All right.

My name is Dylan McCormack.

The first record that I remember in depth is the Kiss Destroyer album.

I got that signed by Gene Simmons himself at the Wizard Con Comic Con here in Saint Louis at the America Center.

Hi, my name is Kennedy and the first LP I ever got was Diamond Life by Shorty.

Hi, my name is Julian and the first record I ever owned was A Christmas Gift.

It was Greta Van Fleet from the fires, but the first record I actually bought with my own money was the Sickness by Disturbed Our road show visit stores that stock far deeper catalog and titles than those mall store chains you saw back in the days.

You know, the ones that carried the hits and nothing but the hits.

Today you see indie stores that stocked different genres as well as older title to go with the newest releases.

However, there are certain stores that focus and specializ on the very exact zone of music to the exclusion of everything else.

They're not looking to give you the latest hits, but are offering select title you'll never find anywhere else.

Often a one man operation in an urban setting, this edition of the road sho is about checking out the house that's never been told, and what I call the culture of specialty shops Let it be said tha in the great city of Portland, there are many musica realities, many musical tribes, and many, many do it yourself businesses, such as the one we're standing in right now.

Gentlemen,here is by the name of Keith We are the Black Water Store, which has a musical direction that is definitely not about top 40 music or whatever.

It is the flavor of the week.

Keith.

Wonderful to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

And, the store has been here.

You were saying 25 years but no, Blackwater's been around for 25 years.

This store's pushing around 15.

And this location before that.

We were across town for a few years.

So started out as, a record distribution record label and then started, brick and mortar after a while.

This is the second location of this of the record store, and we're in the proces of actually moving to a new spot right now.

That should be up at the end of this month.

So it would be simplistic to say that this is a heavy metal record shop, because what I see in this space is what I would call heavy metal from ancient to the future.

Chapter ten.

Yeah.

I mean, it's I think it's I would, I would say it's more punk than metal, but we, I think we're about 5050 right now.

But it started off as more like a punk punk record shop.

We do hardcore metal, industrial, goth, like all sorts of the whatever subgenres, underground stuff that, you know, for many, many, many years, I've always believed that, if you go to a city, you want to find out about the music scene or if there's a particular music scene, you know, maybe be going on there, but you don't know a soul.

Go to the record store that exemplifies that music and you'll get an immediate introduction.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, like like like we were talking earlier.

What we do is, I mean, the record store is kind of on the public face of this part of it.

You know, we have recording studios rehearsal spaces, art studios.

There's screen printers here down the street.

We have the, restaurant and bar music venue.

It's the all ages music venue do mostly the same type o shows, like underground shows, a lot of local stuff.

If I can delve into your past, what was your first record?

Oh, that.

All right?

I have no idea.

I can't even it's lost in the midst of the past.

Yeah, there's.

I mean.

Oh, wow.

I would say, like.

Like really?

Something like, like like Black Flag or discharge or or like like those older punk, like LA and UK punk was like what I first got into as a kid.

My, my older sister like, giving me some cassettes and just kind of going from there or like, yeah, Wolf, that's a was a long time ago.

The store is packed with music in the racks on the walls hanging from the ceiling, and it is a physically small store.

But man, this has more of this music than maybe 30 or 40 sort of mainstream record stores.

Yeah.

I mean, there's we've we've kind of gone through the, the waves of like, vinyl hypes, you know, through the last 20 years and we just kind of stick to what we're doing and just.

Yeah, we don't we don't really feel the effects of, like, like, large company, like reissuing every rock record or every every pop record.

We just keep doing what we're doing.

Like a lot of that stuff we do, we have relationships.

Relationships with the bands and the labels and those kind of thing.

So yeah, that's always kind of going to be there for us, though.

We're always going to have our our model.

Yeah.

The respect I have for, the metal community in Saint Louis is of any, customer of a particular genre.

I don't care what the music is.

They are devoted to the physical entity.

