Inverted Nine Patch
This is often a person’s first quilt block due to its simplicity and ease. The Nine Patch recalls a tic-tac-toe board. Think of childhood and play. This block represents simplicity and learning. It can also be arranged across a whole quilt like pixels to create an image.
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Alex York
Entrepreneur
Alex is one of the owners of a local record store called Torn Light Records. I wanted to talk about the Cincinnati music scene, business ownership, and making music. In this interview Alex shares ideas about being a good boss and what we all owe to each other.
Now that we're recording, why don't you tell me your name and why you think I asked you to be here today?
My name is Alex York and I think you asked me to be here today because of my involvement in the Cincinnati music scene as a record store.
So you own a record store. Do you also make your own music?
I do. I record and make my own music.
Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
Sure. I've been making electronic and experimental music and avant garde sound art and things like that for a while now, I guess a little over 10 years. And that's all I really work on now. But that's a lot of just- I don't know if you're familiar with like early electronic stuff, like avant garde music or anything- but just a lot of of that kind of stuff.
Do you have any formal music training?
No, not at all.
No high school band or anything like that?
Middle school band drums, which was just keys cause they wouldn't give you a drum when you're really young.
That makes sense. All right, so we're going to get our blocks right sides together. They're square, so it doesn't matter which side you pick. Right now I have really long strands, so part of it's doubled up. We're never going to actually sew with the double-dip part, that's just going to keep going, so that we don't have to rethread or needle all the time. Okay. So I like to start down here. Give yourself a little slack. You're going to start at a quarter inch- as close as you can get to that. And I just like to load up a bunch of little stitches on my needle, as many as I can get on there. We want it to be kind of small and even, but you're new so they won't be and that's okay.
Okay. I did not think I would be doing this, but that's fine.
And then you'll just pull it through until your knot is right there.
The last time I thought about sewing, I was in Iceland and I was at like a gift shop at like a waterfall and there was a thimble and I accidentally stole it. I was like looking at it and then- I don't know- but I realized that I had stolen it and it kind of haunted me my entire trip.
Was it a pretty thimble?
It's beautiful. Yeah, of course. It has like a little elf or something on it.
That's cool. Why were you there?
For fun.
Just for fun. That's awesome.
Is three stitches good?
Yeah, three is good. And you just load a bunch up and then pull it through until you're done with your seam.
Oh, this is so simple. Okay. I was really freaked out. Um, but yeah, I get to travel and stuff like that with playing avant garde music, which is really nice because it's a very small, like insular scene really based in art galleries and things like that.
So you play in art galleries a lot?
Yeah. It's so open to, you know, formal trainings are so irrelevant. It's like the enemy of academia as far as like sound is concerned, you know?
What's your opinion on formal training?
That makes sense.
But it's also a great basis for something. It doesn't have to be like a rule book. Maybe even, I think like free jazz or something. It's like you almost have to know the rules before you can break them, you know? And so, I don't know, think about that type of stuff.
So have you ever tried any other types of music for yourself?
I was in like a rock band, but I feel like that's easy.
Rock is easy?
Yeah.
What type of music do you sell? Do you keep it to stuff that only you like to listen to or do you pretty much do anything?
No way. I think it's important to be a community space as a record store. It's crucial to be able to have a little bit of everything so that if someone comes in, they know that they can probably grab whatever they were thinking about or at least something close but then have as much as possible so that people can learn.
So you talked a little bit about it being a community space. A big basis of my project is thinking about community building, building a community or relationships in new, possibly uncomfortable ways. Like you said, 'why the fuck am I sewing right now?'
Haha no, this is cathartic for some reason. I should sew with my friends or something.
Yeah, totally. So what does it mean to build a community space for you?
I think some of these people come in and I feel like I'm a barber or something. Like, you know what I mean? Like all of a sudden someone's like, 'yeah, you know, my boyfriend, blah, blah, blah'. And I'm like, wait, it's been 45 minutes. Know what I mean? You don't feel like you have to leave and you also don't feel like you have to buy something. You can just come and talk to us or look around, learn something, you know? I think that's how I think of it.
What type of community do you foster?
We're a pretty.... I don't hate the word 'liberal', but I think it's pretty important if you go through the bins and you see the things that we're pushing more than others and there's a lot of stuff we throw away or we don't put out. There's certain things that maybe through history, we would frown upon them now or something. Or it could be a very black and white thing. Like, 'Oh, this person ended up being a piece of shit. Well, let's throw that away'. But there's other things where it's like, 'you know what? Fuck that'. We don't need something that harbors that kind of mentality in here for people to buy.
I guess you kind of let your own personal morals or your own personal politics get into that?
Yeah, positively.
Yeah. Speak a little bit to that.
So it's a store by necessity?
It's a store by necessity for sure. And it's kind of like one of those terrible things where I was working in printing, which is physically taxing, I got hurt a lot and it just beat the shit out of me for years. And my business partner was a chef and I don't know if you know any chefs, but that's a bad path. You know, you end up depressed or an alcohol or whatever.
