Buddy Holly Tribute - Vintage Vinyl Fords,
NJ - Saturday, January 31, 2009, Noon –
5 pm
Featuring Willie Nile, Pat Ninizio,
Annie & the Midnight Shift, Nicole Atkins,
McCarthy Trenching, Locksley, The Grip Weeds,
& The Riff Brothers
An interview with Rob Roth, owner of Vintage
Vinyl
By Phil Rainone
Vintage Vinyl has been hosting some very
intimate in-store shows for about 30 years,
including The Jayhawks, The Blasters, Cheap
Trick, The New York Dolls, as well as up and
coming bands, including hardcore, metal, punk,
and just about every genre imaginable. On
January 31, Vintage Vinyl is hosting a tribute
to Buddy Holly, “Buddy Holly Lives!”
The show is free, and they’ll be selling
commemorative posters for $6 with the proceeds
going to The Light of Day Foundation. They’ll
also be accepting donations for Parkinson’s
Disease research.
I talked to Rob about the upcoming Buddy
Holly tribute, the future of “mom and
pop” record stores, and the recent resurgence
in vinyl.
Q: When did Vintage Vinyl open?
Rob Roth: We opened in ‘79 so we’re
celebrating our 30th year.
Q: When you first opened it was mostly vinyl
records and cassette tapes that you were selling.
How does that compare with selling mostly
CD’s, with the advent of Ipods, and
MP3’s today? It also seems like the
CD is starting to go out of style?
Rob: Yeah, the CD is (starting to go out
of style), but the LP is coming on stronger…
the LP’s will outlive the CD! They’ll
be replaced by LP’s.
Q: So you think they’ll be a reversal,
instead of CD replacing the LP in the past,
starting back in the 80’s…
Rob: That’s already happening! On a
lot of new releases we’ll sell a lot
more LP’s. What happened was, the record
companies… well this is the mentality
of the record companies. The LP’s were
like $7.99, and CD’s were about $15.98
(back in the 80‘s), and they said, well
it’s worth it because you’re getting
better sound (from the CD). And now, they
bumped the LP’s up to like $20, $25,
(CD’s are about $8 or $10 on sale),
and they’re saying that it’s worth
it because (the LP) sounds better. That’s
what they do to kill off a format. As soon
as they see that people are interested (in
a different format), they hike it up. I always
thought that LP’s sounded better than
CD’s.
Q: I know that you need a pretty good sound
system to hear the difference…
Rob: Yeah, if you have a good
turntable and sound system, the LP is going
to always sound richer and fuller.
Q: To what do you attribute Vintage Vinyl
being one of the few, strong, independent
record stores left in the state?
Rob: Well, we LOVE music, and we try to take
care of our customers. I don’t know
how to compare it to anything, but that’s
what we try to do.
Q: Over the years, I know when I’ve
come here, I could find almost anything. From
country to punk, just about anything I was
looking for. The diversity was always there.
Rob: We try to have depth in the music. That’s
what I look for, and we try to reflect that
in the store.
Q: For the upcoming Buddy Holly Tribute,
what inspired you to set that up?
Rob: Well, first of all I’m a big Buddy
Holly fan, and realized it’s the 50th
anniversary of the plane crash (Buddy Holly,
The Big Bopper, and Richie Valens, died in
a plane crash in an Iowa corn field in 1958).
Back in September I said I wanted to do something
and I started to put it together. I thought
I’d just be one of many, many people
that are doing this but there’s nobody
doing it, it seems like. Which is shocking!
There’s very little recognition of commemorating
that day. So I guess that works out to an
advantage because a lot of people will show
up. I hope so anyway.
Q: I saw the ad for the show (Buddy Holly
Lives!), and I saw Pat DiNizio’s name.
He’s releasing a Buddy Holly tribute.
Have you heard it?
Rob: Yeah, we have it here. It’s very
good! Pat did all the songs with strings.
Buddy was actually going to go back and redo
some of his songs with more strings. That
was one of his plans.
Q: I remember reading that Pat had brought
Buddy’s reel to reel tape recorder at
an auction a few years back. I was wondering
if there were any tapes with it, and if there
was any music on it?
