Indies
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Sometime in 2000, Patrick Brown nudged Paul Epstein, then-owner of Twist & Shout in Denver. “Hey,” the record store manager told his boss, “I think Eric Clapton‘s out there shopping.”
“What should I do?” Epstein said.
“How about you say, ‘I’m Paul, I own the store, how can I help you?’”
Epstein helped Clapton search for an obscure Bing Crosby soundtrack from the ’40s, and the two bonded over blues and jazz records. Epstein learned Clapton was waiting for his clothes to dry at the laundromat across the street from Twist & Shout’s then-location. And Brown listened quietly. “It’s not my thing so much,” he recalls. “I said hello and that was it.”
Today, Brown is the owner of this music community capital on the west side of Denver, a soothing gallery of colorful rectangles, from the Madonna and Pete Townshend portraits facing off at the top of a west wall to the rows of books, CDs and LPs that seem to go on forever. Epstein and his wife, Jill, who co-founded the store in 1988, retired in 2022 and sold to Brown, one of two remaining employees who has worked at each of the three locations where Twist has existed over the years. “Patrick is a little less likely to fanboy, even over people he is a fan of,” says Alf Kremer, the store’s longtime bookkeeper. “With him, it wouldn’t be Clapton — it’d be, I don’t know, [Robert] Fripp.”
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Brown landed his first job at Twist in 1992, after he’d spent an earlier summer wandering the aisles, blasting indie rock and avant-garde jazz through his headphones. Epstein put Brown to work tearing up cardboard CD longboxes and slipping their liner-note booklets into plastic sheaths; the idea was to store the actual CDs in the back to avoid in-store theft.
He turned out to be not only a loyal employee but an indispensable one. “Six months, this guy’s on the fast track. Whatever I ask him to do, he does it. And then he just stayed,” Epstein says. “He went from the absolute lowest part-time additional help to doing every single job at the store over the years.” Eventually, Brown rose to general manager.
Patrick Brown
Courtesy of Twist & Shout
Today, the 11,000-square-foot Twist & Shout remains Denver’s signature record store, having weathered the Napster-era downturn that felled chains from Tower Records to Virgin Megastore, then leaned into the unexpected vinyl revival that has kept indie retailers afloat for two decades. Twist’s sales mix, according to Brown, is roughly 60%-70% vinyl, 15%-20% CDs, 10% merch and posters, 5% movies and 3% stereo equipment. “There are not a lot of stores like this,” he says. “Waterloo in Austin, the Amoeba stores, Record Archive in Rochester, Music Millennium in Portland. We’ve all had that old-school-record-store depth of catalog. We do all genres. We’ve invested heavily in physical. There just aren’t stores with the big footprint.”
Brown, a soft-spoken 55-year-old who is just as comfortable talking about seeing experimental-jazz composer Anthony Braxton at a festival as the evolution of music-retail inventory, has a more low-key presence among staff and customers than Epstein did. “I want it to still be what it always has been — a comfortable space for anybody to shop,” he says. “Record stores have a reputation for being snotty and disdainful of your tastes, and we try to avoid that as much as possible. We’re here just to help you find what you’re interested in.”
The store’s historical customer roster includes not only Clapton but Morrissey, who once made an impromptu visit with two beefy bodyguards, whom he positioned on each side of the “M” aisle so he could be unbothered while shopping. “I’m charitable — I think he was buying those as gifts for other people,” Brown recalls. “But he was still buying his own music as gifts.”
When the Epsteins opened Twist, they were “selling obscure music to a small but dedicated clientele from an over-cluttered building on a quiet Denver side street,” as Billboard later reported. They upgraded twice over the years, to new locations throughout the city, finally settling on West Colfax Avenue, what Brown calls “The Cultureplex,” a busy corner that includes iconic but struggling bookstore Tattered Cover and indie-movie haven Sie Film Center. During an interview on a weekday afternoon, packs of East High School students roam the stores. (The Epsteins own the building, and Twist & Shout, along with the adjacent Chipotle and a sushi restaurant, pays rent to them.)
