Kevin Riordan: A longtime, passionate love of record stores

In 1966, I bought my very first 45 r.p.m. single: "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" by the Walker Brothers.

It's a deftly crafted wall of sound, vivid with drama (the first line is "Loneliness") and verging on grandiose. In other words, totally fabulous.

And it ignited my passionate affair with record stores, a relationship that continued Tuesday as I picked up "High Violet," the new CD by the National, at Tunes in Voorhees.

I know, I know. So much better to simply download the album from iTunes and feed it to my iPod or iPhone, or perhaps, directly into my iBrain.

Buying a physical recording at a terrestrial store? And playing it on what? A gramophone? Almost as quaint as reading a newspaper - or reading it by gaslight.

"Our clientele has definitely gotten older," says Tunes co-owner Anthony Tedeschi, who's been in the business since 1989. South Jersey's homegrown independent record store chain also has locations in Marlton, Turnersville, Hoboken, and Northfield.

The last store just opened, which is great news given that the number of independent record stores in the United States has plummeted 40 percent - to 1,900 - since 2004.

My personal list of the dearly departed includes New Wave Music in Pittsfield, Mass.; Record Runner in Syracuse, N.Y.; and Third Street Jazz in Philadelphia. R.I.P., as well, chains such as Korvette's, HMV, and the late, great Tower Records, which I still miss.

All is not lost, however. On April 18, the third annual "Record Store Day," a collective promotion/celebration among about 800 independents nationwide, boosted album sales 12 percent. And about 250 new independent stores have opened since 2004, according to Almighty Music Marketing of Los Angeles.

While today's typical record store customer is grayer than in the halcyon era before file-sharing and online retailing, Tedeschi says younger people "are really coming in for vinyl." That's vinyl as in 45s and albums, artifacts so far resistant even to the digitizing genius of Steve Jobs.

"Vinyl is a big area for us," adds Tedeschi, a 41-year-old Marlton resident. "It's the collectible factor. And the artwork."

Sound quality "is also a selling point" for vinyl, says Joel Oberstein, president of Almighty Music Marketing. "People have gotten used to listening to compressed files."

Vinyl has never ceased to rule at the Album Hunter in downtown Maple Shade. Owner Tony Dee has been in business for 30 years; he's outlasted the rise of the CD and plans to outlive its fall.

Stores like his will survive because "people want to discover stuff, to root through stuff, to find something they didn't know existed," Dee says. "People are always looking for that elusive record."

Like me, other people who buy their music in stores "come back again and again," Tedeschi says. "We're a meeting spot."

Stores "are the hub of any strong community" of music lovers, Michael Kurtz, the cofounder of Record Store Day, says via e-mail.

"Beyond that," he adds, "we're a great place to meet your future boyfriend/girlfriend."

For those who are not in the meet market but nonetheless prefer to get music tips from a human being rather than an algorithm ("you might also like"), a well-informed clerk is invaluable.

Craig Pfeiffer, a 28-year-old Cherry Hill resident who manages the Voorhees Tunes store, says his staff "is a bunch of oddballs" with deep knowledge of different genres.

"They're passionate, and they enjoy being here," Tedeschi says. Staffers also have an ear to the ground, music-wise; employees suggested he make sure to order extra copies of "High Violet."

According to the New York Times, the latest album by the Brooklyn-based band from Cincinnati has inspired "the sort of expectant critical murmur that has been rare to hear since the end of the age of record shops."

Expectations, all right: I used my keys to split away that fiendish shrink wrap (the absence of which is one advantage of downloading, not to mention vinyl) as I walked across the Tunes parking lot.

I'm pleased to report that "High Violet" is a deftly crafted wall of sound, vivid with drama (the first line is "It's terrible love") and verging on grandiose. In other words, totally fabulous.

Some things never change.

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