(waves crashing) - Many, many people from around the world come here to retire, to live the good life, to be in the sun.

They bring what they own.

Some of the most fascinating examples of what I've seen in record stores is right here.

- I could see that.

(laughs) - It's crazy, it's Bananas.

- It is Bananas.

(upbeat rock music) - Going from the white sand beaches to the gator-filled Everglades, the state of Florida has always been known to contain environmental, cultural and musical multitudes.

On this episode of the "Roadshow," we are southbound, baby.

Let's see what the Sunshine State has to offer.

In our pilgrimage to Florida, we are right now in a store, it is a record store but the way I look at it and from what I've seen, I am in a musical galaxy and this galaxy is called Bananas and I'm sitting here with the second-generation owner of the store, John Allen.

All I can say is this is all very amazing.

- Thank you.

♪ Hey, hey, yeah ♪ (upbeat ensemble music) - [Tom] I understand your parents started it.

It was more at one point books.

- The story is they went to a garage sale and there was a particular record, I think it was a Joan Baez record that my mom wanted.

The person running the garage sale said "You have to either buy all of 'em or none of 'em."

So they bought all of 'em thinking, "Oh, we'll just put the rest in the shop."

Those records sold so much faster than the books and eventually just over that next year or two, the records took over all the books and the rest is history.

- [Tom] Well, this is truly a cathedral for physical music.

It's an art store, art music galaxy and art museum.

As I'm looking back here at this collection of vintage audio equipment, I understand your father is the collector of that.

- Yeah, he's kind of unable to say no to a good deal when he sees it, whether we have the space for it or not.

But it has worked out over the years of amassing this collection and we finally found a way to display it that looks good and it's kind of informative and picturesque.

It's a great backdrop.

It's a conversation piece for everybody.

It's relatively new in the grand scheme of things.

This is our 49th year in business and this is a pretty new thing for us to have a nice museum displayed this way and it's been successful and now, we're getting feedback on people coming in to see just that.

- [Tom] With the stock that you're carrying, what percentage in the store is new as opposed to used?

- [John] Oh, probably about 20% is new.

- [Tom] And you've got sizable amount of new.

- [John] We have a large new section as far as the vinyl is concerned.

Not so much in CDs, but yeah, the new vinyl, it's a large section and our scale is so large, it's hard for me to gauge that sometimes because we have 30,000 square feet of retail space between our three locations.

- [Tom] As far as new sales, what would you say that comes out to as far as say rock, hip hop, jazz, country?

- [John] It's overwhelmingly classic rock still.

We have a pretty decent hip hop community here that we do really well with but the classic rock stuff is where the vast majority of the people that are getting rid of their stuff and the people that are still interested in it, the turnover is still there.

- [Tom] Another music every store I've gone to in Florida has also reflected is heavy metal music.

How are your sales with heavy metal?

- It's good, that's what a lot of people want.

It's still a huge and popular thing.

Tampa, we're in St.

Pete but Tampa has been a metal mecca.

Savatage is from the area, Cannibal Corpse, bands like that are all from this area and they all record at Morrisound Studios in Tampa.

Metal acts from all over the world come to Morrisound.

So this has always been a little mecca of metal music, especially in the 80s and 90s.

(relaxed music) We've always prided ourselves in being a more general store than having a specialty in anything.

We've always bought everything, so we kind of have everything available.

There are sections that don't sell so well but we hold onto 'em because we want to be able to have it when somebody does come in.

- [Tom] Are you doing an appreciable amount of online business these days?

- We do, roughly about 20% of our business is still mail-order.

We do feel the responsibility to have that record community where somebody can come and they can hold it in their hands.

We still make it available.

Even if we're gonna put something on Discogs or eBay or whatever it is, we're gonna still make it available for somebody locally.

If they want to come in and purchase it, they can.

We have a lot of people that come and seem to just hang out all day.

It's good, we're a destination not just to come in, buy your stuff, get out, you know?

People like to come and have those conversations and talk about music all day and we were just talking about a story the other day of a couple that actually met here, got married later and they come in every year on their anniversary and do like a little photoshoot and they celebrate that they actually met at Bananas and they come in every year.

I think it's been four or five years now.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

(upbeat guitar music) I see that you have not one but two locations in Bananas where a performer or band could be playing.