“It feels like, ‘This is our world, here,’ all in this space,” says Mollie O’Brien, a veteran Denver folk and R&B singer. “It’s welcoming.” Like the Epsteins, she adds, Brown continues to purchase physical albums by local artists, even if they don’t record for major labels or big-time distributors. Usually, though, Twist & Shout buys wholesale from all the major labels, plus big indies such as Sub Pop and Secretly Group and one-stop distributor Alliance Entertainment. “I wouldn’t change our mix,” Brown says.
Like everybody, the Epsteins spent the early part of the pandemic terrified that consumers would stay out of record stores forever — but business quickly picked up as shelter-in-place customers rediscovered their turntables and records; Epstein told the Denver Post that 2021 sales were 25% higher than 2019 sales. The Epsteins, though, realized they were tired of running the business. After the longtime owners of The Record Exchange in Boise, Idaho, sold to three employees and one of their spouses in fall 2021, Epstein made a similar offer to Brown, who took over the store in March 2022.
When the Epsteins called a staff meeting to announce the new owner, Brown told employees, “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m going to change. And I’m not going to be changing anything. Otherwise, I wouldn’t want this business.” Kremer, who moonlights as a Denver dance-music DJ in a gorilla suit called There’s An Ape for That, says this prediction came true: “The philosophy is the same. The approach to the business is the same.”
In his 36 years at Twist & Shout, Brown has experienced micro and macro changes in the record business. In the ’90s, dance music and rave parties exploded in the Denver area, and the store emphasized vinyl to accommodate DJ demand, which diminished when dance-music performers went digital in the early 2000s. Then came mp3s, file-sharing, Napster, the iTunes Store, YouTube and Spotify, and demand for physical products briefly dipped. Once the LP revival kicked in, Brown says, “We were ready for that.”
Large record retailers are rare in this era of tiny stores devoted to punk or dance or other niches, according to Andrea Paschal, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, of which Twist & Shout has been a member since the coalition’s 1995 inception. Since Napster and file-sharing disrupted CD sales, she says, “It’s really tough to build a store with the catalog and inventory that Twist & Shout has when you don’t have the decades of doing that.”
Twist & Shout isn’t invulnerable. Brown acknowledges the vinyl boom could dissipate, and while CD and cassette sales are rising again, they’re unlikely to make up the difference. If something happens to neighbor Tattered Cover, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, foot traffic could drop at The Cultureplex. And Brown won’t even try to predict record-business trends. He’s a steward of the store, not a visionary. “Nothing drastic,” he says. “Keep it as it is.”
Indie digital rights group Merlin is launching a new initiative today (June 5) called Merlin Connect, aimed at helping up-and-coming social and tech platforms license independent music. The new program, which will work on an application basis, is aimed at helping promising startups utilize music while also helping Merlin’s labels and distributors, and thus indie artists, get paid for their use.
For years, new digital startups have often adopted a policy of “asking for forgiveness not permission” — dating back to the old Facebook motto of “move fast and break things” — which often meant that music and other media would be used without licenses, and recompense, while an app or platform found its footing and users, due to the high expense of licensing media catalogs. That tended to result in contentious licensing negotiations when such apps or platforms became too big to ignore — and, on occasion, lawsuits if such companies continued to utilize music and media without agreeing to deals with rightsholders.
Merlin Connect is trying to smooth that process for both new startups and its members, offering flexible terms and licenses that also get rightsholders paid as a startup develops.
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“Our overarching goal is to discover new opportunities for music monetization,” Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota told Billboard in an exclusive statement. “Many emerging technology platforms lack access to, or do not even realize, how quality music can help them build and retain new audiences, resonate with cultural movements and drive their growth. Our members are handpicking a curated catalog of music that is perfect for any platform’s evolution… By bringing independent music to new spaces, we’re delivering exclusive opportunities for our members, ensuring they are at the forefront of innovation.”
Merlin says the program will be aimed at creating fair value for music, as well as marketing opportunities and the development of relationships with the next generation of platforms early on in their existence. On the other side of that equation, it will allow the platforms to have access to a simplified process within which they can utilize fully-licensed independent music and explore collaborations with Merlin members, and find ways “to maximize the impact of music on their platform,” according to a press release.
