For Canyon Country resident Victor Torres Jr., vinyl records take him back to an affectionate past. It’s the smell of the vinyl and of the cardboard cover, and the cracking and popping sounds of the needle on the record — even the record skips here and there — that do it for him.
Torres Jr.’s obsession with vinyl records goes back to his dad.
“This is my childhood,” he said, referring to all the records surrounding him at the Grayskull Vinyl record store in Canyon Country. “I grew up using records. For me, it has a nostalgic feeling to listen to it. It’s hearing it, it’s the visual aspect of the record, how big it is, the details. And then, being in the music industry, once you learn how the music was recorded, you have more appreciation toward the making of a record.”
Torres Jr., 45, owns and operates Grayskull Vinyl. The store grew out of the record booth that he and his family used to operate regularly on weekends at the former Santa Clarita Swap Meet. In an interview on Oct. 27, 2024, which was the last day of the swap meet, Torres Jr. talked about his beginnings.
“We’ve been at the swap meet for 14 years now,” he said. “This is what helped us to start the record store. We started here at the swap meet with three little boxes. And then throughout the years, we just started getting more and more records.”
The popularity of the booth led to Torres Jr. opening his store on April 1, 2021.
“People thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” he said. “But I was serious. I was like, ‘Here’s our store.’ But it was empty.”
Prior to opening Grayskull, Torres Jr. set up and broke down concert stages for various bands. He also worked in the music industry in other capacities, and at one point he saw what it was like for bands to record on vinyl.
He explained that the process is very different compared to how music is recorded digitally today.
“The band had to be in one room at the same time and record the music literally onto a record,” he said. “Nowadays, you really don’t have to be in one room. That whole process before — I appreciate it more. It was part of the art.”
Torres Jr. was born in South Los Angeles. It was his dad, Victor Torres Sr., who got him into music.
“My dad,” he said, “showed me what a record was, how it was played, how not to do it, what it means, who this person is, what band this is.”
Torres Sr., who was working in the back of the store, recalled his son’s love for music as a kid.
“When he was little, he was playing records all of the time,” he said. “He grew up with music. That’s why he knows a lot.”
According to Torres Jr., he’d borrow his dad’s records quite frequently.
With a laugh, he said that sometimes he wouldn’t give them back.
“He liked the same music I like,” Torres Sr. said. “Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Creedence Clearwater Revival, classic rock — everything.”
In 1991, Torres Sr. brought home an audio cabinet that housed an impressive stereo system. Torres Jr. was blown away by the size of it, its functionality, the sound quality and all the lights on it.
“That thing was a beast,” Torres Jr. said. “It was a Fisher. It had the equalizers, it had the cassette deck, it had the radio, it had the record player on top, and then it had a CD player, too. That was my first introduction to CD.”
Torres Jr. remembers the first CD to come into the house. It was a Lionel Richie album. And he remembers his first concert, too. In 1996, his dad took him to see White Zombie perform at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Orange County.
And while Torres Sr. listened to rock and roll, Torres Jr. knew there was still some music his dad wouldn’t like. The younger Torres shared how, as a kid, he got into “really heavy” heavy metal but felt he couldn’t bring those records home. Instead, he’d take an old cassette, cover the write-protect holes with tape to enable recording, and secretly record the music onto it.
Even as he found creative ways to hide his music, other forces were shaping his life more dramatically. In 1997, drive-by shootings in the South Los Angeles community pushed the family to move to Canyon Country. Torres Jr. spoke about a number of memories from the time, often revealing something in his store from the experience.
While telling one particular tale, he played a rock music video on the store’s front TV and pointed out some stage work he’d done — specifically the tinsel foil fringe used in the set design. Then, he motioned to the entrance of the store, where he had kept a piece of that same fringe as a memento.
He also pointed out his cameo role in the video.
“That was us on the tour bus,” he said. “That’s me right there. I was leading them out, but they cut me off at that part. Then you’re going to see me here for half a second. Right there.”
Torres Jr. also talked about when he used to play records for a brewery, adding that he just always wanted to be involved with music.
Step into his store, and it’s instantly clear he’s a true music lover. The walls are covered with photos, posters, signs, guitars and classic album covers — some of them autographed. Throughout the shop, you’ll also find vintage turntables, tape players and stereo systems. Most of the stuff is for sale.
“If it doesn’t have a price, though,” Torres Jr. said, “I’m going to be buried with it when I pass away.”