Rob: I don’t think he got the tapes,
I think he just got the recorder. Those would
have been “The Apartment Tapes”
that came out today! I would think he got
the recorder, but he didn’t get the
tapes.
Q: I know Pat had spoken to Buddy’s
wife Maria Elaina, and wrote a song about
her.
Rob: It’s a great song!
Q: It must have been a really emotional meeting
just to talk to her about their life together,
and Buddy’s music.
Rob: Buddy’s music is somehow eternal.
It really sounds as fresh today to me. It’s
simple, great songs!
Q: What inspired you to start doing in-store
shows?
Rob: It’s something I always wanted
to do. I think I was one of the first stores
to be doing live in-stores, back maybe in…1985.
I always associate them with the music. This
is where the music is, not just buying digits…
There’s actual live music going on,
and what we have now is something I’ve
always wanted to, which is film it with multi-cameras.
We shot everything with a three camera shoot.
We’ve been doing it for about three
years. We usually put one clip up on our website
from each show.
Q: Who’s performing for the Buddy Holly
tribute show here on January 31st?
Rob: We have eight artists, and they’re
all going to be playing Buddy Holly, and they’re
going to be different since everybody’s
coming from a different angle! I didn’t
restrict them to any songs, I told them to
do what you what to do.
Q: Is there a time limit for each artist?
Rob: I figured about twenty minute sets,
and about ten minutes to turn it over to the
next person. So, every hour there should be
two performances.
Q: Is there a charge for the show?
Rob: It’s free! All the artists are
donating their talents. But we are going to
be selling promotional posters of the show
for $6.00, and I’m donating the money
to The Light of Day Organization. There’s
only 100 of them, and the artists playing
here will sign them. We’re also auctioning
off some things I got from record companies.
And we’ll also put some buckets out
to collect some money for Parkinson’s
Disease.
Q: Sounds like it’s going to be a great
time!
Rob: Yeah, come in and enjoy the music, and
I figured while everybody’s here, might
as well see if we can raise some money for
a good cause! It should start at noon, and
end about 5 pm.
I had gotten to the Vintage Vinyl for the
interview a little early, so I browsed around-
like a kid in a candy store. Besides buying
two of the new Springsteen album Working on
a Dream (on vinyl of course), for myself and
my friends Gary and Diane, I came across a
mom and her daughter looking through the used
vinyl. I noticed that they had about a dozen
albums including Springsteen’s Born
in the U.S A. on top (I’m kind nosey
when it comes to used vinyl - I don’t
wanna pass up a good deal). I mentioned to
the mom that the new album from Springsteen
was on sale. She said thanks, but she was
more interested in his older albums and ones
from to 70’s and 80‘s. So, being
the sharp-eyed music journalist that’s
always looking for a cool angle for a story
that I am. I asked the most leading question
I could think of: “Why?” She said
that they put the album covers in frames and
hung them in their finished basement. Which
I thought was a cool idea, but then my razor-sharp
inquisitive mind reeled for a second thinking,
“What did they do with the album itself?-
Throw it away?!!” Oh, I’ve heard
the horror stories! Leaving piles of perfectly
good albums abandoned at the Englishtown Auction,
in the mud!! The woman (I didn’t get
their names) told me a story that would have
had a weaker man quaking in his boots! She
told a sordid tale of misery and sadness of
a person at a flea market standing over a
garbage barrel (at least it there wasn’t
a fire in the barrel, like they were trying
to keep warm), actually tearing the albums,
vinyl and cover in two, and throwing them
away! Oh, I think I’m gonna be sick
to my stomach just thinking about it again!
But then, just as I was about to chastise
her what I thought she might do with the records
once the jackets were hung on the wall, she
said that they kept the records, and played
them… Ahh.. I felt better! But now as
I’m typing this, I’m wonderin’
if they just stacked the records like, six
or seven on top f each other (the older record
players came with a long metal spindle that
you could stack records on top of each other
playing one after the other, one CRASHING
down on the other as one finish automatically.
Or, at least I was hoping that they had the
insight to buy plastic sleeves (hey, Vintage
Vinyl sells ’em), giving the records
a good home and the TLC they require!