There's one in this room that I'm looking at over the bins but the first thing I noticed when I walked in was you also have another, in a sense, more formal stage.

- [John] We get it all, We get it all, we really do.

- It goes without saying, Bananas has a very impressive collection of the latest LP releases in the world.

But in addition to his over 12,000 square foot enormous retail store, John's family has not one but two warehouses where they keep the bulk of their unbelievably massive vinyl stock.

With over three million EPs, LPs, 45s and shelves upon shelves of vintage hi-fi equipment, Bananas Records has the largest collection of vinyl and stereo equipment in the state of Florida.

It just makes me want to return, book a few days or a week in a hotel and dive into this ocean of sound that goes from rock to soul to The Beatles to Barbara Streisand.

(upbeat classic rock music) John, I want to thank you for bringing me into this music gallery.

I don't even have to hope you have a musical day because I know you're going to have one to the 10th degree.

Nice meeting you.

- Thank you, Tom.

(up tempo guitar music) - It's a beautiful, musical day here at Daddy Kool Records, one of the real sweet spots on the West Coast of Florida for music and music lovers.

Here with my good friend, Mr.

Manny "Kool" Matalon and he is the head honcho and the Director at this wonderful store and it's great being here, my man.

- Good to see you.

- Always good to see you.

I always wanted to come and see your store and I gotta say, this is about as photogenic a shop that I have seen and I've seen some photogenic shops.

One thing that I see when I go to an independent record store, and I don't care where it's from, it could be East Coast, West Coast, North or South, it's never, ever cookie-cutter.

But what it does do is it reflects the community they serve.

- Well, I think what makes our store unique is it's part of my personality, right?

What I wanted to do when I created this store is I wanted to create a place that was like the mall.

I grew up in the malls, a mall rat, so to speak.

So I wanted a place that was inviting and clean but I was also an alternative kid in that sense as well.

So I wanted to carry the alternative styles of music.

So I wanted people who appreciated alternative music as well as popular music to have a place where they could come and I think that's also part of community-building is being welcoming to everybody.

Not trying to be a very segmented or a store that just specializes in one type of thing.

We have a pretty wide selection.

We just try to be a responsible member of our community and give back as well.

- I've never seen a good indie store that didn't do exactly that.

When you have customers come in, how often do you get that real satisfaction feeling when you're looking at somebody looking at a record and it's like you can see in their face that they've discovered the Rubicon?

- I think that those moments are the ones that make you go on to the next day when you're just like, "Why am I doing this?

What's going on?"

Business is hard, working is, you know?

And then you find somebody, you see somebody pick up a record, make some sort of exclamation, show it to their friend, then you re-realize, oh, that's why we're doing this and that's why we're here and I think that's one of the reasons why it's important to carry a wide variety of things because there might be things that I don't really know so much about but somebody else is really, really into it and when they find it, they didn't think that they would find it.

- I would like to know how many times I've told my employees, "Customers will train you and show you things about music that you don't know.

So always listen."

- They're more than willing to talk.

- Very much.

(upbeat guitar music) - All right, so Tom, we just put this book out.

"No Clubs Presents: The First Ten Years, 1985 to 1995."

No Clubs is a concert promotion business, which is our parent company and so they started doing shows in the mid-80s and so this book represents the artwork from those shows, the posters and flyers from those shows.

So many of 'em in the early days, they were all hand-drawn.

It's not like it is nowadays.

But they did so many bands.

Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, The Ramones, The Replacements, you know?

Everybody and anybody, Lady Gaga.

But this book represents the first 10 years.

The shows, the posters, the flyers and great memories.

- [Tom] I think it's a really interesting dynamic that in the land of sun, sunshine and beach locations, some of the darkest rock music has come out of the state of Florida.

- Yes, you've got heavy metal, Morbid Angel, you name it, all the heavy metal bands.

Marilyn Manson as well and we like to just stay indoors (laughs) and create crazy music.

- As a surgeon once said to me when I handed him a CD of the heavy metal band Cradle of Filth, he said, "Am I gonna go to hell if I listen to this thing?"

And yes, Florida is the home base for so much of that music.

- [Manny] Yeah, for sure.

Florida, Tampa and Brandon, Morrisound Recording Studios is the famed recording studio where so many heavy metal records were recorded.

It's pretty amazing that you can have these scenes that just blossom out of nothing pretty much.

- I've always wanted to come to Daddy Kool.