So after we brought in the 5400 metal CDs that entire summer, I was seeing happy guys with shoulder length hair, black t shirts, black shorts, black sneakers, walking out with armloads of CDs, and 25% of the collection had been autographed.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we got a we got a guy recently, who dropped off a credit card, a CD his son had passed, and a lot of his.

There's a lot of autographs.

There's a lot of ticket stubs that were put in the back of the CD is is actually kind of kind of nice to, like, look through that and realize that that person had this, like these tangible connections to these records and saved the steps of the the shows that he went to.

It's like pretty cool stuff.

But yeah.

So for in stores, we like I said, we have the we have the venue, which is just down the street.

And next month we'll have, we'll go back to having the record store, music venue, restaurant and bar all in one location again.

So I mean, you could call it in stores, but what we used to do here is we just have book shows and the record stores open but it's a separate venue space.

So right now our capacity is like 100.

The new space, the gaps like 250 plus.

So it's a proper venue and there's the record store is about three times the size of the new space.

So our very first store was about twice the size of the store.

So, so maybe in 1987 we had gone play in the store, but because our store was so small and so that, we cleared out the space behind the buying counter and I was able to watch gone perform with our array with the, you know, our one register on their side and people packed in through the, through the aisles.

Yeah.

We've I mean, we've had bands, but so before this location, we were across town on 20th and Morrison also recording studio and rehearsal space.

The record store is about half the size, but there was like a garage in the back.

So we convert.

We put a little stage there, convert converted into a show space so you could walk through the record store into this shelf space and then, I mean, I guess that was what we would consider in stores back then.

And the moment I walked in here, I really felt this is the nerve center of the music community that they serve.

And I really thank you.

I appreciate it.

Love and music.

Thanks.

My name is Aiden.

The first CD I ever bought was a Red Hot Chili Pepper CD is actually a few months ago.

Hi, I'm Max, and the first album that I ever bought.

Well, at least one of them was, Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones.

Hi, my name is Jack.

First album I ever bought LP was, Vince Guaraldi.

Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.

Hi, my name is Alex, and, the first album I ever bought with my own money was, Velvet Revolver, his first album.

So the direction and focu of an independent record store with one or maybe two genres that they specialize in, way that naturally reflects the taste of the owner.

And no better example of a shop doing this in two different musical styles, completely different.

Hey, that has to be Seattle Zion Gate, who gives you both heavy metal and reggae.

And from what I've heard, owner Steven Benbrook is looking to expand beyond those two sounds.

Now, speaking of a specialty store with its own specialty label, Rock list star Jack white has developed both in his musical career and that includes his own vinyl pressing, plant, as a part of his Third Man Empire.

Beginning in Detroit in the year 2001.

The Third Man label now has 800 plus releases, running from obscure acts they deem worthy to contributions by the likes of Jay-Z to Billie Eilish.

By 2009, his record store in Nashville opened its doors as both a retail and company offices.

Mr.

white, master of the means of musical production, offering sounds that run from both a bygone era to this moment.

Right now.

There are many, many, many stores here in Seattle, and there's many chapters of music, and there are many different paths.

But right now we are at a specialty store called Selector and I am here with Mr.

Sherman.

Crawford, who is the, impresario.

And I have a feeling this gentleman is, the Godfather in this town for EDM music, electric dance music.

Pleasure to meet you on this afternoon.

Likewise.

Pleasure to meet you.

I am not the Godfather, but I've been around for a long time.

Since, which you were a made man.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So you were telling me that, as a child, you were taking break dancing lessons?

Yeah.

So in third grade, my mom signed me up for four break dance lessons at Ballard High Schoo and just kind of dropped me off and, got me a, break dance compilation cassette.

That was my first tape.

And, from from there on, I just started buying my own tapes.

My older brother was a huge influenc because he had a lot of tapes.

He actually had eight tracks also.

And, and records.

So I spent a lot of time just listening to his stuff.

And, and then fifth and sixt grade is when I started really.

That's when I started skateboarding and got really into punk rock.

And then I would say when, Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill came out when I was in sixth grade, that really that really kicked open a lot of doors musically for I mean, it's just it was such a great album and I just.

