The reason I decided to open up a record store was the day I wanted to be in the music business on my own terms and be, to be quite honest, at that point I didn't know of anybody to give me a job.

I ever bought was an album by Bob Marley.

My first vinyl record was Violent Femmes, self-titled blister in the sun.

The first album I bought was in 1984, and it would have been Pink Floyd The Wall.

The first album I ever got was Cher's Gypsy Friends is the first album I bought with my own money.

I used to tell people that it was Nirvana, never mind, because that was cool, but it was actually Vanilla Ice to the extreme.

You know, indie record stores have a long time tradition of featuring not only the music of their community, but also national and international bands looking to meet and greet their fans while performing in the cities and towns as they tour.

Of course, the Saint Louis music scene has always been about more than rock and roll.

I recall in 2008, the unique Rum Drum Ramblers had our stores best selling new title of the year.

Now, I first met singe songwriter guitarist Matt Wilson when he was a 16 year old punk rock enthusiast sporting a neon blue mohawk.

Over the years, he became a deep dish blues ragtime performer versed in Americana roots, history and writing the kind of jiving party music you might have heard in a Sain Louis tavern way back in 1933.

These days, he's a full time employee of Vintage Vinyl.

He's still active on the Saint Louis music scene, continuing to create real music for real musicians.

The thoughtful contemporary artist Black FlexPay, has been producing the sort of music I associate with the highest level of creative pick on his latest project, black Spade in the cosmos, reflects such influences as Lonnie Liston Smith, Roy Ayers and that genre bending artists Sun Ra Wind premiering his 2024 LP, he said to his fans, I'm grateful for this full circle moment.

My dad used to take me here when he was buying records.

Having his full band fill the store with fans was a special moment indeed.

From the beginning year of the 20th century, right up to now, Saint Louis has been one of the 3 or 4 major blues capitals in the world.

Currently, there's a vibrant scene of young blues artists that are ready to achieve national and international recognition.

Dylan Triplett, known on stage as Little Dylan, has a stage presence of youthful authority in the body of a teenager.

He's not the only one, he was saying to me, I to, I'll tell you all I know.

I know a little bit.

Oh, I'm so, so showing.

Or would it be fair to say that, growing up in Saint Louis had an effect and allowed you to hear this musi in ways that you might not have heard it?

Oh, you know, I would.

I would most definitely say that.

I would most definitely agre with that because I mean, like, it's it's just so the blues is so heavy and so deep here, you know.

And I didn't know how intense it was until after I got in there myself.

You know, I would most definitely say that that's that's a that's a huge component.

What do you think of when you, when you think of, that's a great blues singer.

Oh, he has a way or he has a way with a lyric.

There is a there i a, there is a lot of people that that come to mind when I think about that.

People like, little Milton and people like Johnnie Taylor and, Bobby Blue Bland.

And, you know, there's a countless list of people that I can name.

I mean, like people from Saint Louis, Skeet Rogers, you know, people like, Marquis Knox, you know, I mean, yeah, just, I mean, all the heavy hitters.

In the 1970s, Saint Louis produced two bands with national releases, Pavlov's Dog as well as Mama's Pride.

From the 1980s onward.

Rock bands and Saint Louis have always reflected the changes in mood and style in the world of that music.

One of the enduring names o the punk scene here in our city is Bunny Grant, led by guitarist and music archivist Matt Harnish.

Introduce yourself.

I'm ready.

Hi, I'm Karen and hi, I'm Matt, I'm Karen, Karen and Matt.

This is Bunny Grant.

Yeah.

Bunny Grant started in 1993.

I started working here in, 1996.

And, we've always been really related to the store that's, first store that carried our records and sold a whole lot of them.

Oh, they have a record out.

Whoa!

Hey, they have a record out.

Where's what record?

Where is it?

You can get it a vintage vinyl.

Once we started working here, I started working here.

And a bandmate Karen, worked here for a while, and it's always really friendly to letting us go on tour, because we toured a lot in the 90s and early 2000.

So as I understand it, you're big in Japan.

I would call us medium sized in a lot of places.

We signed a lot of autographs somewhere over there.

A song you did ended up being in the soundtrack and, of, Billy Bob Thornton, holiday classic.

