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ByGabe Vodicka music@flagpole.com
O wner Dan Wall is manning the
Wuxtry Records counter one morn
ing when a college-age customer
approaches. “Do you have the new Head
and the Heart album on vinyl?” he asks. The
store’s UPS shipment hasn’t arrived yet, but
Wall tells the customer to check back that
afternoon.
The exchange illustrates a key issue inde
pendent record stores face today. With vinyl
once again the preferred physical format
for music, long-running shops like Wuxtry
must now compete for customer loyalty and
often-limited stock with newly dominant
monoliths like Amazon, as well as trendy
album-of-the-month clubs. To survive, Wall
has to buy confidently but not overcommit,
know what to order and when.
Though it has always maintained a
respectable supply of used wax, there was a
time not long ago when Wuxtry, like most
of its ilk, focused on CDs, which are cheaper
than vinyl, easier to manufacture and take
up less space on a store’s shelves. But as
everyone, your grandma and even the New
York Times knows, vinyl is back.
“I’d like to say that we at least try to
anticipate trends,” says Wall, who estimates
that vinyl makes up “70 [or] 80 percent”
of his store’s sales. “When CDs came into
being, a lot of stores went out of business
because they couldn’t afford the cost. And
when records came back, a lot of stores
went out of business then. With records,
we’re deep-shelved, because we never gave
up on them.”
For decades, Wuxtry—an Athens insti
tution and one of the Southeast’s premier
record stores—has navigated the ups and
downs of a fickle industry. On Saturday,
Wuxtry celebrates its 40th birthday with a
concert and gathering at Little Kings. The
event also serves as a release party for the
25th-anniversary edition of Party Out of
Bounds, author Rodger Lyle Brown’s book
on Athens’ creative explosion during the
1970s and ’80s, which birthed bands like
R.E.M., the B-52s
and Pylon, and to
which Wuxtry’s rise
is inextricably linked.
Forty years is rare
in any industry. In
this particular field,
it’s nearly unheard
of: Wuxtry is the oldest still-operating
record store in the state of Georgia. (It’s one
of two still operating in downtown Athens;
the equally essential Low Yo Yo Stuff is the
other.) As downtown has filled with chain
stores and student high-rises, other inde
pendently owned businesses have either
shuttered their doors or relocated, unable
to maintain in the new reality. Yet Wuxtry
endures, a beacon of cool amidst a sea of
change.
In the Beginning
Like countless other young Athenians in
the mid-1970s, Wall and business partner
Mark Methe, who moved here together
from Chicago, got into music because there
wasn’t much else to do. “We kind of got into
it by accident,” says Wall. “[Mark] was a DJ
in college, and I always played in bands, so
we were music enthusiasts that got into the
business.”
On Mar. 1,1976, when Wuxtry opened
on the corner of College Avenue and
Clayton Street after a short initial stint
on Foundry Street, there was little to no
Athens music scene to speak of. Nor were
there any other
record shops; local
gadfly and former
Flagpole contribu
tor William Orten
Carlton’s Ort’s
Oldies, which special
ized in 7-inch singles
and famously employed a young Fred
Schneider, had just closed.
“We were here and in place before [the
scene] started happening, but we always
thought we were a part of it, and kind of
grew up with it,” says Wall, who cites the
advent around that time of a few other
iconic downtown businesses, including the
40 Watt Club and The Grill, as equally vital
to the scene’s development.
As the B-52s and Pylon galvanized
Athens’ young and restless, Wuxtry became
a gathering place, a spot where like-minded
freaks could exchange ideas and new music.
Around then, “things started happening for
us,” says Wall, “and we realized that we may
be in this for a while.”
That initial success led to the creation of
a Decatur outpost in 1978—which Methe
opened and continues to run—and a small
Baxter Street store the same year. A decade
later, the downtown shop moved into the
larger adjacent storefront and spun off its
books-and-comics operation into Bizarro
Wuxtry, which opened upstairs. In 2013,
Wuxtry established the Sidecar in its origi
nal corner location to sell half-price used
vinyl. (All except the Baxter location remain
open for business.)
Throughout, Wuxtry was an Athens-
music linchpin—not only as a space where
ideas could be shared and sounds discov
ered, but where cash-strapped creative
types could earn a few bucks when they
weren’t performing. “We hired mostly musi
cians, because those were the people we got
along with,” Wall explains.
Indeed, Wuxtry has employed count
less local musicians over the years, some of
whom would become household names, like
R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and the B-52s’
Kate Pierson. John Fernandes, of many
Athens groups, including the Olivia Tremor
Control, is a longtime fixture.
Perhaps one of Wall’s sawiest business
decisions was to let his knowledgeable staff
have a say in what he stocks, unlike other
owners who impose a narrow personal taste
on their customers. “I’m totally old-school,”
admits Wall. “That’s why I have smart young
managers.”
Wuxtry’s selection is vast and varied.
Fernandes’ favorites include cosmic jazz,
world and psychedelia; HHBTM Records
When we first moved to
town, there were still
chickens and goats running
around on the street downtown.
14 FLAGP0LE.C0M • SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
MATT HARDY