By Brandon Ousley
On a warm
Friday afternoon in Bridgeport, Chicago, the boisterous buzzing of electric
drills and wails of car horns loom around the community. The clashing chimes of
beer mugs and excruciating laughter from a nearby sports bar and restaurant, Schaller’s
Pump, are fixated against the lively chatter and blaring guitars that creep
into the streets from an open pathway. Enter Let’s Boogie Records & Tapes
on 3321 S. Halsted St. Synthesizer plinks and booming rhythms
fill the age-old atmosphere, while magazines and artifacts lie across every
diameter of the room. Rows of vinyl sprawl around the life-size promotional
cut-outs that are placed on top of display cases full of cassettes and 8-track
tapes. A phone rings near a paper-filled desk
inside.
“Let’s Boogie!” Neil Keller, 64,
answers, with a voice that resembles a mixture of Robert De Niro and Ed
McMahon. He pulls a pen from a plastic cup with pens, pencils, and ink stamps,
and scribble names on a small piece of paper. “Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, right? Ok, we’ll have that for you for
pick-up,” he says.
Keller’s history in Bridgeport, and
also as a record storeowner, tell a unique story about America’s long lost—and
regained—love for vinyl records. It is symbolized by the fingers of vinyl
purists flicking through racks of LPs or 45s, and others who cross the
threshold of Chicago record stores that carry wax in an increasingly digital
world. This love, for warmth and static, developed resurgence amid an era of
codes and bleeps.
Inside Let’s Boogie, a tall man walks
in the open pathway, toward the counter. Richard Ortega is his name. A retired
school teacher, Ortega, 58, once was a lover of vinyl records. Before acquiring
his associate’s degree at Olive-Harvey College in 1979, he would buy vinyl
every weekend. It was more than a hobby, he says. It was his obsession.
“I wonder
what would be the value of these, Neil?” he asked, while carefully lying down
the dusty cardboard sleeves on the counter.
“Are you
trying to trade for cash?” replied Keller.
“Yes,
these jokers have just been sitting in the man cave of my home. I have no use
for them.”
Keller tilts the sleeve to the left,
and slides his fingers in the open album jacket, removing the plastic sleeve,
which carries the vinyl record.
It is a thick, black and shiny platter
that takes on a life of its own. Its circular, smooth edges are perfectly
rounded, as a road with no particular end. In its deep grooves are marks, tics,
and scratches that shows its age. For an
average person, it might be considered as a famous relic from the past. For
Keller, however, it represents his life.
Keller secured his life-long dream of
adding his vision of the musical landscape to Chicago when he was younger. He
spent much of his earlier years listening to the jovial and rockling sounds of
R&B groups like The Platters and The Moonglows. In the early 1970s, he
began to invest money in a new building and, by 1975, he finally acquired it.
“This is how many new titles there are
every week,” Keller says. “Can you imagine buying thousands of each title?
There used to be five or 10 major distributors over the U.S., and eventually it
got difficult for these guys to make a living because they picked up the flag
of the CDs and then downloads.”
According to a Vinyl Lives retail report,
there are 1,600 independently-owned record stores in the U.S. that still stands
in the digitally dominant world today. Between the years 2000 and 2010, more
than 4,000 stores (including media chains) closed, according to Nielsen
SoundScan retail figures conducted in 2012.
For Keller himself, there are mounts of
vinyl records that are pressed and sold to independently-owned record stores
and he continues to be optimistic about young and old generations splurging
money to own them.
‘Strawberry Fields
Forever’
 |
| Val's halla Records owner Val Camilletti stands in her shop |
A lady
pulls an LP out of the towering stack of vinyl records, hovering over each
other so tightly. She walks over to the front of the sprawling space of the
store, where an old Unitra turntable sits on a table. Seconds of pops and
cracks surface in the store’s loudspeakers, and then BOOM. The towering drum
fills kick in and the heavy crackling of guitar runs follow suit.
The record
is the Ramones’ 1976 eponymous album, The
Ramones. Val Camilletti is her name. Val’s Halla Records is her store.
For 40 years, Val’s Halla Records has
sat alongside the suburbia strands of 239 Harrison St., offering every nook and
cranny that breathes or lives as music. A melding pot of experiences,
recollections and love travels through every bustle, crackle, laugh and smile
that permeates the environment. It is the heart of Camilletti’s vision, which
began four decades ago.
Camilletti, 73, sits on a small stool,
stacking boxes of 45-inch records and record sleeves in a disclosed space, in a
brightly-lit office. The walls are covered with old movie advertisements and
concert handbills, still appearing in pristine shape. The heavy guitars and
bubbly bass floats from the loudspeakers with such grace and precision that it
rumbles one’s own body.
“We have
so many records, that it’s amazing that we are able to keep track of it all and
remember them,” Camilletti said, while on the move, organizing every record in
a box by artist and genre. “I always lose count of just how many records come
in and out of the store daily. People just respond by their ears and taste.”
Crates of
vinyl are stacked to the brim, by genre. A shrine of Elvis Presley memorabilia
takes up a quarter of the store’s space, while the commuters and residents
alike flick their fingers through each rugged piece of cardboard and paper,
unveiling some interesting digs. Surrounding the wall is mounts of CDs,
cassettes and—of course more vintage posters and concert handbills.
Camilletti
began her musical dynasty listening to classical records as a teenager. In
1962, she started in the music industry, working as an underdog at Capitol Records.
In the 1960s, Capitol Records was home of renowned rock bands like The Beatles
and The Beach Boys. And Camilletti breathed the same environment as they did, before
she left Los Angeles, CA in 1967. She relocated to Oak Park that same year, and
ran a four-store chain before it folded in 1972. Then, Val’s Halla Records was
born.
“I wasn’t
passionate about the record business when I started,” she says. “I was
passionate about music. As a little kid, listening to whatever was popular in
the day was the norm and I was a fanatic about pop music. I wasn’t extreme
about musical tastes.”
Her record
store, along with other surviving record stores, has experienced the ebb and
flow of the vinyl industry. With every new technological advent emerging and
trend changing, owners, like these still stay firm—knowing that the warmth and
accuracy from a piece of thick and black plastic rule the digital world.