That's Santa.

It was a random chance that put us there, but we're in the right place somehow for the right person to hear our song, and that's where it ended up.

And the checks still come very small ones, but occasionally they say, listen, I buy vintage vinyl provides a welcome to the city and a platform to promote and marke a band's shows and music, often when no one else in town is willing to do so.

I'm not a fan of chicken, and I love that.

It must be great.

I love Black Eyed peas and I'm not a big fan.

Go on.

To you.

But you've been in the game a long time, and you really are one of these musicians that built brick by brick you're following in career.

I can only assume that, along the way, the independent record stores that were in each little town there was a nice that always be a nice corner for you.

And a welcoming corner is huge.

I mean, without it, forget it.

Oh.

I was introduced to Vintage Trouble by Saint Louis club owner.

It was the beginning of a long term friendship that extended beyond our city to me.

So when one of the most popular bands in the UK who happened to be from Lo Angeles, invite you to perform, it would be silly and self-defeating not to.

Give me bring out a friend right now.

So I'm going to bring on our friend from Saint Louis corporate.

I said, oh, I'm here to get back to the moves in my back.

And right.

Oh, baby.

Oh, brother, take me in.

Oh, you know.

independent record stores, which feels really good about anything independent besides it being record stores.

It's just that it feels more personal and it feels like the, the choices, the curating of the music feels a little more specific rather than just the general.

You know what everyone's buying.

I think my record stores, it seems like they have a responsibility and letting people know, and which is really nice.

And they see that really well.

They let people know about artists that they might find about find out about other bands.

And that's really cool because, you know, now people get confused about the fact that there's not a lot of great music, and a lot of people just aren' digging hard enough to find it.

And independent record stores seem to really do that.

So if I could talk about one besides pop, every store, of course is going to be one in Hollywood, and it's called the Record Parlor, you know, and I prefer the record parlor to even amoeba, which is like, you know, the Kingdom of Records, because Record Parlor is really, you got you don't have to dig to find things that are goin to open you up to something new.

It's just all right there, because the choices are meant to do that.

Saint Louis, unlike New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, there are still untapped records to be found inside.

You'll find everything from a comic artists like the Stones and LED Zeppelin to UK favorites like The Good, The Bad and the Queen and the hit Australian group Rufus just sold.

The store is, much like its patrons, very eclectic.

One of the first things I tell any record collector is I used to work at a used shop for ten years.

Inevitably, if they ask me, oh, what shop?

Where was it?

I say, oh, it's vintage vinyl in Saint Louis.

Their eyes open and they know vintage vinyl.

I remember, being delighted to see, the Black Crowes in here.

The red Hot Chili Peppers.

I remember working when Radiohead came in to go record shopping, when the Beastie Boys came in to go record shopping, and they impressed me by the fact that they were in the jazz department, the three of the with no entourage, no attitude.

I think they bough about $300 of Lee Perry records.

I remember driving Stereo Lab aroun Saint Louis to the record shops, because Tim Gane is a huge vinyl collector, and Ti spending a couple hundred bucks if you're in the Midwest or if you're in if you're in Missouri or Illinois on tour or looking for records, you stuff like vintage vinyl because they have they have stuff.

They get a lot of records coming in and a lot of music coming in.

And so there's a big turnover.

And there were a lot of records in Saint Louis, and they're still there.

There's a lot of what I would call the changing same my hip hop customer, or for that matter my punk music customer from 1990 will come in now with their kids and, you know, their kids roll their eyes when, the dad says something like, oh, you know, well, there's this rap music today.

It's not as goo as when we were kids, Papa Ray.

So, you know, I mean, certain things are, cyclical.

It'll be fine.

Anything, It was kind of.

I wasn't around.

Well, enjoy the sensory overload.

Yeah, that's.

That's the thing.

And it's, you know, but it's also got find the powers, though.

Oh, come and and hell for 899.

That's cheaper than a T-shirt from Taiwan.

Vinyl never went away.

And we never quit selling vinyl.

And there was never a point where vinyl wasn't being made.

It just wasn't being made for flavor of the week.

Musi and flavor of the week.

Artist.

The major record companies tried to kill vinyl 3040 years ago, and they had been trying and trying to do it, and they have never succeeded.