The industry is full of substances.
Yeah, it's really, really not a good, good space. [talking about sewing] What do I do at the end? I don't know.
So once you get to the end of your seam you're going to tie off.
This looks so ugly, sorry.
No, you've got good even stitches. So you want to tie just a normal square knot like you tie with your shoes. And then at the end of it, when you're finally pulling it closed, you just want to make sure it stays on top of it. It's actually on the fabric and then it's not lifting up. So I usually just put it under my finger, pull it tight.
Holy shit. I'm excited. All right.
So you like to have just chats with people who are coming through your space?
Sometimes. And then sometimes they're like the worst people in the world, but that's like anywhere, you know. But with a record store, you get a lot of really horrible people who feel like it's their place where they feel like they can come be arrogant or something, which is like the antithesis of how we feel. I mean the reason we opened a record store is because- well, we had the rock band I was in and my business partner was the roadie for that band and we went to tons of record stores around the country and we're kind of like, 'yo, we can do something. We don't have to make it the cookie cutter thing where we just have the top 40 shit and whatever. We can make a store where we have everything and especially more avant garde punk things that harbor more left-leaning ideals or whatever'.
Have you always had those types of ideals?
Yeah, I grew up out in the country so I feel like when you're really young out there it comes pretty quick where you're like, 'what side am I on?' Like, maybe something formative happens or something and you just have to decide.
Do you have something like that?
I'm not that dark now, but I was super dark when I was younger. I'm central American and I was called, you know, 'the N word; and whatever else you could imagine. Cause where I grew up, there's a black kid, me, and that was it, you know, at the whole school. So it was pretty intense shit. So I was pretty young just being like, 'Oh fuck this'. You know what I mean? It sounds goofy, but watching TV,
Do you ever think that you're providing examples like that to the community and to other people?
I 100% know that that happens sometimes.
You know, that it does?
I know that it does just because people have told me. I dunno I guess I shouldn't give certain examples because it would invade people's privacy or something. But yeah, I know for a fact that we've been a safe space for people time and time and time and time again.
Yeah, I really dig that because I feel like in some punk or alternative scenes, less in Cincinnati and more in other places I've lived, those groups can think that they're too cool for safe spaces or that that's not something they need to worry about.
That's awesome man. So tell me a little bit about your experience with the Cincy music scene. Do you put a lot of self produced music out there? Is that something you guys carry?
Yeah. We carry a lot of that kind of stuff. Like if a local band is like, 'Hey, we put out a tape', we carry it. We will take anything. It doesn't have to be some amazing packaged thing. We're not going to be like, 'hmmm, a cassette?' You know, fuck yeah, a fucking cassette. They can't afford to do whatever else, or maybe this is just what they wanted to do. I think it's important to have that kind of stuff. There's a local punk band that we've been carrying their cassette and we've sold like 20 copies for them or something, which might not sound like a lot. That's insane. That's insane. It's hard to sell 20 copies of anything that's not a Fleetwood Mac or some shit. From when I was in a band years ago, I put out some other local bands' records and stuff, like this band called Vacation. They're kind of like a rock band. And now they're not big, but you know, they tour the world and whatever. We put out a record for them, but now our store strictly releases electronic, avant guarde, techno. It's just changed with my tastes what we're releasing.
Yeah. And I don't know if it's still true, but a while ago I went there and there was a zine shelf.
Ugh. Our zine shelf was destroyed in a flood. But I just bought a huge magazine rack and I'm going to have a huge zine section. I love zines.
Do people approach you for those or do you mostly just know people who put them out?
I know people pretty well just from playing music and being in bands and stuff. I don't know. I just see that stuff cause I just know somebody all the time who's doing something. I'll see someone post something on their Instagram and then I'll just hit them up and tell them to bring it in or whatever. Or randos will just walk in and will be like 'carry my zine' and I'll say, 'okay'. That kind of stuff is as cool to have as a local band's tape or something too.
So that is something else that you're interested in promoting?
Yeah, for sure. Anything of that ilk.
How would you define that ilk?
Underground... maybe not.... I don't know. Music and art and everything is weird because at some point you realize that it's all who you know. Positively. It doesn't fucking matter if it's good if you don't have a PR person selling you to the fucking world. I really like if somebody will sit around and they make a zine. They know that they're probably just doomed to lose however much money they just put into it. But they did it anyway. It's like romantic or something, you know,
It is kind of romantic. I was just talking to another person I was doing an interview with and they curate house art shows for people who just do art on their own, you know, not for school, not for getting paid or anything.
