Hey.

My name is Marcus King.

We're here at Vintage Vinyl in Saint Louis, Missouri, telling you my first LP that I ever bought.

First LP I ever got with my own money was Robin Trower, Bridge of Size, and I got that at the flea market.

Hey.

I'm Mike from the All American Rejects.

The first record I ever bought was Destroyer by Kiss.

The first one I bought with my own money was Pearl Jam Versus, I think.

First record I bought was Run DMC Tougher Than Leather on cassette.

First record I bought was the single for Ace of Base I Saw the Sign with what was on the b side?

I I had that too.

All That She Wants.

We have arrived at the great city of Rochester, New York, located by Lake Ontario with a metro population of over 1,000,000, an impressive history, beautiful residential architecture, and a vibrant music scene that is reflected in its great world class record stores.

Right now, I'm in the only record store I've ever been in my life which has children's bicycles hanging from the ceiling strictly as a decorative motif.

We're right here at the flagship of record stores in Rochester, New York, Record Archive with my good friend here, mister Richard Storms.

And I've got a feeling that you perpetually have a musical day.

I do.

Yeah.

It's always music all the time.

When did you dip into the pool of retail music and record stores over the day?

1975.

1975, we started record archive in a flea market, you know, a dead big box store over on the South Side of the city.

And, you know, it was September 16, 1975.

And we opened the place, and we did a thousand dollars that day on that Sunday.

And it was like holy crap.

What is it about Rochester that allows you to have such an enormous 14,000 square foot store and you keep it going year in and year out?

We have a lot of music fans here.

And, you know, and and we we we carry all types of media.

You know, there's no such thing as a dead form of media here, so we have it all.

And, you know, including records and and CDs and, you know, a tremendous amount of music and and great fans.

We we have a great jazz scene.

You know, we have some real players like, you know, Chuck Mangione is from here, you know, and his brother is still here.

Gap.

You know, I see Gap all the time.

And and way more people than that is tremendous.

And and of course, we have the Eastman School of Music and the draws a lot of people who are professional musicians and students and and people who, you know, are are in the periphery.

And and a tremendous garage rock scene.

They have, you know, the Chesterfield Kings are out of here and a tremendous number of other groups.

Metallica recorded their first album here.

Yeah.

In a basement studio right down the street from here.

And half of tremendous number of heavy metal musicians and a lot of people, a lot of good people, a lot of lot of and and a tremendous fan base.

As far as, the musical mix in the store, I mean, clearly, you can come in here and get a real analog fix, but, you know, these days, what percentage would you say your sales is pop or your sales is rock or, you know, hip hop?

How does it break down roughly?

I mean, I I I sort of see it as all being part of the same thing.

I really I don't I really I don't see it as a a breakdown, you know, like, I'm looking at the Kinks over here.

That that's, you know, that was pop music, but it's also, you know, really great.

Lowe.

Nick Lowe staring me at the face.

John Lennon over here and and all of the tremendous hip hop that we sell.

As a percentage, I I'd say that we're we're maybe 15 or 20% hip hip hop.

We sell a ton of heavy metal.

Metal is metal sort of works with these gray skies we have in Rochester, and, there's a great metal scene here.

Ten years ago, somebody on my staff said something I thought was pretty telling and profound.

He said, heavy metal is the new punk.

And I kinda get that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that It's it's also the old punk.

I mean, you know, MC5, did they start heavy metal?

Maybe.

Were they punk?

Absolutely.

You're also the store in Rochester that has free live music every Wednesday.

Every Wednesday and now every every Friday.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Free live music.

Yeah.

And you have a great venue for it right over here behind the What we call it the Behind the wall.

Record Archives Backroom Lounge.

And, yeah, we we we really present some of the best of the live music that, you know, is available in Rochester.

Really tremendous bands come through here.

And, we're gonna we're gonna be seeing one this evening.

Show.

Yeah.

So, you know, we're excited about that.

Now I know you've had a lot of notable musicians walk in, and I know one of the very notable musicians that you have come in, who by the way is also an incredible and funny stand up comic who's visited our store several times, is mister Henry Rollins of Black Flag and Other and other endeavors.

Yes.

So this had to be, I think, 2003, 2004.

It was the year that Henry Rollins put together the album and book Rise Above for the benefit of the West Memphis Three.

