SF record store owner finds gold in local collections
Downtown’s Lost Padre Records offers rare finds on vinyl
SANTA FE — Brooklyn transplant George Casey was worried about how a record shop would do in a smaller city like Santa Fe.
“Are there enough people to buy records from? What will they be like?” he recalled of his worries when he opened the doors at Lost Padre Records last month.
But Casey has found that Santa Fe’s artistic community includes unique collectors of all kinds of stuff, including music on vinyl. Going through his stock of albums last week, he pointed out rare finds that have found their way to the downtown store on Catron Street.
Hanging on the wall is a copy of Velvet Underground’s debut album. The 1967 record’s cover, designed by Andy Warhol, had a peelable banana sticker. The worth of the record now, according to Casey, depends on the state of the banana — whether it’s still fully intact or completely peeled.
“This one is kind of funny because it’s peeping out,” he said, noting that only a small piece has been peeled off the top. Its price tag is $300.
Next to that was one of the last albums by The Fabulous Wailers, a Seattle rock group from the 1950s and ’60s now considered to be one of the foremost exponents of garage rock. Casey said he’d never seen the rare 1966 album in person, and the record just happened to be sitting in a local’s stack of James Taylor albums.
“There’s less people to buy from, but the quality is higher actually,” he said of his new city.
Lost Padre is the 39-year-old New Jersey native’s first brick-and-mortar store, though he has had an online record business for the past 2½ years. Casey chose the name Lost Padre after the 18th-century legend of a lost gold mine in Southern New Mexico’s Organ Mountains.
“It’s sort of like when you’re going through records, you’re digging for gold,” he said.