Recycling music, videos, books fits with Earth Day, every day
As the signs staged last weekend on the doors at the 2nd & Charles, a secondhand store in Charlotte, N.C., for music, DVDs, books and video games: “Save our culture. Play vinyl.”
On the heels of Earth Day this week, annual awareness about recycling warrants year-round efforts. Why shouldn’t those wares include music, DVDs, books and video games? The market for vinyl records hasn’t lost velocity, either — at 33 1/3 or 45 rpm — and Record Store Day (www.recordstoreday.com) continues speeding ahead globally with a dedicated day on the third Saturday in April, every year since 2008.
Talking Monday on Phil Valentine’s radio show in Nashville — carried on the Grand Strand, 3-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays on WJXY-FM 93.9/WXJY-FM 93.7 — country singer Aaron Tippin, marking 25 years as a recording artist and known for such hits as “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly,” “Kiss This” and “There Ain’t Nothing Wrong With the Radio,” spoke about the need to have something to hold in your hand, such as a compact disc, when buying music to enjoy.
Many places such as secondhand stores, nonprofit resellers, flea markets and other retailers buy, sell or trade items to crank on a stereo, watch, read and play. Even some new and reissued recordings often come out on vinyl. Also, if older studio recordings haven’t been released by now on CD, now might yield the best time to scoop them up on vinyl and warm up, repair or buy a turntable.
The Columbia Museum of Art, 1515 Main St., will have its eighth annual Greater Columbia Record Fair, full of vinyl and CDs, from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
“It just gets bigger and bigger,” said Dickson Monk, the museum’s communications manager, crediting the fair’s founder and coordinator, Matt Bradley, for “his labor of love.”
Monk said about 30 vendors set up, covering more than 40 tables collectively for this springtime event, which this year, coincides with the week of Earth Day.
“It takes over most of our lobby,” he said, “and we even have more upstairs in our atrium to accommodate it.”
Monk said the annual gathering initially involved just recorded music and collectors, then some local disc jockeys joined the affair, spurring more growth and community interaction. The 2015 fair will include a beer garden, artist performances and music sets from disc jockeys with the Greater Columbia Society for the Preservation of Soul, which Bradley also helped establish.
Thinking of the art that album covers provide, especially when vinyl was the medium decades ago to buy music, Monk envisioned how a small expo someday could shine a spotlight on “amazing album covers through the years.”
Although not a die-hard vinyl collector, Monk likes his “laid-back approach” for music to his ears. He remembered getting his first record player when he was in middle school, and he voiced his appreciation in the state capital for the Papa Jazz Record Shoppe, 2014 Greene St., open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-5 p.m. Sundays (803-256-0095 or www.papajazz.com).
“It’s the place for all things vinyl and jazz,” Monk said.
The timing of the festival also works with the art museum’s free admission on Sundays.
“People can hang out for the day,” Monk said, “and have some food or lunch, and have a beer.”
Check out this sampling of five major places across the eastern Carolinas in which to get lost for an hour or two in shopping for quality used goods; some are sole proprietors, others are among chains. They’re listed in proximity going outward from the Grand Strand. Many other merchants full of treasures exist as well.
Dabbing some rubbing alcohol on a microfiber cloth, and drying with another side of the fabric, takes fingerprints off CDs and DVDs, and a 50-50 mix of Simple Green and water does the same for records, without any need for alcohol, which would leave a film on and harden the vinyl, making it brittle.
Collectors in search of particular classic vinyl releases for historic and artistic value might even have more of a field day without frugality in scanning the racks at these places.
1. Kilgor Trouts Music & More
702-D Eighth Ave. N., Myrtle Beach, beside Myrtle Beach Train Depot, west of Broadway and Oak streets. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-7 p.m. Sundays. 445-2800 or www.kilgortrouts.com.
Gary Finkenbiner is nearing 10 years since opening this shop, first at another spot nearby downtown. For anyone shopping with a youth, the parent and child will consume themselves in different sections, the latter maybe finding seasons of “Seinfeld” and “JAG,” Nintendo DS games and books from the “Twilight” series. Upon entry to this store, check out an area full of $1 CDs, bins of 12-inch singles and, far back to the right, a couple of racks of $2 LPs.
2. Gravity Records
612 Castle St., Wilmington, N.C. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. 910-343-1000 or www.facebook.com/gravityrecords.
This store, living up to its name with high volume in vinyl, marked its 10th anniversary last year. In the middle of the store, check out the aisles of 99-cent vinyl albums, alphabetized and even with a row of 12-inch remixes. Repair of turntables also is available here.
3. Mr. K’s Used Books, Music and More
5070 International Blvd., North Charleston, south from Interstate 526, one exit west of I-26, or take Exit 213 from northbound I-26 and head west (west) on Montague Avenue, then north (right) on International Boulevard, toward the entrance to Tanger Outlets. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. 843-793-4730 or mrksonline.com.
DVDs costing only $3 each dominate a chunk of this store, and at the end of one aisle of vinyl records, check out two rows of albums priced at $1 or 50 cents each. The children’s book and DVD section also covers several shelves, with cushy seats nearby to really check out the material.