I was 13 or 14 years old.

My mom's an old punk, so she was familiar with Black Flag, Ramones, all of that stuff.

And, we'd left the in store after I'd met Henry Rollins, and I didn't quite have context for who he was.

He was this angry man, just, like, yelling at us.

And, like, there was a line snaked all the way through our old location to talk to him.

And, we're in the car afterwards, and she puts that CD on.

And, it was the first time that I had heard punk hardcore punk music.

It was the first time I heard punk that resonated with how the kind of anger only a 13 year old can feel.

My father, who has been in the music industry for, what, fifty five years now, had met Joey Ramone through Seymour Stein.

Seymour was an avid antiques dealer, and my dad had a side hustle selling antiques.

So, he knew Seymour, and I believe that is how he met Joey Ramone.

He takes me backstage, we meet the Ramones, and I have this perfect vivid memory of sitting on Joey Ramones' lap and eating a slice of pizza with the Ramones.

And, you know, I like to say that I peaked at six years old getting to do that.

I don't think anyone can have a more rock and roll experience than that.

That is a rock and roll anointment.

Yes.

Truly.

Truly.

A baptism at the church of punk rock.

You know?

I have a Fender guitar up on the wall, way up as you come into the store.

It's white Stratocaster, and it is signed by Frank Zappa.

But the thing about it is Frank doodled all over the bottom of it.

But I had one of my guys several years ago put it up and he decided to clean it up a little bit before he put it up.

He cleaned all the doodles off of it for me and shined it up real nice to put it up on the wall.

So that that's that an interesting piece of nostalgia for me on many levels.

Well, is a category of one memorabilia zoo.

Tell me about the in stores that you personally felt like this is exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing.

You know, I really love George Thurogood and the destroyers, and he he they did an in store, like, you know, what, forty five years ago.

And then that that that was a great time.

Mojo Nixon.

Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper.

Crazy, crazy in store.

Oh my god.

We've had so many in stores.

JD McPherson, know in the last ten years, he he did a great in store here.

He he he was terrific.

He's a great guy.

Fun.

They they've done several in stores.

What was the first time that you came into Record Archive and what was your first reaction seeing this cathedral?

The first time I went to Record Archive was in the, well, not the original store, but the store that was on Mount Hope Avenue.

So I was probably three or four years old or something.

I have an early memory of going there with my father.

I just remember what that shop was like, you know, but I had a formative experience when I was about 12 years old coming to a party at the record archive when I was just up the street here on East Avenue before it was even in this location.

And Richard saw me and he took me in the back.

It was a big, like, a record release party, you know, it was like free food and beer for the adults and stuff.

And I was 12 years old, and he he dressed me up in a, like, a full size squirrel costume and, gave me a, like, a a basket with CDs to go and hand out to people.

And at that time, I was, hanging out with a lot of ne'er do wells on Monroe Avenue, a bunch of punks and freaks.

And, they all kinda showed up but didn't know that it was me handing out free CDs to them.

And, they were all taking the CDs, you know, being nude knicks.

And then I took off my squirrel hat, and they saw it was me.

And, we all rejoiced.

The inevitable query for this show.

What was your first record?

The first record I actually went into a record store and selected and, you know, made a decision on was, the Isley Brothers Twist and Shout.

It's called Twist and Shout with the Isley Brothers on wand records.

Shake it up, baby.

Twist and Shout.

And I took that home and played it on my crap record player over and over and over again.

And that was that was the first record.

That was number one.

Come on and work it out.

Work it on out, baby.

Tom, this has been a great time.

I can't believe we've done it yet.

I've I've had a hell of a time hanging out with I've always loved hanging out with Tom.

I've known him for many years, and, Tom is a a great racketeer.

He's a great storyteller.

Well, you know, the stories are often so weird and revelatory.

You can't make it up.

Yeah.

Well, that's true.

Yeah.

Anybody that loves music would just consider this an absolute comfort food moment.

It's cloudy day in Rochester.

I'm here at another musical mothership called House of Guitars.

This gentleman happens to be one of the founders, the founder?

Yes, with my brother Bruce.

My younger brother started with me.

Mr.

Armand Schaubroeck.

and a yet again, I am overwhelmed to be in such a sweet spot of music.

Thank you.