I knew that in St.

Petersburg, you were Manny Kool.

But hey, this has been a great pleasure.

- All mine.

- My man.

(relaxed music) Now the "Roadshow" is on the highway from the West Coast to Orlando.

We're about to enter an absolute sweet spot for music lovers.

So we've come to Orlando, Florida.

We are in the heaven for rock and roll at a shop called Rock and Roll Heaven.

This store has been a mainstay in Central Florida for a long, long time.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.

Freddy Ehmen, who with your brother Raymond, own this kingdom of vinyl.

- Thank you so much for having me.

My brother and I, our family, we were in the military and we grew up in Germany actually and that's when we got hooked on records.

My father ran a nightclub.

We would go there, we would get the 45s, watch the bands, you know?

That's all you could do at that time.

There was no television to watch.

Everything was in German.

So when we moved here, it was a sleepy town also.

We complained there was nothing going on and now it takes you five minutes just to get down the block.

- Heard.

In fact, it took us about 45 minutes to get from the airport.

- That's pretty good timing.

(chuckle) - [Tom] The fact that physical music has made such a rebound, it allows a store such as this to be a real musical fix in its community.

- Well, this store originally opened between '76 and '77 and it was across the street and it was just a very small front and the owner at that time sold nothing but used 45s.

Our friend was selling the store.

He said, "Do you wanna buy it?"

So I said, "Well, I'll do it for a few months, you know?"

And now it's been what, 40, 35 years?

I don't even know.

Yeah, I was gonna be here for three months and it's like my whole life now.

- It's good to have a day job that you enjoy.

- Very much so.

It's really the people that make it though.

We grew up listening to every type of music you could imagine and so that's what we carry.

- [Tom] The name says Rock and Roll but I saw, I'm looking at what looks like a nice electronica section.

I see a fine jazz collection.

You've got soul, you've got easy listening and how would you describe the clientele that you get here in Orlando?

- [Freddy] Very diversified.

We actually get a lot of tourists from all over the world.

We have our locals but like I said, our location from the theme parks, we have a lot of tourists that come in, we're very lucky.

- [Tom] Latin music, is there much of a market here?

- Big market here.

Big Latin population.

Latin records, as soon as I get 'em in the store, they go right back out.

- [Tom] What would you say is the most notable bit of memorabilia in the store?

- Probably the bathroom.

- As far as the signatures?

- Yeah.

When I lived in New York and I went back and I'd go to CBGB's and their bathroom is completely autographed.

So I said, "Why don't not do it here?"

- Stores open and close but the ones that really have the determination and soul to be a beating musical heart in their communities, they stay on.

- We really try.

This past year was really tough but things are looking up.

What you guys are doing is fantastic.

Keep it up, please.

- Love the music.

- You guys are fantastic.

Thank you so much for coming.

- Appreciate it.

And I'm gonna send you the U-Roy record.

- Just send me money.

(upbeat music) (classic rock music) (classic rock music continues) - Overcast day here in South Florida in Hollywood, Florida.

I'm sitting here with an old friend of mine named Mikey Ramirez and Mikey, lay it on me.

Tell me about Technique.

- Well, Technique Records, I founded it in 2017.

This was after I left Radioactive Records in Fort Lauderdale and we started actually across the street from where we're located right now in about a four to 500 square foot facility.

That lasted for about a year and a half and things were going well and then one day out of the blue, the gentleman who has this building, this building that we're in right now was vacant for about 18 months.

We reopened, things were great and then three months later, COVID hit.

- But you survived and you survived in a part of America that is such a crossroads of different cultures, different peoples, different music traditions.

- [Mikey] It is, and obviously I feel some lineage, being from New Orleans.

It reminds me obviously of the melting pot that you have.

You assimilate different cultures, you assimilate different aspects of the environment and the people that you're around, the music that you're around.

My mom and dad had a club in New Orleans.

So I was around music all the time.

- Talk to us about the different genres and the way you market them.

You've got the rock and pop, you've got a metal section, you've got disco, Florida of course being one of the birthplaces of disco.

- I think without using the term "market research," you do what you do and then obviously you figure out as you bob and weave through the landscape what makes sense, what moves, what doesn't move.

Obviously when you open, you want to flex as much as you can and say, "Hey, we have this and we have this and this sub genre," et cetera, et cetera.