But you know, vinyl sticking around for, you know, a lot of reasons.

I think CDs, you know, they get scratched up, you know, vinyl does too.

But it's like you would hold on to vinyl more.

It's like like a work of art.

If you go into that big box store nowadays that, you know, is selling, computers and, refrigerators, that music departments got real, real small.

But those kind of places never really hire peopl that know anything about music.

And you can't blame the employees there.

Music is never an afterthought, and vintage vinyl or another independent record store assumed wisdom is often proven wrong.

Everybody assumed that vinyl was an outdated medium for music lovers and a long, long, long time ago when a lot of vinyl records probably about close to ten years outside a result.

Yeah, nobody nobody buys.

It's no wonder Scott Moore isn't alone.

The new technology in cassettes and CDs have taken vinyl records out of the stores.

Most record labels, such as CBS, don' even make vinyl records anymore.

All your stars are heard on cassette and CD, and hit record stores such as turtles.

Well, we couldn't find a vinyl recording in the entire place.

That was the wisdom in the 1990s.

But what goes around comes around, sometimes with a vengeance.

Remember when compact discs or CDs put the vinyl industry out of business?

Well, now vinyl is getting revenge.

More and more stores are dropping CDs and bringing back records.

Albums are making a bit of a comeback, and it's bringing the older and younger generations together.

And where else?

The record store four tracks, eight tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, downloads it all comes and goes, but the record stayed.

2.8 millio vinyl records were sold in 2010.

The fastest growing music format that year, 2010, was the best year since sale were officially tracked in 1991.

2019 was actually trackin to be the first year since 1986 that vinyl albums outsold CDs.

I'd say today it's about 90% vinyl, 10% CDs.

It's their chance to get musi that isn't their parents music.

So you can get the new Lizzo record or something that's very popular nowadays, and it can be your own and you can start your own collection now.

Hi, I'm Tyler, and the first CD I ever purchased myself is Spirit Phone by Lemon D. My first album vinyl record purchase was Tori Moi with their record Anything In Return came out in 2013, I believe, if not 2012.

So one of my favorites.

Whenever I deejay live, peopl love to pick it when I ask them to pick something from my box.

So, I'm still spinning it and, still loving touring was an artist.

My first CD I ever bought was, The Offspring conspiracy of One.

The resurrection of the vinyl LP became very obvious with the creation of Record Store Day, a collective raising of the flag by the indie stores around the world who never stopped selling LPs.

Now, every year on a Saturday and April vinyl fans and collectors are going to line up outside independent record stores.

All around the world for Record Store Day.

The idea was born in 2007 as a way to celebrat the culture and positive dynamic of independent record stores throughout the world.

Musicians, record labels and retail coalitions came together to make this a special event.

Hey, this is my pretty Pearl jam and I am here on Record Store Day.

Thank you for coming down.

Our first guest DJ from the pageant, Andrew Young, is giving the hot hand.

Please.

Thank you all for the invitation and happy Record Store Day 2019 everybody.

Oh no.

People start camping in front of the door at about midnight Friday.

Okay, so we're about 10:00 today before the morning.

I got 24 hours here.

It didn't say that morning.

So I hear you guys will be well.

I'm so excited that I'm 21.

I actually go to.

Yes yes, yes.

Wow.

We go yay, yay.

Record Store Day has become a rallying cry and an opportunity for music stores, artists and fans around the worl to raise the flag and celebrate.

Soon.

Recording artists and labels were creating limited editions of releases only available at indie stores on that day.

I mean, plus, the best piece that I was searching for.

Herbie Hancock dedication.

That was the one I was looking for the most.

And I was like, it's enough to get the last on at the head on the shelf today.

So the rest of the stuff is just stuff that I wanted to get, but this stuff that I had to get.

So this is when I was in search for, So I'm excited.

I saw the Pearl jam is the Record Store Day ambassadors and I really wanted to get there live an easy street.

And then I also saw that the Crowe soundtrack was out on vinyl for the first time.

I really wanted that, and just really excited to see the Pearl jam was so involved with it this year.

The family is here, s that's a little brother, David.

And then there's three brothers who are missing.

