Saturday April 16th is Record Store Day at Central Square Records in Seaside. Celebrate independent record stores and the art of music. Exclusive limited edition releases, live in-store performances, goodies and more!
Seaside record store: 'This is an institution'
April 12, 2011 6:52 AM
Lauren Sage Reinlie
Daily News
SEASIDE — More than eight years ago, Tom King and Edward Jack polled their friends for their Top 10 albums, ordered them and stocked the concrete-floored, high-ceilinged space above a bookstore with CDs, and hoped for the best.
Today, Central Square Records is a mainstay at a time when many independent music stores across the country have shuttered their doors. Central Square may be the only independent music store left between Tallahassee and Pensacola.
On Saturday, the store will host Record Store Day, an event designed by the Coalition of Independent Music Stores to support the businesses. A secretive selection of limited-edition records will be released, and bands will perform in the store.
Central Square’s knowledgeable staff and its drive to keep shelves stocked with music off the beaten path of radio hits give the store an edge over online retailers.
“People get tired of sitting in front of their laptops,” said Jack, the store’s general manager. “They still long for a human interaction when they’re talking about music.”
Balder Saunders, a Santa Rosa Beach musician, has been a customer since the store opened.
“It’s more hands-on than Amazon,” he said. “Maybe you can get it cheaper on the Internet, but you can’t listen to it and have somebody well-informed tell you all about it and connect the dots: ‘This guy played on this album’ and ‘This guy produced this one you might like.’ ”
Jack and King recently played Saunders a few tracks from an Anders Osborne album. The New Orleans musician had an upcoming show in Destin.
Saunders said he bought the album and fell in love with it.
A knack for pairing music with taste is one thing that draws customers, Jack said.
Once the staff finds something a customer is into, they try to offer a slew of suggestions of related artists or albums that might interest the patron.
In addition to CDs, the store sells a collection of new and used vinyl, DVDs, T-shirts, guitar strings and limited-edition concert prints.
The store stocks and features albums from local musicians, including Saunders’ band Dread Clampitt, which has been playing in the area for more than 10 years.
Saunders said the owners constantly are calling to replenish supplies of the band’s albums. That didn’t happen when he tried to get his music on the shelves at Books-A-Million.
Last year, King and his wife purchased the store from Sundog Books downstairs. The space has become a kind of cultural hub, Jack said.
“It’s not just four walls,” Saunders said. “They’ve made it a really hip, fun and interesting place to be.”
Jack said that when the oil spill came last year, he and King were contemplating the store’s mortality. He said customers came out of the woodwork with financial and spiritual support.
“People kept saying, ‘This is an institution,’ ” Jack said. “That’s the word that kept coming up — not a great retail space or a hip store. We’ve become more than that: a meeting place, a little haven for ideas and expression.”
Edward Jack, general manager of Central Square Records in Seaside, purchases vinyl records for the store.
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