House art shows? That's cool. I like that a lot because it weirds me out sometimes when you go out. I was in Toronto, I was at this huge gallery there, and I saw all these pieces from the mail art scene in the 70s. So, you know, it's these very affordable portfolios or whatever that were sold at the time. This is low art, you know. This is very mellow and underground, but I'm seeing it in this building that's probably $40 million and it's behind some bulletproof class or something. It's really funny to me cause I could go see the person who made this. I know I could go to their coffee shop in New York and talk to them, but this piece of paper that they xeroxed 40 years ago is behind a piece of bulletproof glass. As someone who believes in archiving I like that. But at the same time I hate that I'm in there and I'm nervous. I'm walking around a museum like, 'am I allowed to even fucking look at this or appreciate it?' I don't know. This makes me feel like I'm very disconnected.
I don't think that's what they imagined when they printed that out at their library or whatever. Do you do any type of archiving for yourself?
We try to at the store, very particular things. Things that we think we'll never see again that we don't want to sell. That might be a punk single or it might be a record from- there's this record from South Africa that we got and it was during apartheid on the radio. So it was like a ripped recording from there, but it was pressed on vinyl and it had no information at all and we couldn't find anything. We even contacted some people in South Africa and they had no clue. It was this really intense, minimal guitar, chanting music. So we ripped it to cassette and then put it on the computer and took photos of everything. We did sell it, but also we have everything. We have it,
So do you get kind of precious about the medium ever or is it just that you have those sounds that you can appreciate?
I think the most important thing is having the sound. But I also understand that the medium itself is important too. I don't know. With records and stuff, it's really materialistic and a lot of people get really goofy with it. People want a first edition. It's like the same thing as antiquarian books or something. But I'm not that way. I don't know. I feel like I'm too poor to even think that way. I could never be like, 'all right, I'm going to spend an entire month's salary on this record'. What? No, I'll buy the CD. Also, you know, Spotify and YouTube and shit has definitely changed how I feel about a lot of things too. I do not have a great attachment to the physical medium. I do believe it's ritualistic to listen to a record or a CD or cassette versus listening to something on a phone because you have to interact with it. You know, it's like looking at a piece of art on your phone or when you see it you're like, 'Oh my God'. It's in front of you. You see the size. It's just different.
Hold its weight in your hand. Yeah. Do you have any particular musical virtuals that speak out to you?
Yeah, I have a cliche. When having a bad day, week, whatever. I will listen to Coltrane, A Love Supreme, which I've found all these things that speak to me on some spiritual level. That's something 20 year old me would throw up hearing. But it's true. You know?
Cause you were too cool for it back then?
Oh yeah, for sure. I was probably like 'jazz? Jazz is for old white guys' not realizing anything at all. I don't know.
Yeah, I know. I used to definitely be the person who would buy cassettes cause I drove this really shitty old minivan for the longest time and it had a player. And so that would be where I could go off by myself or with my friends driving somewhere and you'd get that cassette and that's one place that I could play it.
That's cool. It becomes special. Yeah.
Yeah. I like the ritual of those types of things. For sure. That means something. Why did you decide to own a record store rather than to hang out and want to create a community that way?
I have a hard time having a boss. I definitely didn't want to work at any store here either. In the realest way. I would go to these stores and just be like, 'it's kind of whack'. Even if I like certain people who work there or something.
Why would they be whack?
I don't know. Political reasons or otherwise. Mostly political. Mostly things where it's fucked up that I like all these people that work here, but I know that the owner spends all their money on real estate. Just things that are the antithesis of things that make me feel okay or not okay.
So do you think just not associating with that type of businesses is the right way for you to deal with that?
No, I would still shop there because I don't think that that's the same thing.
It's not up to me to make that. It's up to a lot of people to make big changes. I don't know, I would never try to take that out on some people. It is weird to me when you live in a microcosm. It's like you live in a small city, I guess any city, and you decide to do something where you're directly affecting other people in a negative way though. Like buying an apartment building and being a slumlord is insane to me. How could you do that? How could you? What are you doing? I don't know. But I'm not saying anyone who owns a record store in Cincinnati is doing that.
I think that's one interesting thing that has just personally come up in my life and my friend's life recently is disagreeing with what a business does and then figuring out what is the next step after that. You know, what are you going to do about it? I know I quit a job once because I didn't agree with what my boss was doing and he wanted to promote me to manager. He wanted me to help him do it. And so I said, 'yeah, no, I'm out of here. I think that's pretty fucked up'. But you know, now there's no one there who's questioning what he's doing every day.
It's pretty weird. But it's also like, are you that martyr? Is that your duty? Is that the hill you want to die on?
How much is it our duty to do those things?
Yeah, I mean, that's tough. But that's why I believe in unions and things like that. Because I think that those are only things I can save working class people. Whether they're in a factory or making burritos somewhere or something. Anyone who works for us or with us is an O.G. of some kind. Someone that's coming to the store for a long time or whatever.
I think that's a great thing to do as a boss because so many people who have the ability and the power to make that choice, that wouldn't be a consideration.