But my dad, he's like the OG of the family music hobby he's waiting in line fo like the really exclusive stuff.

And so I came here and, it really blew my mind that the stuff was actually available in Saint Louis.

So I was coming ever since.

And I've been to record stores all over the country, and I blow mone in, like, like an idiot on them.

And I always come back here, so that's how it is.

You spent $400 and I did not mean to.

This is his illustration, right?

There is Vintage vinyls 2019 limited release.

Show him the unique personality of our store.

And you know we're not alone.

I recall being at a record industry meeting with other independent store owners and our special guests for lunch one day was Bootsy Collins.

He looked at us and said, your stores carry the music, your stores carry the culture of the music of people such as me, that big box retail store.

They don't know about Bootsy Collins.

So it's so important that you stay in business.

And I'm asking you, I'm begging you for the sake of the music and the communities you serve.

Please keep going.

So let's mak it a mission to share the unique tales of independent stores all over the world.

What about Jamaica?

Amsterdam, down in Texas, i Houston town, maybe in Memphis.

And let's go to Chicago, New York City.

Mercy.

My first albu that I ever purchased with lawn mowing money in 1988 was Easy Aim.

The album Easy Does It, which we as kids secretl listen to in my buddy's bedroom on volume number setting number one so the parents couldn't hear it, which is going great until my buddy's dad broke in, heard it, turned it up.

Listen to the language in the album, and immediately yanked it out of the cassette player and snapped it over his knee and walked out.

Eazy-E 1988.

And the very first album I bought was Sly and the family Stones Greatest Hits.

Because I'm a big, huge, Sly Stone fan.

Guy was a genius an one of the progenitors of funk.

That's why I bought it.

My first album was Sean Cassidy.

The first record I got for myself was a Prince album, Purple Rain.

My first album I ever bought with Michael Jackson's Bad.

My uncle had a copy of it on his turntable for the longest time, and I always used to pick it up and look at it.

And then we went to venture.

That used to be in Kirkwood, no longer there.

And I picked up a copy for myself.

My first album was Meet the Beatles, and I remember my grandfather hated the Beatles.

He thought they were just, you know, some they weren't Frank Sinatra, so they were no good.

So I was always trying to find the slow song on Meet the Beatles that he might like but he never liked any of them.

The first albu I purchased was Meet Miley Cyrus My Name Is Rick.

My first album was Bon Jovi, Slippery Wet Wet, I'm Jerry Ruth, and the first album I bought is Black Space in the cosmos.

Oh, Joy with love.

This is a great album from Saint Louis Leslie The Brotherhood Temple, and as you can hear, beautiful sounds and noise through Train Station.

Love the album love Saint Louis, black Space in the cosmos.

Whenever I'm being used, I always like to have a strong light available.

So that I can look at the groove we have about, probably a 100 watt bulb here.

And it's got a reflector.

It's right where I can pul the record out and take a look.

Now, this is about as close to virgin vinyl as you can get on an open record.

Virginal vinyl, untouched vinyl, unsullied vinyl.

So happens to be an album.

I miss Barbra Streisand.

It's called Superman.

It has the, lyric sheet in it.

It has the inner picture sleeve, and it's an absolutely mint condition, which all records that came to me were this clean, very very early release by the O'Jays long before they were discovered by Gamble and Huff and went on to their fame in the 70s.

Got a real clean copy on the minute label 999, as they would say in Jamaica music like dirt.

What I love about this, of course, is the fact that you have the, three dimensional whee that turns and shows the faces, I'm sure for those people using control substances in the late 60s, this was very exciting.

While listening to the record fi self-titled launched A thousand acid trips.

People always ask me, what are the albums that go for the most money?

Well, a lot of times the albums that go for the most money are, of course the rarest albums, which means those are the albums.

Nobody, for the most part, has heard of or is familiar with.

My first record was actually the Harlem Globetrotters 45 that they had.

I forget the name of the song, but it was their little theme song.

I'm Living Right Next Door to an Angel by Neil Sedaka.

Punisher by Bobby Keys first record I ever bought was Queens White.

Albums that had BohemianRhapsody on it blew my mind that I bought Yes, let's just say that.

Yeah.

So my first album was Elton John, Captai Fantastic and Brown Hair Cowboy.