“The industry has been in need of an easier way for new platforms to access high-quality music and, in turn, foster growth for quite some time,” Ninja Turn managing director North America Marie Clausen said in a statement. “I am excited to see the Merlin team taking such a visionary approach to exploring new business opportunities. It’s a crucial step to ensure that new commercial opportunities have the best chance to succeed and diversify and secure new income streams for Merlin’s members. From an independent point of view, this initiative is excellent news — especially given the current market challenges.”
Emerging platforms will be able to apply, after which their application will be reviewed and Merlin will “selectively engage with the most promising platforms,” the organization said. Merlin will prioritize a platform’s potential for innovation and evolution; its leadership and the resilience of its team; with the goal of a more sustainable and ethic industry.
“As one of the founders of Merlin, I’ve had the opportunity to support the incredible growth of our organization from its inception to now,” !K7 founder Horst Weidenmüller said in a statement. “Merlin has always been dedicated to empowering independence, ensuring that its members receive the access and opportunities they deserve. With the launch of Merlin Connect, we are taking a significant step forward in this mission.”
Added Hopeless Records founder Louis Posen, “Hopeless is a passionate and longtime supporter of Merlin and its mission to ensure the fair value of music for the independent music community. With Connect, Merlin can now expand the reach of members’ music into new areas where music fans interact with the music they love. We are excited to see Merlin Connect open new doors for our artists and bring their music to innovative platforms around the world.”
If it’s possible, Record Store Day was even bigger this year than last year, when Taylor Swift caused a traffic jam at record stores across the nation, according to some of the merchants Billboard’s Retail Track columnist visited this past Saturday (April 20).
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Retail Track
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This year, the Olivia Rodrigo “Stick Season”/Noah Kahan “Lacy” seven-inch was cited as the hottest seller by store managers and owners, but overall, a wider breadth of releases drove more traffic into stores, according to Rough Trade store manager George Flanagan.
Other big sellers — or records that the retailers wished they had more copies of — included Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” seven-inch; the Sparks/Noël double LP No. 1 Song in Heaven/Is There More to Life Than Dancing?; Talking Heads‘ Live at WCOZ double LP; Sabrina Carpenter’s “Feather” seven-inch; and a 12-inch featuring David Byrne‘s cover of “Hard Time” and Paramore‘s cover of “Burning Down The House.”
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This year, Swift issued The Tortured Poets Department on Friday, the day before Record Store Day (RSD), and it has so far sold an astounding 1.5 million records in its first three days of availability. But independent record store merchants say that while the album was a solid seller for the weekend, this album didn’t have the impact that Swift’s exclusive for last year’s RSD, Folklore: the Long Pond Studio Sessions. That’s because this year’s album was widely available at mass merchants, Amazon, and on her website, and at sale prices just a little bit above their wholesale cost. Nevertheless, retailers say they will always warmly welcome any new release by Swift.
Retail Track began the day at Darkside Records in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where at 9:15 — 15 minutes after the store opened — there were some 250 people waiting in line for their turn to enter the store. Letting customers in 15 to 20 at a time, the line — which lasted until nearly 6:30 p.m. on Saturday — stretched around the 9,000-square-foot store and deep into the filled-to-capacity parking lot. The first person in line showed up at 8 p.m. Thursday (April 18), according to Darkside co-owner Justin Johnson, who added that when he showed up to open the store on Friday morning (April 19), a full day before Record Store Day kicked off, there were already four people queued up.
“It was absolutely an incredible turnout. Everyone was really cool and we had a great time,” Johnson told Billboard. “It was our best day ever and it blew away last year’s Record Store Day, which up to then had been our best day ever.”
What’s more, one woman drove 11 hours from Michigan to shop at Darkside because of how the store had handled the autographed Taylor Swift CD last year, she told Johnson. “[She] wanted to support us for treating the Swifties so fairly and combating the bots,” Johnson said. And she showed up early enough at the store to be No. 10 in line, he added.
After leaving Darkside, Retail Track drove over the Hudson River to Middletown, N.Y. to visit Rock Fantasy, a record store/pinball machine/video game arcade. Open since 1985, Rock Fantasy leans hard rock/metal, but owner Stephen Keeler said the Rodrigo/Kahan single was the day’s top seller. He added that about 30 customers were in line when he showed up to open the store. Moreover, he says the store celebrated Record Store Day/420 by staging two shows on successive nights at Quinnz Pinz, the local bowling alley where he promotes shows. The weekend kicked off with a Grateful Dead tribute band, Gratefully Yours, on Friday night; while on Saturday night, Kiss tribute band Psycho Circus performed. On the afternoon of Record Store Day, Rock Fantasy held a pinball tournament in the store.
