Music

Owning and operating a record store was never the career plan for Ashli Todd. Sure, her father Nick ran Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, for decades, and she grew up helping out at the shop to earn spending money (it was either that, she explains, or “clean up s–t in the chicken shed”). But Todd insists that taking over was “never discussed as a succession situation,” nor did the part-time employee ever sit around the store thinking of ways to run it differently.

So in the late ‘00s, when Nick Todd – facing skyrocketing rent, a divorce and the ongoing nosedive of physical music sales – decided to retire and sell the store, she didn’t for a second consider taking it over. But after several deals with interested parties fell through and her father made moves to shutter the shop permanently, something in her head clicked: This couldn’t happen to a living piece of music history.

Founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller in Cardiff’s Queen’s Arcade, Spillers’ claim to fame is that it’s the oldest record store in the world (other stores may lay similar claims, but Spillers stands out in that it can prove it’s been continuously selling records since the 19th century). If you think vinyl is retro, consider this — when this store opened, vinyl wouldn’t become the norm for a half century; sound recordings at the time came via wax cylinders or heavy discs made of hard rubber or shellac, and were mostly a cost-ineffective novelty.

“With Spillers Records being the world’s oldest record shop, I felt it would be an awful sign — to the industry, the world, whoever cares — about the state of the physical music and independent music retailing, specifically,” Todd says of what motivated her to take action when the store faced its final act.

Suddenly, despite having an art degree and mostly part-time experience at the front of the store, she was learning employee contract laws, negotiating deals and eyeballing new locations. Within six months, “It went from ‘it’s going to shut’ to ‘I’ve got a business plan, and I’m going to give it a go,’” she recalls, shaking her head as if struggling to parse a half-remembered dream. “When I reflect on it, it seems absolutely bonkers.”

Back in 2010, a physical music store was, simply put, a bad investment. Vinyl’s comeback seemed like a pipe dream maintained by an aging, niche demographic, and the vast majority of artists didn’t even bother putting out new releases on wax. But Todd — a music junkie whose teenage favorites were Sparklehorse, Placebo, Mogwai and “anything and everything that [BBC Radio DJ] John Peel played” — saw a few signs of encouragement that made her think the vinyl market would improve despite it being “s–t” when she took over. One was Record Store Day, a U.S.-born event that had crossed the pond to encourage U.K. vinyl fanatics to support ailing indie stores throughout the tough times.

The other was Jack White. “That guy, that label [Third Man], people were nuts for it,” she states. “At a time where everything was like, ‘You don’t need to pay for music or even look at album artwork,’ (he motivated) people (to think), ‘I must have this record, it’s a limited this or that.’” While Third Man started in 2001, it was around 2008 – the year after the White Stripes’ final album – that the label’s trend-bucking efforts to turn vinyl back into a hot commodity began in earnest.

“It made things feel magical again,” she says. The mystical appeal of vinyl was something Todd understood on a personal level. “I’m the kid who bought 7-inches I couldn’t play,” she says, sharing that as a teen without a record player, she would nevertheless track down hard-to-find singles after hearing them on Peel’s show, simply to own a physical token of a cool band.

As Record Store Day and Third Man began stoking fervor for vinyl based on limited-edition pressings and products with a distinct visual aesthetic, she intuited that that Spillers’ future might not be as grim as her father – who oversaw the store during the big-money heyday of the ‘70s and ‘80s — feared.

The recovery wasn’t immediate for Spillers, but it did come. With the rent at the shop’s long-time (but not original) location set to quadruple, Todd moved it to a nearby locale in Queen’s Arcade, where it reopened under her ownership in 2010. The store – tucked away in a cute, slightly Byzantine city center that’s walking distance from a train station (a high-speed line can make the trip from London to Cardiff in two hours) – features a thoughtfully curated selection of everything from MF Doom to Lana Del Rey and plenty of colorful merch that proudly trumpets the 1894 birth year. Beyond Spillers’ historicity, Todd also takes pride in Spillers as a Welsh institution, greeting me in Welsh when I enter the store and drawing my attention to a portion of the stacks devoted specifically to vinyl from Welsh artists (on her advice, I picked up two records from North Wales surf rock instrumentalists Y Niwl).

These days, the issues facing Spillers are less existential and more operational: increased vinyl prices, slow order turnaround times and delivery delays caused by Brexit-related workforce shortages. In her eyes, Brexit has been worse for business than the pandemic. “Twelve years of Tory rule has not benefitted this country in the slightest,” she muses. “Even when you’re dealing with best case scenario, it only takes one thing being off…. In terms of providing a service to customers, it doesn’t feel great. It’s unstable, and everything is stretched to the point of breaking,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “But other than that it’s brilliant.”

As Todd continues full-steam-ahead into her second decade of running Spillers, she’s acquired a greater understanding of her father, too. “(Growing up), work was the big time-consuming thing for him, and now that I’m in the same position, I completely understand it,” she says with a touch of exhaustion, having already worked several hours on her off-day. Still, plenty of surprises keep her energized about running the store, including its changing demographics.

“I will be honest. Pre-pandemic, the general feeling was like, ‘Our customer base is getting older,’” she recalls. “Now, I’m absolutely blown away by the age range — and seeing more women as well.” Todd cites the increased popularity of vinyl from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and hip-hop artists as pushing younger generations to get excited about the format. “That’s one of my favorite things.”

The other? “Seeing which bands of my era have made an impression and stick with people. I’m not telling people what to listen to, but it is lovely seeing which artists have remained relevant.” Her eyes sparkle when she shares that Placebo remains a regular seller at Spillers: “For 13-year-old me, it’s thrilling every time someone buys them.”