STAX OF WAX

By MICHAEL PERKINS

PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO HAVE STRADDLED THE LINE BETWEEN DIGITAL AND ANALOG, doing most of their daily duty as dedicated pixel peepers but occasionally dipping their toe back into film, should certainly sympathize with those who, in recent years, have reverted to the comfort of dropping a needle onto a vinyl record, even if they themselves haven’t invested in a new turntable or a disc-washing device. Heading back to the happy land where experiences were a little more tactile can, indeed, be a lovely little side trip into comfort. For me, however, as a music lover who has long since divested himself of the bulk and maintenance of tangible tune storage, it’s not so much the worship of vinyl that interests me: it’s the places where the vinyl worshippers go.

Salzer’s Records, est. 1966, Ventura, CA

One of the most welcome side benefits of the rebirth of records is a surge in dedicated record stores, not the measly music departments niched into Sears or Targets but places designed just to sell vinyl, and lots of it, along with bongs, t-shirts, and other headgear. The Sam Goodys and Licorice Pizzas and Peaches of the world may be long gone, but a new crop of repurposed shop spaces in re-gentrified neighborhoods is springing up in their place, alongside the few hardy survivors from the First Great Golden Age of Wax, such as San Francisco’s amazing Amoeba Records, Minneapolis’ Electric Fetus, and, as seen here Ventura, California’s Salzer’s Records, originally opened in 1966 and still so huge that, even using a fisheye lens, it’s impossible to show its entire two-story interior in a single shot.

Upon entering, you can smell the patchouli oil and incense, returning you either to your hippie roots or your favorite fantasy of what that era might have been like, depending on your age. Most remarkable from a photographic point of view is that the elder LP shops still exude the same energy as when we were all tender little flower children: the idea of music as but one component in a total immersion into creative energy, a tribal coming together of sounds, smells and sensations. Admittedly, it’s hard to capture all that in a camera, but, like blindly pulling out a random album from your library and slapping it on the turntable, you just drop the needle, and see what happens.

Far out, man….