This is pretty much the epitome of a well stocked and very independent record store.

Yes.

We've been independent since the beginning, you know.

Well, know, at one point there was not the term in the record store, independent record store.

We were called mom and pops.

We were called underground.

Fifty one years.

And not only, as you can see sixty one.

Sixty one years.

Yeah, sixty one years.

And along with an enormous room of physical music, also have upstairs a pretty astounding guitar store.

Yes, every brand of guitar, keyboard, amps, the whole bit, school band instruments.

We have people going out running to the schools like the brass and the horns.

If it's music, we're in it.

But records is also a very important part of our business.

And we've been buying records since 1964 also.

Well, you know, obviously you had the cutting edge of the British rock invasion for your customers.

You were also telling me that at a very early time, right around the year that the Beatles first came to The United States, you were getting your hands on the kind of equipment, the Vox amps and such, that they were using and that suddenly those were just, you know, in great demand by people wanting to suddenly play electric guitar.

The demand for the Beatles instruments was amazing.

Like, every kid wanted to be the Beatles and, you know, like the John Lennon little Rickenbacker guitar he played and everyone wanted that.

And Paul McCartney's violin bass, the Hoffner, and also the Ludwig drum sets, and all the box English sounding amps, which were much bigger than our Fender Showmans and stuff.

They were starting to get big, you know.

They had their own sound that you couldn't get with American amps, so everybody was going that way.

Matter of fact, it was kind of sad because used less Paul's, it would be worth an absolute fortune now.

We were selling for $150 No one wanted them.

Now now it'd be in the $3,040,000 range if they were still here, you know.

Have you any idea of a rough count of how many vinyl LPs you have in stock?

I don't know of vinyl by itself, but everything is over 4,000,000 CDs, LPs, tapes.

Damn.

It's all over and you know it's up in the bins, it's above the bins, it's below the bins.

Yeah.

We also get in a lot of the national musicians here.

They get new guitars for free to endorse them and everything and they'll keep giving them to them.

But they often invest in buying vintage guitars, which they really love.

And and it's a it's a business.

They'll come in and start looking at just vintage and go wild on it.

A lot of big bands have spent a lot of money here, including Metallica and Cheap Trick, you know, Aerosmith, you know, all kinds of bands are coming through here.

We even did a presentation once for Peter Gabriel to show him what Apple computers can do for his keyboards because he opened a tour in Rochester one time.

So we we sent our high-tech guys down there with the Apples and showed him what could do.

He bought all the Apples we showed him and left town touring with him.

Wow.

Because, you know, he didn't believe what your computer can do for his sound.

You know, as the years pass along, we all get memorabilia and we all get totems Sure.

Of events musical in our businesses.

What is your favorite piece of musical memorabilia?

There's a couple of them, two of them I'd say.

One is we help Son House sign his name because we wanted permission to use his name in the back of a Jerry Porter record.

We just thought be upfront about it and just you know and we helped them sign it and that's up upfront on display in the front building.

Sunhouse is the person that made up the story about Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads and he used to teach Robert Johnson when Robert was a little boy.

He's much older.

But when Robert grew up, suddenly he got real good real fast, better than Son House.

So he made up that story about a selling his soul to the devil.

I know you've had some auspicious in stores over the years, over the decades.

Which ones stay on your mind?

They all do in a way because they're all different totally different.

You have monster ones.

We had Motley Crue here at the same time as Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy was on the front stage.

Motley Crue was back here in the CD Building at the exact same time signing and posing for photos and posing with all the fans and everything and signing anywhere you wanted from your bald head to you name it they were signing it.

But it's always fun, but the police had barricades around all our buildings to try to keep it safe.

But we've never had a problem in here and no one's ever been hurt.

I was thinking that if you had Ozzy Osbourne and Motley Crue in the building at the same time, either artist would be creating an instant roadblock around your store.

Yes.

They came all the time.

You know, we had Run DMC do a scratch clinic on our front stage and it's and Aerosmith just did that song Walk This Way with them.

So they were huge, you know, and and they were actually outdoing each other.

It was was Run DMC against Houdini's DJ, and they were going back and forth.

They weren't bad mouthing each other.

They were just outdoing each other.

They were on the tour together, so they're friends.

I got a question I gotta ask you sir.

Sure.

What was your first record?