Yeah, but I bought a lot of tapes and then CDs, of course.

But when I was 17 i when things really took a turn.

That's when that was 1992.

And I went to a rave for the first time and was completely blown away.

Just the energy, the music, the vibe, the the the crowd was just completely, you know, it was kind of life changing.

And, once I noticed they were playing records, I was like, I want to find some records like that.

And.

And I have, So you found your affinity for both beats and the clean bass?

Yeah.

Yeah, although I do, I do like some kind of, like, saturated, you know, crunchy types of beats.

You know, I'd have to probably play something for you to to have you understand what I'm talking about.

That, definitely love for bass in Seattle and probably a lot of cities it's can be a little segregated.

Unfortunately, like early on in the early 90s, I remember you go to a rave and everybody was dancing to the same thing.

It was, you know, one room, one vibe.

And it was they were playing all kinds of stuff.

And then it started to splinter off with, like, you know, the ambient room and then like the drum and bass room and, it's it is kind of splintered, but definitely the West Coast.

There's a lot of people into underground dance music.

Well, I want you to note several of the, record store owners here who are doing, like, full service records, you know, carrying everything.

Nonetheless you got to go check selections because they knew we were wanting to find the stores that have a unique footprint in their community.

Is there another store in this town that, approaches the sort of, territory you were in?

There is and there's there's been a there's been a lot of dance music focused record stores over the years.

Currently, there's a shop called Wall of Sound that has a lot of electronic stuff there, a little bit more, album focused and more experimental, where I'm more like 12 inch focused, singles.

Definitely like DJ focused here.

And actually a new shop is opening up.

I haven't been there yet because the literally just opened a couple days ago, called Absorb Records.

Down in Helman City.

Love the name.

Yeah, yeah.

I haven't been there.

Haven't met him.

We chatted on Instagram, just a couple days ago.

Most people are playing digital these days.

It's, that that kind of took over around 2005 ish.

And vinyl definitel had kind of a death back then.

And I mean, as soon as people, you know, could start putting crates of records on a thumb drive.

Well, you know, the hip hop deejays who use Serato, but they don't download something they found online.

But they're, you know, doing in real time.

Their vinyl collectio sounds great, sounds wonderful.

So there's always going to be changes in, in club music.

Have you ever felt like the music was passing you by or if you always felt like this feels good, this is where it should be going underground dance music.

It's really hard to keep up with all of the new subgenres that are.

There's a lot of like mish mash of different sounds, and people will come in her all the time and be like, do you have any blog house?

And I'm like, what?

And I and I figured out what it was.

It's actually, it's a style of house and techno, like tech house that in the early 2000s back on the internet when there was blogs, a lot of this music was, being like, ripped and made available to download on these, like, blogspot websites.

And it just had this certain sound and, that like, that's a term I just discovered in the last six months.

But like, I don't really fee like the music is passing me by.

It's more like the terminology.

It's like, that's tough to keep up with.

You know, our Facebook question that we have on this show probably ask literally 2000 people, what was your well you told us your first cassette.

Well, the the first record I ever got was bought for me by my mom.

And I still have it.

And it's funny because it's, Duran Duran The Reflex.

But the 12 inch single, well, I love the name of the store selector.

And you and I wer talking about, when both of us first heard that term.

Because in the Jamaican dancehall scene, soundsystem scene deejay was often called The Selector.

And, what a perfect name for sure.

Such as yours.

I agree, and I think there is a selector in the UK, which I kind of discovered afterwards after I settled on the name, but they're in the UK.

It's across the Atlantic.

Yeah, across the pond.

Thank you, thank you.

Hi.

I'm Lexie Peters, I'm from O'Fallon, Missouri.

My first LP was won by Harry styles.

His debut album.

Hi, my name is Kelly.

And my first record that I ever bought, believe it or not, was a Tom Jones live back in the 60s.

Hi, my name is Mike and the first LP I remember buying was endless Summer by the Beach Boys.

