Vintage vinyl
Owner of new record store in SF revels in ‘awesome’ regional finds
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 1950s and ’60s now considered to be one 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.
“People are so into culture of every kind and what they have is more interesting.”
Lost Padre is the 39-yearold New Jersey native’s first brick-and-mortar store, though he has had an online record business for the past two and a half years. He quit his corporate marketing job in Manhattan to focus on buying and selling LPs and 45s.
After living in Brooklyn for 11 years, he and his wife moved to Santa Fe six months ago following a cross-country road trip to find their next home. He noticed Santa Fe wasn’t too “saturated” with record shops like some other cities across the U.S. — there were 11 just in his neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, when he left.
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.
Lost Padre will also serve as a live music venue once a month. Its second show, tonight at 6 p.m., will feature Santa Fe rocker Luke Carr and Tucson-based country artist Ry Warner.
Casey first fell in love with records as a self-described poor college student in Claremont, Calif. Back in the ’90s, when he says people began abandoning their records for CDs, he started buying records because they became so inexpensive.
But it wasn’t until the late 2000s when he saw records — and record stores — making a comeback in the mainstream. After CDs were replaced with digital MP3s, he said some music lovers longed for a physical possession. And between records and CDs, he said records are more aesthetically pleasing.
“A lot of people who are fans, they really do want something physical to tie them to the band,” said Casey. “And an MP3 just never gets it.”
A longing that he thinks exists for customers of all ages. Though his average customer is 30-something, or someone who has been collecting for a while, he said he’s also had customers as young as 12 — a kid just getting into records and buying his first Beatles album — and as old as 73.
On one end of the store, the records ranging from the 1920s to present day are divided by genres like country, reggae and rap. He intentionally stocks up on ’90s rap hits from Notorious B.I.G. and Public Enemy, which he said can be difficult to find on vinyl.
On the other side, popular, classic records are organized by the names of the artists, like Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Casey also sells vintage turntables, record player cleaning kits, album frames and cassettes made by local rock or indie bands.
“I’m definitely just trying to fit Santa Fe as best I can,” he said about selling things like the cassettes and albums or genres that mean something to northern New Mexico — not just for locals, but also for hardcore collectors who visit record stores when traveling and want to buy region-specific music.
He pointed out a large collection of indigenous music, including a crate of recently discovered recordings from the former Indian House Records label in Oklahoma. He said the producer, Oscar Humphreys, traveled across the country in the 1960s to create field recordings from various tribes. Some of the records, he said, include recordings of now-extinct Native languages, like the Siouan language of Mandan.
He also found a record of Laguna Pueblo songs from an out-of-state record dealer. “They’ll just languish in a dealer’s store (in a Northern state) for years because people aren’t looking for it there,” Casey said.
He also gushed over oldschool Norteño music, or the mix of traditional Latin and rock music popular in New Mexico that brought out artists like Tiny Morrie, Al Hurricane and others on Hurricane’s small record label.
“I’m basically trying to source them and whenever I bring them into the store, they sell,” he said. “It’s really good, it’s party music. It’s whoop and holler. It’s really fun, plus this is the music of northern New Mexico.”
And for someone not from around here, there’s the joy of discovering this style and showing it to others.
“I’ve played some of those records for my friends who are ’50s rock ‘n’ roll collectors in New York and California,” he said.
“And this stuff is a fusion of rock ‘n’ roll and Latina sound, and they’re like, ‘This is amazing, why have I never heard about this?’ It just it never made it out of here for some reason. People come in here from out of state and I say, ‘You have to listen to this, because it’s from here and it’s awesome.”