush Vinyl is Austin’s first vinyl record factory and works with many different clients from independent artists to record labels. According to Jonathan Schanke, who is in charge of sales, customer service, project management, and production coordination, “We have two press operators and one shipping/packaging teammate. So two of them run the machines that we have and do the actual pressing of the records, and they do quality control, making sure all the music sounds good on it. And then they send it over to our packaging and shipping team member who packages it all up and gets it ready for shipping.”

It takes Gold Rush Vinyl about four to six weeks from the time that orders are

placed to have the records ready to be delivered to customers, which is the fastest in the world.

“That’s all dependent on when we’re able to get print in and when we’re able to get stampers,” Schanke said. “And so print obviously being what you put the vinyl into, the jackets, the artwork, and then the stampers being metal plates that are cut with the specific grooves of the music on them, which are

A record pressing machine at Gold Rush Vinyl. Photo by Jonathan Schanke.

put into machines and then press the plastic into the records, that presses the grooves into the records. So we need those things to put the final package together.”

When the records are finished being manufactured, they then can be given to the labels and artists so that they can distribute them across the world. “I would think there’s probably around 70 different labels and distributors, majority, that we work with,” Dan Plunkett, co-owner of the major record store End of an Ear, said. “So we order from them once a week to once a month, some overseas, some over here.”

Meanwhile, some stores prefer to get their records from other sources. When John Brookbank, who is the co-owner of BLK Vinyl, first started out, his own collection served as the shop’s inventory.

“For the first three years until recently, we were all secondhand. So it was just going out to garage sales and estate sales and secondhand shops. And then once we were around a little while, people were bringing in records to us either getting rid of the records, or just selling stuff they didn’t listen to and doing trade and getting other records,” Brookbank explained.

Though according to Brookbank, this method of acquiring stock is sometimes inconsistent, which to him is the hardest part of running the store.

“It’s kind of feast or famine,” he said. “Sometimes we’ll get thousands of records in, and then sometimes we’ll go like a month where there’s only a few hundred that come in, and it’s not great stuff. So it’s all kind of ebbs and flows, the kind of good stuff that we get in since we don’t do a lot of new releases or Record Store Day or reissues and stuff.”

To Plunkett, the most difficult part of managing End of an Ear is customer service. He says that the store has a good clientele though, so they are able to deal with it well.

Something that both Brookbank and Plunkett do have in common is their favorite part about running a record store: learning about new music. Being in the store all day has exposed them to new genres and artists that they never would have paid attention to otherwise.

“I get to live in a jukebox for 50 hours a week,” Brookbank said. “So I get to listen to a ton of music. Some people can listen to music on their earbuds at work or whatever, but I really get to learn all about all kinds of music.” already come out and coming out that I’m always learning about new stuff like, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know that this jazz from Madagascar happened in Paris in the 60s. What is this about?’” Plunkett said.

However, recently, the usual routine of record stores and pressing plants was interrupted by the pandemic. Many businesses were forced to close temporarily, and when they reopened, they had to find ways to adapt to the new norms and restrictions brought forth by the coronavirus.

Gold Rush Vinyl had to be shut down for about a month and a half, and they were the only manufacturer that had to do so. “That put us in a tough spot because we had to shut down our machines for a month and a half, and they didn’t like being fired back up two months later,” Schanke said.

Due to this, as well as the recent high demand in vinyl, Gold Rush ended up falling behind on orders, with their turn times increasing from the previously mentioned six weeks to about seven months. And since there was already a shortage in capacity, this makes getting records pressed even harder for artists and record labels.

Pressing plants were not the only businesses having a hard time. Local record stores had also experienced quite a setback due to COVID-19.

“When it first was [happening], we were hearing about it,” Plunkett said. “We’re like, ‘What’s going on? What is this? How serious do we take this?’”

BLK Vinyl and End of an Ear both ended up having to close their doors for several months. But while the stores were closed for in-store shopping, they still offered online shopping. End of an Ear also offered curbside pickup.

“I’ve been saying, it was a little bit of a blessing where we were only two years in and that I learned how to do Instagram and stuff like that, like sell through eBay. And there’s a site called Discogs that is a record marketplace,” Brookbank explained.

To help financially with this sudden transition, End of an Ear additionally got Payment Protection Program (PPP) and Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.

“There’s a lot of things that helped us keep going, like all the employees just stayed employees,” Plunkett said. “We didn’t lay anybody off. We just reduced our hours and were kind of hunkered down. And it worked, so we were lucky.”

When the situation improved, and restrictions loosened up as new COVID-19 cases decreased, the two stores opened up for appointment shopping. After some time, they fully reopened for normal in-person shopping. It was then that their sales, which had been reduced, began to pick up again.

“Once we started doing in-store shopping, we were noticing that we might not have as many customers, but the average per sale was higher,” Brookbank said. “People just weren’t buying for a little while, so they were spending hundreds instead of tens of dollars on records every visit.”

The coronavirus isn’t the only challenge that physical record stores have been facing. With the recent rise of online stores that deliver to your doorstep, many people are finding it more convenient to purchase their music digitally. However, there are still many music fans who prefer having a physical experience where they can actually see and hold the music in their hands. Part of the charm of record stores is that customers are able to flip through boxes and boxes of records and see if they can find anything that they like. There’s no real way to replicate that exact experience when shopping online.