We've talked about that before. We think about scaling, not that our business is scalable, but if I were in a situation where it's like, 'Oh, you know, I could start taking home how much a year?' Well fuck that. I'd rather just hire like seven more people. I don't need that.
Ideally we'd live in a world where I wouldn't have to worry about certain things so that it would be even more cut and dry. But yeah, there's been situations where my partner and I could've gotten raises or something, but instead we're just like, 'Ooh, let's hit up so-and-so and see if they want to work for us 10 hours a week', It's also more fun too. It makes the day to day more tolerable for everybody.
Would you say you love your job?
No. Because on a base on a base level, I don't believe in what we're doing.
What do you mean you don't believe in what you're doing?
Just because I'm doing the numbers at all times. I'm literally always thinking about money and I hate that. I hate thinking about money anyway, but I really hate that when someone comes in the store, I have this premeditated thing where I'm like, 'I hope they spend $30 because we'll probably have this many more sales today blah blah blah'. But at the same time I'm only thinking about her at the register, so-and-so who's in the back. I'm thinking about everybody. I want to make money so that we can all buy a loaf of bread or whatever. You know? It's not anything greedy. It just shouldn't have to be that way I guess.
So if you've got a bunch of money tomorrow, what would you do? Open another shop? Travel?
No. I like the idea of doubling down on the store and making it something. Our goal is that we walk away after, you know, another 10 years or so, but everybody gets to walk away feeling okay. As far as money goes we're all like 'cool, that was a good 15 years and now I can go buy a house or whatever'. I would love to create that security for everybody.
Do you know what you want to do next?
I have no idea. I don't know. Move away.
Why do you want to move away?
Oh, I just want to. Just from traveling. I think I could get the hang of this. You know, there's other places I've gone where I'm like 'this is a good beat, this is a good vibe'.
Yeah. I think that I used to want to leave Cincinnati right away and then the more time I spend here, the more I realized that there are vibes that I'm into. There are groups of people that I can definitely spend time with and it may be a small city, but you can make that work if you want to.
I'm not hating on Cincinnati either. I actually adore Cincinnati. Especially after I've been so many places and I still love it. I think that says a lot. I've also seen- I mean this is age old and I'm sure you have too- where you see people try to run away from something. It's not going to work.
[Talking about quilting] The only reason I hate this is cause I have to look at my hands. I hate my fucking hands.
Why do you hate your hands?
There are just many colors and it stresses me out. They're just really white in some places very red. I'm like 'wow, I need to put something on my cuticles'.
Yeah, it's definitely activity that makes you pause a little bit cause it takes so long. I mean I'm doing 29 of these and they're each, you know, roundabouts an hour.
God so long.
Yeah. And I mean people used to do this by themselves all day long. I think that's crazy.
What's the- isn't there like some famous American quilt? Or is it a flag? Did I see a flag? Betsy Ross maybe.
Yeah. Betsy Ross has obviously a bunch of different ones. You can call them quilts. You can call them flags. I guess that's what they are. But she's got a lot of famous ones. Ken Burns actually collects quilts, and he keeps them in his house, but he'll show them occasionally. Very cool. And then there's, you know, the AIDS quilt, that was a big thing. It's all woven into the history of America and some European countries for sure. And then there's a lot of folklore about quilts and the underground railroad and that they were used as codes and things like that.
Really? Like maps or like...
Like maps. Yeah, so when you make a quilt, you've got all of these blocks that we're making now, and then you've got a back layer and then you've got this soft cotton batting in between. You gotta sew those three layers together. So the stitches that sew those layers together is the 'quilting'. That's actually the term it's called. And those would be maps, like you would quilt a shape of a map. So it would be the same color thread as this background. So you wouldn't really notice it unless you knew to look for it. Those would be maps and then there are certain different patterns. So you see we're doing a simple pattern. This here is a much more complex pattern. Different ones would mean friendly things to different groups of people. But it's all an oral history. So a lot of people will tell you it's not true. But that's okay. Cause I think folklore is interesting anyway. And then if you look, there are certain pockets in the country that they have different styles of quilting and it's completely based on when the slaves of those areas got freed, whichever part of Africa those people were from created a whole pocket of this art form in a different way, based off of the textile traditions of that area. It's fascinating. It's so cool. I've done hours and hours of research on that switch can be very boring.
No, that sounds interesting to me.
It's fascinating stuff. It's really cool.
Yeah. That's cool.
YEAH. THAT'S ONE THING THAT I HATE IS WHEN PEOPLE WILL COME IN ON BOOKS OR GROUPS OF HISTORIES ON QUILTING AND THEY'LL SAY, YOU KNOW, 'THAT'S NOT TRUE. YOU HAVE NO WAY OF SAYING WHEN THIS PATTERN WAS INVENTED OR WHEN THIS WHATEVER WAS INVENTED, CAUSE NOBODY WROTE IT DOWN'. WELL WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE NEVER GOT TO WRITE THINGS DOWN SOOOOO.
YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT A VERY SPECIFIC THING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ERASED ANYWAY. IT WAS ERASED BY NOT BEING ALLOWED TO BE WRITTEN DOWN ANYWAY.
My name is Alex York and I think you asked me to be here today because of my involvement in the Cincinnati music scene as a record store.
So you own a record store. Do you also make your own music?
I do. I record and make my own music.
Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
Sure. I've been making electronic and experimental music and avant garde sound art and things like that for a while now, I guess a little over 10 years. And that's all I really work on now. But that's a lot of just- I don't know if you're familiar with like early electronic stuff, like avant garde music or anything- but just a lot of of that kind of stuff.
Do you have any formal music training?
No, not at all.
No high school band or anything like that?
Middle school band drums, which was just keys cause they wouldn't give you a drum when you're really young.
That makes sense. All right, so we're going to get our blocks right sides together. They're square, so it doesn't matter which side you pick. Right now I have really long strands, so part of it's doubled up. We're never going to actually sew with the double-dip part, that's just going to keep going, so that we don't have to rethread or needle all the time. Okay. So I like to start down here. Give yourself a little slack. You're going to start at a quarter inch- as close as you can get to that. And I just like to load up a bunch of little stitches on my needle, as many as I can get on there. We want it to be kind of small and even, but you're new so they won't be and that's okay.
Okay. I did not think I would be doing this, but that's fine.
And then you'll just pull it through until your knot is right there.
The last time I thought about sewing, I was in Iceland and I was at like a gift shop at like a waterfall and there was a thimble and I accidentally stole it. I was like looking at it and then- I don't know- but I realized that I had stolen it and it kind of haunted me my entire trip.
Was it a pretty thimble?
It's beautiful. Yeah, of course. It has like a little elf or something on it.
That's cool. Why were you there?
For fun.
Just for fun. That's awesome.
Is three stitches good?
Yeah, three is good. And you just load a bunch up and then pull it through until you're done with your seam.
Oh, this is so simple. Okay. I was really freaked out. Um, but yeah, I get to travel and stuff like that with playing avant garde music, which is really nice because it's a very small, like insular scene really based in art galleries and things like that.
So you play in art galleries a lot?
Yeah. It's so open to, you know, formal trainings are so irrelevant. It's like the enemy of academia as far as like sound is concerned, you know?
What's your opinion on formal training?
I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, BUT I ALSO THINK THAT I'VE SEEN A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO, I GUESS THIS WOULD MOSTLY BE FROM JAZZ STUDENTS THAT I KNOW, I'VE SEEN IT KIND OF SCREW UP MAYBE A LOT OF THEIR... I DON'T KNOW, THEY START TO THINK IN A BOX A LITTLE MORE, WHICH ISN'T GOOD. THAT'S NEVER GOOD.
That makes sense.
But it's also a great basis for something. It doesn't have to be like a rule book. Maybe even, I think like free jazz or something. It's like you almost have to know the rules before you can break them, you know? And so, I don't know, think about that type of stuff.
So have you ever tried any other types of music for yourself?
I was in like a rock band, but I feel like that's easy.
Rock is easy?
Yeah.
What type of music do you sell? Do you keep it to stuff that only you like to listen to or do you pretty much do anything?
No way. I think it's important to be a community space as a record store. It's crucial to be able to have a little bit of everything so that if someone comes in, they know that they can probably grab whatever they were thinking about or at least something close but then have as much as possible so that people can learn.
So you talked a little bit about it being a community space. A big basis of my project is thinking about community building, building a community or relationships in new, possibly uncomfortable ways. Like you said, 'why the fuck am I sewing right now?'
Haha no, this is cathartic for some reason. I should sew with my friends or something.
Yeah, totally. So what does it mean to build a community space for you?
I think some of these people come in and I feel like I'm a barber or something. Like, you know what I mean? Like all of a sudden someone's like, 'yeah, you know, my boyfriend, blah, blah, blah'. And I'm like, wait, it's been 45 minutes. Know what I mean? You don't feel like you have to leave and you also don't feel like you have to buy something. You can just come and talk to us or look around, learn something, you know? I think that's how I think of it.
What type of community do you foster?
We're a pretty.... I don't hate the word 'liberal', but I think it's pretty important if you go through the bins and you see the things that we're pushing more than others and there's a lot of stuff we throw away or we don't put out. There's certain things that maybe through history, we would frown upon them now or something. Or it could be a very black and white thing. Like, 'Oh, this person ended up being a piece of shit. Well, let's throw that away'. But there's other things where it's like, 'you know what? Fuck that'. We don't need something that harbors that kind of mentality in here for people to buy.
I guess you kind of let your own personal morals or your own personal politics get into that?
Yeah, positively.
Yeah. Speak a little bit to that.