Some of the 250 music fans waiting on line for their turn to shop Darkside Records—a store logo displayed about the tent structures.
Ed Christman
Rock Fantasy’s layout is long and narrow, almost like a railroad apartment with five or six rooms. Besides the records, tchotchkes and other music memorabilia it sells in the front two rooms, the store also houses 53 pinball machines and a few vintage video games. Customers can choose to play on machines featuring Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Kiss, Ted Nugent, AC/DC, the Beatles, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Guns & Roses, as well as machines licensed from movies like Jaws, Pulp Fiction, Godzilla, OO7 and Jurassic Park.
Heading back to the other side of Hudson, Retail Track tried a little potluck with a store called The Vinyl Room in Beacon, N.Y. While it turned out to be more of a bar and restaurant than a record store, it was nevertheless a fun place to visit. The space had only two racks of vinyl, mainly used records, but the store’s interior design, which used records and other music memorabilia and ornamentation, more than made the trip worth it.
Across the street, at the local VFW Hall, was the Beacon Record & CD Fest, a swap meet with about a dozen vendors where Retail Track lucked out by scoring a copy of the Tommy James & The Shondells single “Gingerbread Man” on Roulette Records.
Staying on the same side of the Hudson, Retail Track next headed to Cold Springs, N.Y. and visited Half Moon Records at The Shoppes, an emporium-style setup with a number of different rooms and stores. Half Moon, which comprised the front two rooms of The Shoppes, was filled with records. One of the co-owners, Peter Hamboussi, said the store had just doubled the space devoted to records about a month ago; while co-owner Nicole Le Blanc said the store hopes to build its country music inventory. Like other merchants, Hamboussi said he wished he had received more copies of the Byrne and Paramore record, as well as the Cranberries. He said he usually does good business on Record Store Day later in the afternoon, as devout music buyers continue on their crawls.
Finally, Retail Track headed back to New York City to visit Rough Trade Records, which had a line of about 100 people when the store opened, including customer George West, who was first in line at about 5 p.m. on the Friday night prior. West is usually first in line every year at the store for the event, reported Rough Trade’s Flanagan, who added that by 8 p.m. on Friday, five people had queued up. The line lasted all day Saturday until about 5:30 p.m., when the store stopped regulating the in-flow. Nevertheless, when Retail Track showed up at around 6 p.m., the store was jam-packed and still doing brisk business.
Rough Trade and Rockefeller Center presented Indie Plaza in conjunction with Record Store Day, where eight bands and DJs entertained music fans, Rough Trade customers, and tourists from 1PM to 9PM. Pictured above is the Rough Trade booth, stocked with records and next to it is the artist merch booth selling wares from the bands. In the background, on the stage, Armand Hammer are working their way through their set.
Ed Christman
Another factor boosting traffic and sales at Rough Trade on Saturday was that it hosted Indie Plaza in Rockefeller Center, in the vast open space above the skating rink. During the day, DJs and bands alternated playing on a stage erected at the end of the plaza abutting 50th Street, keeping the crowd entertained until 9 p.m. Rough Trade set up a booth filled with music, while next to it was another booth with merch from the bands performing that day to sell to the fans enjoying the shows. Dave The Spazz, Sunrisa Disco, and Nancy Whang took turns helming the DJ booth in between sets by Cloud Nothings, Dehd, Armand Hammer, Glitterer, Sunny War, Corridor, Snõõper and Wishy.
“Last year, Record Store Day was our best day ever and it’s worth noting that Taylor Swift was a huge part of our business that day,” Flanagan said. “I was convinced we wouldn’t be able to top that, but we did; we were up by 5% to 10% more. I think one of the reasons why [2024 RSD] became the store’s best day ever is because there was something like 20% more titles out this year.”
For the last store visit of the day, the plan was to head back to home base of Astoria, Queens, to visit the semi-new Pancake Records on Steinway Street. But Retail Track ran out of gas (figuratively) and out of time (literally) — and the local bar with cold Pabst Blue Ribbon cans was beckoning.