I think it was Davy Crockett born on a mountaintop of Tennessee.

Green estate in the land of the free, Kilt me a bar when I was only three.

Davy, Davy, Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

Fess Parker, bless his heart.

I really want to thank you for your time.

This has been an amazing visit.

It's been a pleasure talking with you.

I really enjoyed it.

Have a musical day.

You too, my friend.

So after seeing the record archive and house of guitars, we headed to one of the most jazz centric stores in all of The United States, indicated by its name, the Bop Shop.

Operating since 1982, owner Tom Kohn has a world class collection of jazz along with other genres from Celtic to classical as well as rock.

But it's his stature among jazz lovers that's legendary.

We are in the sweet spot for jazz in this section of Rochester.

Mister Tom Kohn, who has one of the finest collections of jazz I've seen And, know, in the 20 basement yet.

And I haven't even been in the basement yet, but, you know, in the twenty first century, it's stores such as ours that really do carry the swing as far as jazz.

And you began your career probably in the music business about the same year as me, was, 1975.

Oh, '72 for me.

'72.

I was 16.

It's stupid, but that's okay.

But I was, by the time I was 16, I had a thousand LPs.

You know, I just, I was working in the record stores, going to every concert I could possibly go to, every genre.

I would see the Ramones one night and the next night I'd go see Anthony Braxton, you know, with Barry Altschul and Dave Holland.

Or Hornet, you know.

So it was kind of the same thing.

I mean, the energy that came out of the punk scene was the same as hornet and those it's just it's about the the energy that drives the force.

And what what is the term?

The sound of surprise.

Yes.

And and jazz, that's kind of it.

Because Especially free jazz, or composed jazz, put it that way.

You know, though, when I'm speaking about jazz, I note the difference in taste between what I would call the traditional audience on the East Coast and the traditional audience for me in cities like St.

Louis and Chicago.

The players who really had a following and a very loyal following was a Sonny Stitt or a Gene Ammons or a Groove Holmes.

Those are Midwest cats for some reason.

We had a club here called the Pythot, which was gone before I was quite aware of what's going on.

There's pictures of Eric Dolphy on the piano, things like that.

But it was part of the jazz chitlin circuit thing that was going on in New York and there was some really big club in Buffalo.

And it continued for a little while after that when I first got into the scene.

But it's funny how we were tuned into what more was going on in New York, I think.

You know, the Iridium and some of those clubs down there.

When it comes to the generational, difference too, I would, guess that maybe, a lot of your jazz customers over the age of 40 may be preferring CD to vinyl.

Wow.

I'm feeling CDs kind of revitalized again big time.

And I pay attention to that.

Vinyl's still kind of dominating it.

It doesn't, you know, I always encourage people to buy the music.

Don't buy forget the format.

I'm gonna skip eight tracks, you know, buy what you like.

Buy what you wanna listen to.

Buy what the artist needs you to buy, you know, and don't stream things.

So at this time, I've got to ask our perennial eternal question.

Okay.

Yeah.

What was your first record that you bought for yourself?

I had records that had given to me over the years, but all I can remember is buying Mountain nantucket sleighride Mississippi Queen out of 45.

And then took the sleighride when I was in high school.

I would skip class a lot when I was 15 or 16, but I wouldn't leave campus.

Would actually go to the reading room and read books and listen to the mountain nantucket sleighride They never looked for you on cam they never looked for you.

You'd still still on, you know.

But that's the one I remember distinctly.

Beatles '65 probably was one.

But those are the singles I bought initially.

Hi.

My name is Mia.

I've been with the Record Archive since March 2023.

The first vinyl I purchased was I Brought You Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love by My Chemical Romance.

Yeah.

My first album, actually bought from Record Archive when it was down the road.

I believe my first CD I bought was Ozzy Blizzard of Oz.

I think my first album that I played, was Deja Vu by CSNY.

My first record, embarrassingly enough, it was Business As Usual by Men at Work.

Hi, my name is Amelia, and the first record I ever bought was a Mac DeMarco 45.

It was a cover of Indian Summer.

My first vinyl was Bad Brains.

It was a good one.

My first, it was a 45.

Don't Bring Me Down by Eel.

Yeah.

I had two guys.

The first album I ever bought was Pocket Full of Kryptonite by Spin Doctors.