McHenry shops, vinyl collectors anticipate Record Store Day

Ask a collector to explain the draw of a vinyl record spinning on a turntable, and you might get a complex answer about the warmth of the sound, the feel of the experience.

Or you might hear something simpler.

“Most of the collectors are men, and men are easily entertained,” joked Tim Wille, owner of Vinyl Frontier Records in McHenry for the past 11 years. “Something that spins in a circle, that you can see, that entertains a guy.”

Despite its origins as a way to celebrate and promote a thriving culture of record sales and the people who make up that world, Record Store Day doesn't enchant Wille as much as it did when it began eight years ago.

Slated globally for April 16 this year, the day– deemed a one-day record-buying frenzy – will feature special vinyl and CD releases, along with numerous promotional products and limited releases from all genres, made exclusively for the day.

“It’s gotten very corporate,” said Wille, a collector himself, particularly of European progressive metal albums. “The original meaning has all but disappeared.”

With online resales and such driving up costs, he said, the day no longer is about the brick and mortar of a record shop, where albums are traded, music experienced and a love of vinyl shared.

This year’s Record Store Day brings a slew of releases, from exclusive tracks from Tom Petty, Florence + The Machine, Jason Molin, Disturbed, Bob Dylan and others; to live recordings from The Sonics, Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind and Madisen Ward & The Mama Bear; to collector sets, such as picture discs from the late David Bowie and the Creedence Clearwater Revival 1969 Box Set. For young fans, it includes the launch of a Disney Cruiser turntable, a Disney compilation and “Hello Kitty” picture disc, as well as special releases from artists such as The Weekend, Justin Bieber and Twenty One Pilots.

Vinyl Frontier Records is one of at least two record stores in McHenry County participating, with the three-year-old Siren Records in McHenry also taking part.

Both stores intend to have free samples of beer created for the day by Chain O’ Lakes Brewing Company in McHenry. The brewery dedicated its “Ace of Spades” beer to Motorhead’s Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister, who died last December.

Vinyl Frontier Records will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. that day, also offering cupcakes from Kiera Confections in McHenry. Those in line before the store opens, as typically is the case, will receive doughnuts from Riverside Bake Shop in McHenry.

“In the past, you could see 100 people lined up at the door starting at about 4 a.m.,” Wille said.

“In the last two years, general enthusiasm has dropped. … It’s still a relatively good weekend, but it’s not what it was.”

Wille has seen interest in vinyl fluctuate with younger generations collecting because “somebody they know said it’s cool to collect.”

“There’s just a basic fascination with vinyl,” he said. “It’s all over the board. The hipster crowd seems to like digging through the archives for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

“Then you’ve got kids who are discovering funk for the first time. And Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd sell well every single day. There’s no telling who’s going to buy that.”

At Siren Records, open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Record Store Day with albums spinning in a Biergarten, items in all areas, not just Record Stre Day releases, were increased in preparation, owner Bill Linguist said. A bulk of it is black metal, he said, and “stuff that’s more kind of undergroundish because people always go to record stores to buy that stuff.”

The store also is focusing on releases from local bands, such as Elephant Gun, Le Tour, Pigma and the older McHenry band, Britvas.

“We picked up a dozen turntables just in case people are shopping and don’t have a table,” he said.

“We ordered a lot of the punk and the metal music. We’ll have your jazz and blues stuff, like B.B. King. You’ll have your Phish and your Grateful Dead, but a lot of people ordered that, a lot of different stores, so they’ll have a lot of it available. We ordered more heavily on the stuff our clientele will be searching for, all the punk and heavy metal.”

Like any commodity, interest in vinyl has had its ups and downs, he said, with television shows, such as “American Pickers” and “Antiques Roadshow,” drawing more interest.

A collector himself, Linguist said, along with the “incredible” sound of an album spinning, the draw of vinyl often is what comes along with it, a poster, words written by the band, even in some cases an iron-on, such as those once released along with Kiss albums back in the day.

“There’s that connection with the band, and you lost that with the CD,” Linguist said.

Still, Record Store Day, at times, evolves into “people trying to make a buck out of it,” he said.

“They’re playing with a double-edge sword right now,” he said. “They could kill the hobby or make more people in tune to the hobby.”