The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE
Collector opens Revolution Records vinyl shop on Willow Street
TORRINGTON — Revolution Records is a time machine for music lovers — particularly those who still collect and play vinyl albums for their quality sound.
The small shop on the corner of Willow and Franklin streets, a former bodega and a bait store, is filled to the brim with albums of every genre, from classic rock, jazz, blues, country, and everything in between. The walls are covered with vintage posters of recording artists including Lita Ford, Rush, Yes, Van Halen, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Sonic Youth and the Psychedelic Furs.
“When we were setting up the store, I realized I needed to put something on the walls — they were pretty bare,” John DiBella said. “I’ve had these posters since high school and I saved them.
So I got them out and hung them up.”
On a counter near the door, a small turntable and receiver pumps music into two big speakers. All the equipment, DiBella said, he’s also had since high school. “It still works great,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been using the turntable all along.”
The collection of music albums come from a variety of places — donated or
sold collections, flea market finds, thrift shop discoveries.
DiBella, a Stamford native who now lives in Harwinton, collected record albums for years. He and his friend Ted Pirro, a high school classmate who helped him get the store started, used to take the train to New York City and head straight for Greenwich Village to browse the record shops there — places such as Revolver and Bleeker Bob’s. There, they found obscure recordings by their favorite artists and were introduced to new ones. Their collections continued to grow.
Eventually they began selling them at record shows, where they set up a table and made a little money.
“It’s always been a passion of mine, collecting music,” DiBella said. “I worked at Record World in the Stamford mall, and as vinyl phased out, people started giving me their collections because they didn’t want them anymore. That’s how the idea for the store started.
“Doing the shows made us both realize that we missed the interaction with customers that we had when we worked in the record stores,” he said. “You talk with people, and you hear all these great stories about a concert they saw, or a song. ... We both loved that. So
after doing shows for two years, we said, ‘Let’s open a store of our own.’”
Revolution Records opened Oct. 24, and so far business is good.
“Word’s getting around,” DiBella said. “We’re getting lots of positive feedback.”
The job is fun, he said, because he never knows who’s going to walk in the door, or what they’re looking for.
“Some people come in and they want show tunes, so they go for the Broadway albums . ... Then there’s people looking for R&B, or rock . ... It’s a pretty big spectrum.”
DiBella’s own musical tastes are eclectic — he’s a huge Yes fan, as well as Rush, Van Halen and a host of other ’80s rock bands. The variety of albums reflects his willingness to provide plenty of choice for his customers, and his prices are very reasonable — the first Cars album sold that day for $2, because he has a number of them in stock. Hardtofind recordings sell for more money, and collectors are sure to discover treasures in the alphabetized, genreorganized wooden racks of vinyl.
Finding record albums in perfect condition is always a challenge, DiBella said, but people who love to listen to music on vinyl expect a little noise, a scratchiness or a crackling sound, often, when the needle is placed on the record.
“When albums went out of favor, people just threw them in the garage, or the basement,” he said. “So they get damaged. I get collections like that, that have been neglected, or just sat for a long time. But I make sure they sound good before I sell them. The thing is, when you buy a ‘remastered’ CD, all that noise is eliminated. People who play records don’t mind it as much. They say it sounds better.”
He also finds unexpected items between the album covers. Inside a Sha Na Na record, he discovered a collection of academic awards for a seventhgrade girl from a school in Stamford. After a search on Facebook, he found that seventhgrader, now an adult, and was able to return the awards to her. “You never know what you’re going to find,” he said.
DiBella hopes to offer events for local bands outside the store, once things get up and running. He also sells baseball cards and a small selection of comic books, as well as turntable and record cleaning supplies.
Revolution Records is located at 7 Willow St. in Torrington. Learn more on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ TheRevCT, or call 2036444677.