WPL.A. graphic by Vivian Martinez
“Waxing Philosophical, L.A.” is DUM DUM’s biweekly Tuesday column written by Christina Gubala, co-founder of L.A.’s premier cassette-tape label, Complicated Dance Steps. A die-hard vinyl collector, you can find her spinning records at local bars near you.
Our city has a continuing history thick with vinyl love, now more than ever with record shops opening their doors instead of shuttering. Each week, Gubala breaks down a fresh new wax purchase, and writes about the record store as well, mapping it as part of L.A.’s history in the making.
With its ’70s yellow signage and hand-painted building mural, Silver Lake’s Rockaway Records is by no means hard to miss. It seems ever present–both outside and in–and at a time when music retail is morphing at such a rapid pace, their 25 years on the block creates the illusion of a relative eon spent in one place.
Perhaps this steadfastness is why it took a few years on the east side before I ever set foot in the store. I felt like it would exist no matter what gentrification and deconstruction rolled through town, so I never took advantage of its distinctly strange collection. Their vinyl is both foreign and domestic and often of the original pressing run, their memorabilia ranges from David Bowie 1970’s tour t-shirts to signed programs for Def Leppard shows of yore, and their archival supply of technological formats such as 8 tracks and reel-to-reels is invaluable to the chronologically curious listener. The first time I set foot in Rockaway, it turned out to be exactly as I’d expected: a place to last the ages, providing our community a historical insight into music culture in person, rather than via the Internet or any other tools of description.
It’s shopping center is deceptively up and coming, with Still Yoga and Silverlake Wine beckoning foot traffic 7 days a week. The parking lot seems eventful, as though people are constantly gunning for space near their favorite food truck. Rockaway is, however, the proud focal piece of the small strip. The front window provides insight into the well-lit avalanche of musical history neatly separated by format. Vinyl resides to the right, CDs and DVDs on the left, memorabilia in display cases positioned proudly throughout. Wall records are the fare of KLOS on a “Greatest Hits Ever” weekend–rare and original Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Springsteen and so forth. They are priced according to their collector’s item status, as is the entire selection of vinyl. I must say as a shopper, I appreciate this to a degree. I know that any record I purchase from Rockaway is going to be in the condition promised by its price, and have not yet been proven wrong in years of investing in their products. And what interesting products they are.
Rockaway is internationally savvy with their record stock. As I perused the rock section one particularly chilly Friday evening, Italian prog records were intermingled with Belgian and Japanese pressings of American 1970s rock. Butthole Surfers records are just as welcome as The Band, and its not seldom you find major indie fare from the early aughts like The Secret Machines and Block Party. 2010’s reissue of Ted Lucas’ sad-eyed soul folk stared back at me from the wall as I hunted through the bins for striking covers and bands I’d never encountered before, like Australia’s Spectrum. I pulled a stack of $20-$35 records from all over the globe, but album art alone was not enough to entice me to commit. At the front counter, I asked if there was a listening station I might use.
The store does not keep a listening station around anywhere simply due to the lack of space, but upon asking, I was treated to the use of their portable turntable complete with built-in speaker. Along the back case, where their used exchanges took place and shelves full of 45’s and 78’s adorned the wall, I performed a few needle drops and speedily appraised the records myself. To my dismay, I found that many of the most interesting looking records relied heavily on the virtue of their album art, as their actual music was derivative of Moody Blues prog and American rock from the ’70s.
In trying to expand my horizons a bit and find something I was not looking for, I had missed the beauty of shopping at Rockaway: it’s a place you go to find something you have always been looking for, something for the collection that is worth the investment. I retreated to return my international stack, and with a last quick glance through the rock bin, a record filed under “C” reached out and forcefully took hold of 100% of my attention and affection: Vic Chesnutt’s Little.
Vic Chesnutt is far too important and robust of a character for me to do justice in simple review form, but it should be understood that he is a man worthy of Wikipedia consultation. On Christmas Eve 2009, Vic took his own life in the face of an of unpayable medical bills and armed with a history of depression. I cried at my parent’s kitchen table that night, knowing that his impossibly unique voice was forever silenced, but spotting Little, he was alive again and in my hands. It was his first record, released by Texas Hotel records in 1990. He scrawls in his deliberate penmanship on the back cover, underneath one of his childhood drawings, “They might think I am a callous unappreciative creep, but actually, deep under the crust, I am truly and squishily grateful to…” before going on to thank his loved ones and Mr. Michael Stipe, who, Vic writes, “single-handedly drove me to this cozy hotel.”
Stipe appears in both vocal and organ form on the record, along with assorted friends of Vic’s. On the record’s insert, he leaves diary excerpts noting what each track is about, who was involved, and occasionally, what was being eaten for lunch in the studio that day. It was a time capsule for me, a token of a spirit I had admired vehemently as a fellow Georgian and a composer of dark yet quotidian lyrics over emotional music. When I finally clapped it onto a record player, tears ran freshly as I let “Isadora Duncan” take over me. At Rockaway Records that evening, I found exactly what I should have been looking for all along: something I loved enough to take care of.
Rockaway is a place worth supporting well. They are documenting things we only observe hypothetically, online and via other traded information. If ever you crave holding history in your hands, they should be your go-to spot.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012