MY BUSINESS PARTNER AND I ARE VERY LEFT LEANING. IF WE HAD OUR OWN WAY- YOU KNOW, WE DON'T CARE ABOUT MONEY. IF WE CARED ABOUT MONEY, WE WOULDN'T OPEN A RECORD STORE. WE HATE CAPITALISM AND YOU KNOW, IF IT WERE UP TO US WE WOULD BE A LIBRARY, YOU KNOW, THAT WOULD BE THE BETTER THING. WE DON'T REALLY LIKE THE IDEA OF COMMERCE.
So it's a store by necessity?
It's a store by necessity for sure. And it's kind of like one of those terrible things where I was working in printing, which is physically taxing, I got hurt a lot and it just beat the shit out of me for years. And my business partner was a chef and I don't know if you know any chefs, but that's a bad path. You know, you end up depressed or an alcohol or whatever.
The industry is full of substances.
Yeah, it's really, really not a good, good space. [talking about sewing] What do I do at the end? I don't know.
So once you get to the end of your seam you're going to tie off.
This looks so ugly, sorry.
No, you've got good even stitches. So you want to tie just a normal square knot like you tie with your shoes. And then at the end of it, when you're finally pulling it closed, you just want to make sure it stays on top of it. It's actually on the fabric and then it's not lifting up. So I usually just put it under my finger, pull it tight.
Holy shit. I'm excited. All right.
So you like to have just chats with people who are coming through your space?
Sometimes. And then sometimes they're like the worst people in the world, but that's like anywhere, you know. But with a record store, you get a lot of really horrible people who feel like it's their place where they feel like they can come be arrogant or something, which is like the antithesis of how we feel. I mean the reason we opened a record store is because- well, we had the rock band I was in and my business partner was the roadie for that band and we went to tons of record stores around the country and we're kind of like, 'yo, we can do something. We don't have to make it the cookie cutter thing where we just have the top 40 shit and whatever. We can make a store where we have everything and especially more avant garde punk things that harbor more left-leaning ideals or whatever'.
Have you always had those types of ideals?
Yeah, I grew up out in the country so I feel like when you're really young out there it comes pretty quick where you're like, 'what side am I on?' Like, maybe something formative happens or something and you just have to decide.
Do you have something like that?
I'm not that dark now, but I was super dark when I was younger. I'm central American and I was called, you know, 'the N word; and whatever else you could imagine. Cause where I grew up, there's a black kid, me, and that was it, you know, at the whole school. So it was pretty intense shit. So I was pretty young just being like, 'Oh fuck this'. You know what I mean? It sounds goofy, but watching TV,
I REMEMBER SEEING PUBLIC ENEMY VIDEOS OR THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. AND JUST THINGS RESONATING WITH ME ABOUT 'WE'RE DIFFERENT, BUT WE'RE NOT BAD PEOPLE' OR WHATEVER ELSE, YOU KNOW? I NEVER DISCOUNT THAT KIND OF STUFF BECAUSE FOR ME, THAT SAVED MY LIFE. SEEING STUFF LIKE THAT ON TV WHEN I WAS A KID, IT MADE ME FEEL NOT ALIEN.
Do you ever think that you're providing examples like that to the community and to other people?
I 100% know that that happens sometimes.
You know, that it does?
I know that it does just because people have told me. I dunno I guess I shouldn't give certain examples because it would invade people's privacy or something. But yeah, I know for a fact that we've been a safe space for people time and time and time and time again.
Yeah, I really dig that because I feel like in some punk or alternative scenes, less in Cincinnati and more in other places I've lived, those groups can think that they're too cool for safe spaces or that that's not something they need to worry about.
WHEN, TO ME, THE BASIS OF ALL COUNTERCULTURE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT IS THAT. INHERENTLY THAT. PERIOD. I DON'T KNOW. THAT'S WHAT I THINK ANYWAY. I'VE ALWAYS JUST BEEN LIKE, 'OH, PUNK IS SAFE FOR ANYONE OF ANY COLOR OR GENDER OR WHATEVER'.
That's awesome man. So tell me a little bit about your experience with the Cincy music scene. Do you put a lot of self produced music out there? Is that something you guys carry?
Yeah. We carry a lot of that kind of stuff. Like if a local band is like, 'Hey, we put out a tape', we carry it. We will take anything. It doesn't have to be some amazing packaged thing. We're not going to be like, 'hmmm, a cassette?' You know, fuck yeah, a fucking cassette. They can't afford to do whatever else, or maybe this is just what they wanted to do. I think it's important to have that kind of stuff. There's a local punk band that we've been carrying their cassette and we've sold like 20 copies for them or something, which might not sound like a lot. That's insane. That's insane. It's hard to sell 20 copies of anything that's not a Fleetwood Mac or some shit. From when I was in a band years ago, I put out some other local bands' records and stuff, like this band called Vacation. They're kind of like a rock band. And now they're not big, but you know, they tour the world and whatever. We put out a record for them, but now our store strictly releases electronic, avant guarde, techno. It's just changed with my tastes what we're releasing.
