World Record Holder
| By Chris Clayton |
|
(Photo by Marshall Franklin Long)
Adam Rosen is not so much drowning in vinyl as he is floating comfortably atop his collection of nearly half a million LPs, 45s and 78s. Next to Oregon-based Records By Mail, Rosen’s eBay store is the largest online retailer of vinyl in the world. So in a time when record stores are dangerously close to going dodo, why is a guy who managed to make a career of selling vinyl online opening a brick-and-mortar shop? We’ll let the 30-year-old Minnetonka native—whose Shuga Records opens this month in the former Minnesota Center for Photography space in Northeast Minneapolis—explain.
METRO: Well?
Adam Rosen: I’ve always wanted a real record store, and right now there’s really no place to buy music north of the river. If I were just to open up a record store, there’s no way it would survive. But I have the online component, which is the main part of my business.
Tell us about the store setup.
We have 35,000 records available online at any given time. These are the really nice records—lots of rare classical stuff. They’ll be cleaned, catalogued and vacuum-sealed, and kept away from the main retail part of the store. You’ll be able to buy those, but we’ll go back and grab them for you. The main retail section up front will have a big free bin and a bunch of $3 records. The other focus will be local. We’re going to have more local music, I hope, than anyone else.
Where do you find your records?
I buy a lot of big collections. We bought a collection from a member of the Replacements—I can’t tell you his name. His records were all unplayed, like signed stuff by Eric Burden and the Animals. The second-largest collection we ever bought was 25,000 records from a jazz radio station in South Carolina.
Who buys the rare stuff?
I have a lot of international customers. We had this guy from Singapore come in four years ago and drop $20,000 on classical.
What are some of the rare records you’re selling right now?
We have a Japanese pressing of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. It’s from the early 1950s and is going for $6,000. Also, we have a spoken word album that Albert Einstein recorded. You don’t see that every day.
How did you get into all of this?
I’ve always loved vinyl and was DJ’ing in Chicago and got into a car accident. I hurt my back and couldn’t DJ anymore so I started putting up my records for sale.
Ghost World or High Fidelity?
I like both, but I go with Empire Records. It’s cheesy but that’s the cult movie that me and my friends watched in high school. +
Shuga Records
165 13th Ave. N.E., Mpls. 612.455.6285
METRO: Well?
Adam Rosen: I’ve always wanted a real record store, and right now there’s really no place to buy music north of the river. If I were just to open up a record store, there’s no way it would survive. But I have the online component, which is the main part of my business.
Tell us about the store setup.
We have 35,000 records available online at any given time. These are the really nice records—lots of rare classical stuff. They’ll be cleaned, catalogued and vacuum-sealed, and kept away from the main retail part of the store. You’ll be able to buy those, but we’ll go back and grab them for you. The main retail section up front will have a big free bin and a bunch of $3 records. The other focus will be local. We’re going to have more local music, I hope, than anyone else.
Where do you find your records?
I buy a lot of big collections. We bought a collection from a member of the Replacements—I can’t tell you his name. His records were all unplayed, like signed stuff by Eric Burden and the Animals. The second-largest collection we ever bought was 25,000 records from a jazz radio station in South Carolina.
Who buys the rare stuff?
I have a lot of international customers. We had this guy from Singapore come in four years ago and drop $20,000 on classical.
What are some of the rare records you’re selling right now?
We have a Japanese pressing of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. It’s from the early 1950s and is going for $6,000. Also, we have a spoken word album that Albert Einstein recorded. You don’t see that every day.
How did you get into all of this?
I’ve always loved vinyl and was DJ’ing in Chicago and got into a car accident. I hurt my back and couldn’t DJ anymore so I started putting up my records for sale.
Ghost World or High Fidelity?
I like both, but I go with Empire Records. It’s cheesy but that’s the cult movie that me and my friends watched in high school. +
Shuga Records
165 13th Ave. N.E., Mpls. 612.455.6285
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