Record owners and enthusiasts took part in the second annual Santa Clarita Record Show held in the Canyon Country Community Center on Sunday.
“I’ve been selling records for many years, mostly online, and I wanted something locally because I’m from the Santa Clarita Valley,” said event organizer and Airwaves Records owner Chad Weatherford. “And so I organized the first one in June of last year, and it was a success, and we felt like we could make another one happen, and that’s what we did.”
The Santa Clarita Record Show was born out of a combination of Weatherford’s love of records and dissatisfaction with his former job.
“I used to work at a record store in Pasadena in the ’90s, and then I left the business for a while and went into post-production,” Weatherford said. “And I felt that I just didn’t love what I was doing anymore, and I wanted to do something that I felt passionate about. And records came back, so I ended up just starting up and contacting all my people that I used to deal with, and it just started up again, and I left post-production and made it happen.”
Several vendors stood at their booths and offered vintage records, tapes, CDs, and other memorabilia comprising a variety of genres such as jazz, punk and new wave.
“I tell people I have a little of everything and a lot of somethings,” said vendor and Out of Date Records owner Jeff Thompson, an avid classic rock fan and the son of a jazz drummer. “So I’ve got jazz, I’ve got hip-hop, I’ve got rhythm and blues, classic rock. I just try to listen to everybody that asks me for things. I go into my intuition, and this is where I end up. People usually say, ‘Hey, you got a great collection.’ I think, ‘Well, thank you.’ I kind of thank the public for telling me what they want.”
Some booths offered different forms of merchandise, such as shirts and figurines, themed after various musicians.
“We just figured that, you know, we tried to bring some of the music ones,” Haute Collectibles owner Steven Nelson said of his stock of musician-themed Funko Pops. “Normally we do comic shows and stuff. So we have a lot of figures but figured, you know, maybe somebody wants something by their record.”
While the vendors considered the second record show as much of a success as the first, Thompson noted that getting all of them to gather in one location can be a struggle.
“I think we had a little more trouble getting a lot of vendors,” Thompson said. “Some of these folks live out in Riverside, and they’re willing to drive out. But a lot of people like that, they go, ‘Well, that’s kind of a haul.’ And then some people were out of town because it’s MLK weekend.”
Still, those who participated greatly enjoyed being surrounded by fellow vinyl fans with a deep sense of nostalgia for older music formats.
“I think we have the support of the public,” Weatherford said. “It’s great to talk to people. It’s great to have people here that have the common interests and love of music.”