Yeah. And I don't know if it's still true, but a while ago I went there and there was a zine shelf.
Ugh. Our zine shelf was destroyed in a flood. But I just bought a huge magazine rack and I'm going to have a huge zine section. I love zines.
Do people approach you for those or do you mostly just know people who put them out?
I know people pretty well just from playing music and being in bands and stuff. I don't know. I just see that stuff cause I just know somebody all the time who's doing something. I'll see someone post something on their Instagram and then I'll just hit them up and tell them to bring it in or whatever. Or randos will just walk in and will be like 'carry my zine' and I'll say, 'okay'. That kind of stuff is as cool to have as a local band's tape or something too.
So that is something else that you're interested in promoting?
Yeah, for sure. Anything of that ilk.
How would you define that ilk?
Underground... maybe not.... I don't know. Music and art and everything is weird because at some point you realize that it's all who you know. Positively. It doesn't fucking matter if it's good if you don't have a PR person selling you to the fucking world. I really like if somebody will sit around and they make a zine. They know that they're probably just doomed to lose however much money they just put into it. But they did it anyway. It's like romantic or something, you know,
It is kind of romantic. I was just talking to another person I was doing an interview with and they curate house art shows for people who just do art on their own, you know, not for school, not for getting paid or anything.
House art shows? That's cool. I like that a lot because it weirds me out sometimes when you go out. I was in Toronto, I was at this huge gallery there, and I saw all these pieces from the mail art scene in the 70s. So, you know, it's these very affordable portfolios or whatever that were sold at the time. This is low art, you know. This is very mellow and underground, but I'm seeing it in this building that's probably $40 million and it's behind some bulletproof class or something. It's really funny to me cause I could go see the person who made this. I know I could go to their coffee shop in New York and talk to them, but this piece of paper that they xeroxed 40 years ago is behind a piece of bulletproof glass. As someone who believes in archiving I like that. But at the same time I hate that I'm in there and I'm nervous. I'm walking around a museum like, 'am I allowed to even fucking look at this or appreciate it?' I don't know. This makes me feel like I'm very disconnected.
I don't think that's what they imagined when they printed that out at their library or whatever. Do you do any type of archiving for yourself?
We try to at the store, very particular things. Things that we think we'll never see again that we don't want to sell. That might be a punk single or it might be a record from- there's this record from South Africa that we got and it was during apartheid on the radio. So it was like a ripped recording from there, but it was pressed on vinyl and it had no information at all and we couldn't find anything. We even contacted some people in South Africa and they had no clue. It was this really intense, minimal guitar, chanting music. So we ripped it to cassette and then put it on the computer and took photos of everything. We did sell it, but also we have everything. We have it,
So do you get kind of precious about the medium ever or is it just that you have those sounds that you can appreciate?
I think the most important thing is having the sound. But I also understand that the medium itself is important too. I don't know. With records and stuff, it's really materialistic and a lot of people get really goofy with it. People want a first edition. It's like the same thing as antiquarian books or something. But I'm not that way. I don't know. I feel like I'm too poor to even think that way. I could never be like, 'all right, I'm going to spend an entire month's salary on this record'. What? No, I'll buy the CD. Also, you know, Spotify and YouTube and shit has definitely changed how I feel about a lot of things too. I do not have a great attachment to the physical medium. I do believe it's ritualistic to listen to a record or a CD or cassette versus listening to something on a phone because you have to interact with it. You know, it's like looking at a piece of art on your phone or when you see it you're like, 'Oh my God'. It's in front of you. You see the size. It's just different.
Hold its weight in your hand. Yeah. Do you have any particular musical virtuals that speak out to you?
Yeah, I have a cliche. When having a bad day, week, whatever. I will listen to Coltrane, A Love Supreme, which I've found all these things that speak to me on some spiritual level. That's something 20 year old me would throw up hearing. But it's true. You know?
Cause you were too cool for it back then?
Oh yeah, for sure. I was probably like 'jazz? Jazz is for old white guys' not realizing anything at all. I don't know.
Yeah, I know. I used to definitely be the person who would buy cassettes cause I drove this really shitty old minivan for the longest time and it had a player. And so that would be where I could go off by myself or with my friends driving somewhere and you'd get that cassette and that's one place that I could play it.
That's cool. It becomes special. Yeah.
Yeah. I like the ritual of those types of things. For sure. That means something. Why did you decide to own a record store rather than to hang out and want to create a community that way?
I have a hard time having a boss. I definitely didn't want to work at any store here either. In the realest way. I would go to these stores and just be like, 'it's kind of whack'. Even if I like certain people who work there or something.
Why would they be whack?
I don't know. Political reasons or otherwise. Mostly political. Mostly things where it's fucked up that I like all these people that work here, but I know that the owner spends all their money on real estate. Just things that are the antithesis of things that make me feel okay or not okay.