“Just artwork will speak to you or just a record from somebody that you didn’t know existed,” Brookbank said. “We have listening stations too. So every record in here, for the most part, is open where you can bring it over to a listening station and check it out and just spend hours in here.”

End of an Ear sometimes houses instore performances from bands, which Plunkett says is another great part about record stores.

“We were doing an in-store here with the artists in Amarillo, and I was like, ‘There’s all these other musicians in here,’” he said. “But we had like 85 people coming in-store and I was like, ‘All these people are talking about music projects or projects they’ve met in their interviews,’ and it just becomes another meeting place and I was like, ‘Man, that’s great!’ That’s what record stores are for.”

In addition to musicians, record stores can also help you meet people who have a similar music taste to you, Plunkett said. have obscure taste that you just meet in person like, ‘Oh, you need to meet so and so, cause he’s into Brazilian folk music like you are.’” Plunkett said.

Schanke says that record stores are also a good way for smaller artists to distribute their music without the help of a major label.

“I think it’s essential for artists who are kind of starting out. But then again, it’s also essential for majors,” Schanke said. “Major labels will house the records in so many different retail shops. It’s important for the flow of the economy.”

Nevertheless, Schanke still agrees that though shopping for a record in-person is a better experience, online shopping is quicker.

“It’s a little bit of both. There’s days when I don’t have the time, and I wanted to get the Leon Bridges Coming Home record, and I probably would have found it in Waterloo,” Schanke said. “But I was like, ‘I just want this right now. I need to buy it right now.’ And so I just ordered it online.”

Schanke thinks that it’s best for digital and physical shopping to coexist, and that “there’s got to be some way to bridge those gaps too,” since they both have their own unique feelings and benefits.

With music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music becoming more prevalent, vinyl’s practicality and usefulness had been debated by lots of people. Despite this, there has still been a surprising increase in demand for vinyl records lately.

Plunkett says that being in quarantine may have to do with this. People had to spend all their time at home, so they started putting more time into things that they were too busy for before. “They’re just kind of like, ‘Oh, now

“They have this magic, like music in the grooves that just still fascinates me.” - John Brookbank

it’s time. I can explore my collection,’” Plunkett said. “We sold a bunch of stuff via Instagram, so people could see stuff all the time. Like, ‘Oh, that’s a record I don’t have.’”

Collections are one of the main advantages that records and other physical formats have over digital streaming.

“It’s always nice at a gathering, people looking through your record collection, as opposed to showing them a Spotify playlist on your phone, like, ‘Look at this playlist I made,’ as opposed to, ‘Look at my record collection,’” Brookbank said.

Plunkett says that since records are something tangible that you yourself own and have a copy of, you also don’t have to worry about the music being deleted or having to scroll endlessly to find what you’re looking for.

“People can kind of see it as like building a library of books so like, ‘Oh, okay, this is my world,’” Plunkett said. “Where the computer stuff, sometimes it’s just more nebulous, you’re like, ‘I’m not sure what I have.’”

Just like how physical record stores have their own special experience, listening to music on a record also has certain attributes that no other format possesses.

“They have this magic, like music in the grooves that just still fascinates me,” Brookbank said. “Just the fact that a diamond tip needle can go in a little plastic groove and produce music that sounds really good, that sounds a lot better than usually what you can get on streaming services.”

Schanke says that another part of vinyl’s allure is how the format is imperfect and how it has a “warm, fuzzy sound.” “Sometimes we get electronic artists or artists that are expecting their music on vinyl to sound exactly how it sounds on digital, we’re like, ‘That’s just not the way it works. Vinyl isn’t meant to be perfect like that.’”

According to Schanke, Gold Rush Vinyl has noticed through their social media accounts that there has been a lot of interest in records from younger generations.

“We had our marketing intern last year come in and present us the idea of getting on TikTok,” Schanke said. “We’re like, ‘Vinyl on TikTok? That doesn’t make any sense. Who’s gonna watch that?’ She’s like, ‘Well, this company’s putting out videos for paint mixing and there’s millions of likes on videos of paint mixing. We can do this thing.’”

He says that the intern mostly targeted popular fandoms like those of One Direction and Harry Styles. With just a few videos, the company accumulated millions of views.

“These younger generations are obsessed with vinyl,” he said. “We’re like, ‘Wow, we didn’t realize there was that much love for vinyl at the younger ages.’”

Schanke thinks that this may be because younger music listeners are used to consuming music through digital platforms.

“Having something physical is something that’s kind of novelty,” Schanke said. “And we’re starting to see that it’s a resurgence happening right now.”

Though there are many possibilities that could stunt the resurrection of record stores and vinyl records in general, it seems that at least for now, there will continue to be an increase in demand and interest for them. And even if the popularity of vinyl drops, there will still always be a place for it in the music industry. There’s always going to be a group of people that prefer physical forms of stores and entertainment, and since artists get paid more from physical sales, it’s very likely that there will always be new music that will be pressed onto records as well.