4. 2nd & Charles (2ndandcharles.com), a subsidiary of Books-A-Million
▪ 275-1 Harbison Blvd., Columbia, just west off Interstate 26, Exit 103. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sundays. 803-749-9378.
▪ 331 South Blvd., Charlotte, N.C., at Tyvola Road, one mile east off Interstate 77, Exit 5. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays-Thusdays, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sundays. 704-523-2217.
These stores are like open-air warehouses loaded with items, so big that family members can get out of sight from one another with ease. With so many books in so many categories, patrons might think they’re walking into a library. These two locations boast shelves of clearance CDs, most for $2 each. The video game stock even includes cartridges as low as about $3 each that work in old Atari 2600 consoles, which, with a simple, $4 adapter about as long as a pen cap, will connect the unit with a cable-ready TV. Let Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man roll, and Frogger hop, again.
5. Edward McKay Used Books & More
3514 Capital Blvd., Raleigh, N.C., east about 2 miles from the I-440 Beltline, Exit 11, on the northeast corner of the loop. 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays, and reopening Monday after a week of renovations. 919-790-9299. (Also with stores in Fayetteville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, N.C. – www.edmckay.com).
This site might look thin in frontage from the outside, but plan on walking way back inside to see the wealth of goods for sale. In December, a wall of $2 CDs beckoned these eyes — no pun intended — especially with The Guess Who ready to headline May 9 at North Myrtle Beach’s Mayfest on Main.
Contact STEVE PALISIN at 444-1764.
If you go
What | Eighth annual Record Fair
When | Noon-5 p.m. Sunday
Where | Columbia Museum of Art, 1515 Main St., Columbia
How much | Free
Hours | 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays (also open until 8 p.m. on first Friday monthly except December), 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and noon-5 p.m. Sundays, for $12 adults; $10 ages 65 and older, and military; $5 students; and free ages 5 and younger. Free admission on Sundays.
Special exhibits | Most for an extra fee equal to museum admission rates:
▪ “Charles Courtney Curran: Seeking the Ideal,” through May 17.
▪ “Bunzlauer Pottery from the Collection of the Columbia Museum of Art,” through July 19, free with museum admission.
▪ “From Marilyn to Mao: Andy Warhol’s Famous Faces,” June 12-Sept. 13.
▪ “Georgia O’Keeffe: Her Carolina Story,” Oct. 9-Jan. 10.
▪ “Independent Spirits: Women Artists of South Carolina,” free with museum admission.
Docents | Guided tours at 2 p.m. Sundays, covering museum highlights.
Free parking | Sundays on surrounding streets and in City Center Garage, 1227 Taylor St.
Information | 803-799-2810 or www.columbiamuseum.org
Special diamonds found
Just in the past 15 months, things that people had traded in or sold have found a new life in this writer’s 20th-century world of technology. The vinyl goodies have included, each for about $1:
▪ “Good Friends Are for Keeps: 100th Year Celebration Album, America Sings of Telephones,” from 1975, a compilation with such numbers as “Hello! Ma Baby” by Max Morath (also sung by Michigan J. Frog in “One Froggy Evening” in 1955, his one episode of Warner Bros. “Looney Tunes” cartoon fame), “Call Me” by Petula Clark and “The Girls’ Song” by the 5th Dimension.
▪ “Ohio State University Marching Band, Vol. 3,” no date specified, in a throwback collection, probably to the early Woody Hayes era, long before his swan song in coaching the Buckeyes in their Gator Bowl loss to Clemson in 1978.
▪ “Music for the President, Performed by the 1st Brigade Band,” from 1975, on actual instruments that were used to entertain Abraham Lincoln.
▪ “Bloodline,” by Glen Campbell, from 1976, including “Don’t Pull Your Love/Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye.”
▪ “San Antone,” by the late Dan Seals, from 1984, a year before his hit duet with Marie Osmond.
▪ “Greatest Hits” by Shirley Bassey, a double LP from 1976, about three years before her third and final James Bond movie theme recording, “Moonraker” – after “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds Are Forever,” both of those from the 1960s, in Sean Connery’s era.
▪ “Long Fuse,” by Dan Hill, from 1977, including the Canadian’s breakthrough smash, “Sometimes When We Touch.”
▪ “Emotion” by Samantha Sang, from 1978, a one-hit wonder whose title track was written by Barry and Robin Gibb, with all three Bee Gees singing background. Sang also covered Eric Carmen’s “Change of Heart” for this album and sang backup on that former Raspberries frontman’s LP of the same name that same year.
▪ 12-inch remix of Donna Summer’s “This Time I Know It’s for Real,” from 1989, which she wrote with the producers, the Stock-Aitken-Waterman British trio that had put Rick Astley on the map two years earlier. This also was the late Queen of Disco’s last Top 10 U.S. pop hit.
▪ “Here Comes the Night” 12-inch disco single by the Beach Boys, from 1979, 10 minutes and 42 seconds long, with group co-founders Brian Wilson and Mike Love as co-writers, and longtime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston helping on production.
This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Recycling music, videos, books fits with Earth Day, every day."