But once you get established, then you start to realize and see what the clientele actually is and what they want and then obviously you need to hear the feedback from the crew because the crew is a part of what makes this place what it is.

So it's always good just to keep your ears open and don't just draw up the wall and say, "Okay, that's all we're gonna carry."

You have to grow with the business as well.

- And having a staff that, like I said, has that musical connection and telepathy with the customer is so crucial.

It's something that you don't see when you go into big box corporate stores because their employees may be gone after three weeks.

Whereas in a store like yours, somebody comes in off the street who's been here before, they're gonna look and see, "Oh good, he's here, she's here."

- Yeah.

- "I need to check them."

- [Mikey] Right.

- [Tom] And that's just to me part of the magic that a store like this establishes with its customer base and its community.

- For the most part, I'm proud and I'm very thankful that people have supported us along the way and that the clientele keeps growing and the business keeps growing and the fact that the employees also grow with the business as well.

They're part of this business.

As we grow, you're part of this, you know?

It's not just a body at a register, you know?

And as I get a little older into different things with aspects of the business, they're the front line.

They're the ones that obviously engage with the customers first, you know?

And I like seeing that, it's almost like passing a torch.

But at the same time, they have a voice.

(upbeat classic rock music) - [Tom] So I hear you got a big collection come in or you're gonna go see a big collection?

- [Mikey] Yeah, we just purchased a big collection up North from the producer Junior Sanchez.

Yeah, it was great and most importantly, we're able to get those records a second life obviously to other people that appreciate everything this guy had in his collection, including his own productions and made a friend.

- [Tom] One thing about music so often is the case, what's old is new.

- That's very true.

That's very true.

That's the thing, in the past, we would hear people either say, "Oh, you must know everything" or people saying, "Well, I think I know everything."

And in reality, it's impossible.

I get turned onto new stuff every day, whether it's from someone that's older than me or younger than me and that could be music that is now or 50 years ago.

So you're always continuously learning and it's important for that, you know?

You never wanna shut off the cutoff point.

"Well, I've heard it all."

It's like you've heard a fraction, you barely have heard 1%.

That's essentially the reason why these shops exist.

You're not gonna get that experience walking into a Best Buy.

You don't have that one-to-one relationship, you know?

You don't have that personable relationship.

- What is it that you want to do with Technique Records to make it a one-of-a-kind store?

- I think you start obviously with the people that make up the store.

Everyone's unique, everyone has their own personality.

The last thing I'd want to do is have a bunch of me working for me.

That's a disaster waiting to happen.

I want people who are different but similar and also at the same time, they're able to express themselves with their music, with what they choose to bring in the shop and say the decor, the perimeter.

It's obviously an expression of myself but it's also an expression of what the employees are into as well because we're all somewhat into the same similar things.

If you look around here, you're gonna see anything from autographed Madonna records on the wall to Skinny Puppy records to posters for The Female Butcher and Susperia, you know?

So it's just a piece of history.

What was important for me, especially after seeing that Wax Trax!

documentary about the famous record store and the record label was seeing how tight-knitted that store was within their community, within the people that made that community.

That to me is everything.

I aspire to be a store like that.

- To that community, a store like this is not an organization, it's an organism in the community.

- And it's living and breathing, yeah.

- Living and breathing.

(up tempo drumbeat) Are you ready for the big question?

What was your first record?

What was your first record?

What was your first record?

- My first records were from my grandmother.

She bought me my Kiss records.

- It was a Genesis record called "A Trick of the Tail."

- A 45 by Herman's Hermits.

One side was "Leaning on a Lamp," the other side was "Henry VIII" and now they say that that song, "Henry VIII," was the first punk rock song ever.

- Difficult question for me to answer because growing up in a record store, I probably have no memory of what my actual first record was but the most influential one that I can say was Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream."

- [Tom] We've really been musically overwhelmed by the millions of records we've seen.

Our vinyl cup has runneth over in the state of FLA.

- Hi, my name's Brandon and the first vinyl I ever bought was "Once Upon a Time" by Donna Summer.

- So my name is BJ Carson and my first record that I bought with my own money was the Walt Disney soundtrack to "Robin Hood."

- The first CD I ever bought was Misfits' "Collection" album.

- Hi, my name is Mason Chambliss.

The very first record I bought was The Who's "Face Dances."

- And my first LP would've been Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP."

(giggles)