One of those items was what he considers to be among the greatest records of all time. He had it there in the store — Black Sabbath’s “Live Evil” album from 1983.
“This record,” he said, holding it with pride, “is going to go to my personal collection. At the end of the day, I’m still a collector.”
As it turns out, Torres Jr. wasn’t always so interested in selling records. He learned about that when, in the early 2010s, his parents discovered the Santa Clarita Swap Meet.
“My parents and my little brother went, and they started selling stuff they had around their house,” he said. “And then my dad asked me, ‘Hey, I want to sell my records.’ I was like, ‘Do you really want to do that?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I want to sell my records.’ So, he took a few, and in the same day, he sold them all.”
Torres Jr. learned from his dad that one guy bought him out. He also found out that his dad had sold the records for a low price and that he was going to return the following weekend to sell more.
This time, however, Torres Jr. helped his dad with the pricing. He knew they could earn more money. But even with higher prices, everything sold out. His dad returned each weekend until he sold his entire record collection.
Torres Jr. would eventually get more involved with helping his dad sell records at the swap meet. He made connections with a record distributor and began buying collections so that they could sell them there.
Come rain or shine, they were at the swap meet.
“When it was windy or rainy,” Torres Jr. said, “that was when I’d lose time off of my life — I was so stressed about stuff getting wet and our tarp flying away.”
Their spot at the swap meet remained popular with shoppers. As business continued to grow, Torres Jr. picked up more records from his distributor. He’d get collections. And he’d get original press records and repress records, too.
Then the time came when their spot at the swap meet was just not big enough for what they were doing.
“One day,” Torres Jr. said, “I talked to my dad like: ‘Hey, Dad, why don’t we see if we could get a bigger size? Because they have 10 by 15 spots, and it’s on the main path.’ My dad doesn’t like change. He says, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
It took some work, but Torres Jr. was able to convince his dad to take a chance. They made the move to the larger space, and sure enough, business picked up.
Over the years, their swap meet operation became increasingly popular, and shoppers would ask why they didn’t have a permanent store.
That idea ate at Torres Jr. He started looking into the possibility of opening a store, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut that down. However, the urge to open something permanent grew in his mind.
Once pandemic lockdowns ended, Torres Jr. looked at places in both the San Fernando and the Santa Clarita valleys. Ultimately, he found what he thought was the perfect place on Soledad Canyon Road in Canyon Country.
His dad, who recently retired, helps out in the store. He has his own space in the back room where he organizes and tests record albums, and he cleans up and repairs records, record covers, old turntables, tape decks and stereo systems.
Torres Sr. said he misses the swap meet, adding that when it ended in October, it took a while for the store to recuperate sales they got at the meet. So many people, he said, would buy records from them there, but they wouldn’t come to the store.
“But, every day,” he said, “there is new people here.”
Both Torres Jr. and his dad love what they do. People come in to not only buy vinyl records, but also to talk music.
Torres Jr. said it’s a similar vibe to what you might experience at a comic book store, where fans come in to talk about shared interests, new and old products, artists and the subculture.
“We have regulars,” he said, “and we talk about their first album, what takes them back, the latest concert — anything related to music.”
People have told him that the record store is better for conversation than the bar or the barbershop. He loves that.
Sometimes, the right person might even get Torres Jr. to relinquish something from his own collection.
“I’m OK with letting it go for someone,” he said. “I’ve done it before.”
Asked if such a person has to name the right price for that to happen, Torres Jr. answered no, that it’s not about the right price, rather it’s about the right customer. He’d sell a cherished album to someone who really appreciated it the way he does.
Some time ago, he was talking with a customer who happened to collect motion picture soundtracks. One of the guy’s favorite film scores was Tangerine Dream’s “Legend” from the 1985 film of the same name. The two got to talking about the music and the film and the way that the music accompanied various scenes in the film.
It just so happened that Torres Jr. had the “Legend” score on vinyl, but it wasn’t for sale.
“I was like, ‘I do have a copy in the back,’” Torres Jr. said. “He’s like, ‘How much?’ I said, ‘A million bucks.’”
He was only kidding about the price, of course, but he sold the record to the guy anyway.
“It was about the passion,” he said. “It was more having passion for what you’re doing. And at the end of the day, that’s really what this thing is all about.”
Know any unsung heroes or people in the SCV with an interesting life story to tell? Email [email protected].