Now there's a lot of record stores.

They call themselves Alternative alternative.

This alternative country, alternative rock.

You're.

I am in New Orleans at the alternative alternative record store because this is the one place I know, in the United States where the music is almos entirely from some place else.

My name is Sore is Domino Sounds, and I am here with the proprietor.

Matt.

Knowles And I know you're having a musical bake.

I am an up and musical player.

Yeah.

So American music is really popular in the world, of course, but so many American have so little exposure contact.

So the rest of the planet's music.

Was that part of your, inspiration?

Open up Domino's, Sam.

Oh, absolutely.

From being a DJ who couldn't find records from Africa, Jamaica, the stuff that I was who was into their car definitely was at least part of, like, the slave.

And you're here very close to where, the, Jazz Fest was held every year.

And, we were operating in summer hours, which is, you know, you kind of cutting the hours down there in the summer.

My editors health first, Alfred health first, and also, you're about to go to New York City in, the first part of all this to deejay your sound system.

What do you call the sound?

Was the sound dominoes?

Domino.

It sounds.

So the everybody who chips in here works here.

All five of us.

We deejay together once a month on the with the nights club jumbo dominoes in the youth of, the youth of the staff decided that we.

Take that up to New York for a few days.

So we're going to do a big green next thing.

You, neo, I have no doubt you're going to have a very appreciative audience for what we do.

So the first time I walk in here, I go, wow, it's all vinyl except for cassette.

And of course, set of making a bit of a revival as a, format.

But in the world at large, cassettes never really went away, especially for so many, nations.

And yeah, prior to the hype, before the iPhone, before the iPhone cassettes were about would break.

Great.

All.

Yeah.

I remember one time, standing in line to go see King Sunny Day, the great Nigerian artist.

And in front of me was one of my customers from Nigeria.

And he turned around and when he saw me, you got a big grin on his face and said, this will be the one time you will not hear Nigerians arguing.

And one of the, aspects of so much African new about here is what I call this spirit of conciliation and this sort of, you know, desire to, bring people together.

You know, it's not a music of alienation.

No, no.

Yeah, I can make sound next time I see the African banding, the big speakers, and they carry on that guitar line over and over and over and over and over, and I can feel the swirl of the stitches and all that.

Cuba, where you're definitely one of the record stores that I've seen that not only sewer, you know, serve your community, but you have a record label, is something that, my cousin singles and something I know a lot.

And then the record stores view, it's just something eventually where to get to that.

This is great music.

It's not out.

It's not available.

I want to make it available.

You know, I take it that was the same inspiration for you.

Yeah.

You want to spread the joy.

Did that record yet and then say, if it's not spreadable, Joy's bound.

Well, it's time to finish a projec and finally get them out.

You.

How many records have you done on?

Probably about 10 to 12 of everything from, you know, Bobby Rush to, the roots radicals.

And I know, but you specialize in Africa.

I mean, yeah, the label has more than for mostly getting half of the music.

I'm going to African Music Street, I'm sure.

You know, I've done a lot of a lot of cool projects with Mississippi Records and throwing various, even dear family and, we get Ice Cube for Cape 1012 in 60, 70, 17 records, 17 years.

Yeah, it really is a win.

One year.

It's been a year of it.

And it's always a labor of lov that it's always something that doesn't happen instantly.

It takes time.

You've got to not only be able to get the music recorded or license through music or talk the artist into doing it with you and to trust you to do it right in the book.

Then there's the design, the sending it to the pressing plant.

The whole process can take a year or more.

Yeah, if it's not your main job, if it's nothing, you really jog.

So yeah, labor, love hobby, break even liquor break even.

Then on to the next.

I know your sales.

I know you smell.

I know that you were living in hell, working at a record stores very often.

The first crucial step in the caree of being a successful musician.

Now, I once told someone, a place like Juilliard can teach music theory, but when it comes to the histor of recorded music, working the stacks and answerin questions from customers, that record stor gig might be its own College of Musical knowledge.