So do you think just not associating with that type of businesses is the right way for you to deal with that?
No, I would still shop there because I don't think that that's the same thing.
LIKE I FUCKING HATE KROGER AND WHAT THEY WOULD DO WITH THEIR MONEY. BUT I DON'T KNOW. I ALSO NEED TO BUY MY FUCKING GROCERIES.
It's not up to me to make that. It's up to a lot of people to make big changes. I don't know, I would never try to take that out on some people. It is weird to me when you live in a microcosm. It's like you live in a small city, I guess any city, and you decide to do something where you're directly affecting other people in a negative way though. Like buying an apartment building and being a slumlord is insane to me. How could you do that? How could you? What are you doing? I don't know. But I'm not saying anyone who owns a record store in Cincinnati is doing that.
I think that's one interesting thing that has just personally come up in my life and my friend's life recently is disagreeing with what a business does and then figuring out what is the next step after that. You know, what are you going to do about it? I know I quit a job once because I didn't agree with what my boss was doing and he wanted to promote me to manager. He wanted me to help him do it. And so I said, 'yeah, no, I'm out of here. I think that's pretty fucked up'. But you know, now there's no one there who's questioning what he's doing every day.
It's pretty weird. But it's also like, are you that martyr? Is that your duty? Is that the hill you want to die on?
How much is it our duty to do those things?
Yeah, I mean, that's tough. But that's why I believe in unions and things like that. Because I think that those are only things I can save working class people. Whether they're in a factory or making burritos somewhere or something. Anyone who works for us or with us is an O.G. of some kind. Someone that's coming to the store for a long time or whatever.
I think that's a great thing to do as a boss because so many people who have the ability and the power to make that choice, that wouldn't be a consideration.
We've talked about that before. We think about scaling, not that our business is scalable, but if I were in a situation where it's like, 'Oh, you know, I could start taking home how much a year?' Well fuck that. I'd rather just hire like seven more people. I don't need that.
WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO WITH ANY MONEY MORE THAN X AMOUNT ANYWAY? PROBABLY NOTHING.
Ideally we'd live in a world where I wouldn't have to worry about certain things so that it would be even more cut and dry. But yeah, there's been situations where my partner and I could've gotten raises or something, but instead we're just like, 'Ooh, let's hit up so-and-so and see if they want to work for us 10 hours a week', It's also more fun too. It makes the day to day more tolerable for everybody.
Would you say you love your job?
No. Because on a base on a base level, I don't believe in what we're doing.
What do you mean you don't believe in what you're doing?
Just because I'm doing the numbers at all times. I'm literally always thinking about money and I hate that. I hate thinking about money anyway, but I really hate that when someone comes in the store, I have this premeditated thing where I'm like, 'I hope they spend $30 because we'll probably have this many more sales today blah blah blah'. But at the same time I'm only thinking about her at the register, so-and-so who's in the back. I'm thinking about everybody. I want to make money so that we can all buy a loaf of bread or whatever. You know? It's not anything greedy. It just shouldn't have to be that way I guess.
So if you've got a bunch of money tomorrow, what would you do? Open another shop? Travel?
No. I like the idea of doubling down on the store and making it something. Our goal is that we walk away after, you know, another 10 years or so, but everybody gets to walk away feeling okay. As far as money goes we're all like 'cool, that was a good 15 years and now I can go buy a house or whatever'. I would love to create that security for everybody.
Do you know what you want to do next?
I have no idea. I don't know. Move away.
Why do you want to move away?
Oh, I just want to. Just from traveling. I think I could get the hang of this. You know, there's other places I've gone where I'm like 'this is a good beat, this is a good vibe'.
Yeah. I think that I used to want to leave Cincinnati right away and then the more time I spend here, the more I realized that there are vibes that I'm into. There are groups of people that I can definitely spend time with and it may be a small city, but you can make that work if you want to.
I'm not hating on Cincinnati either. I actually adore Cincinnati. Especially after I've been so many places and I still love it. I think that says a lot. I've also seen- I mean this is age old and I'm sure you have too- where you see people try to run away from something. It's not going to work.
YOU TAKE YOURSELF EVERYWHERE. YOU MIGHT DISTRACT YOURSELF FOR A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST GETTING REACQUAINTED WITH WHO YOU ARE IN A NEW PLACE. BUT SERIOUSLY, YOUR PROBLEMS FOLLOW YOU. WHO YOU ARE FOLLOWS YOU....
[Talking about quilting] The only reason I hate this is cause I have to look at my hands. I hate my fucking hands.
Why do you hate your hands?
There are just many colors and it stresses me out. They're just really white in some places very red. I'm like 'wow, I need to put something on my cuticles'.
Yeah, it's definitely activity that makes you pause a little bit cause it takes so long. I mean I'm doing 29 of these and they're each, you know, roundabouts an hour.
God so long.
Yeah. And I mean people used to do this by themselves all day long. I think that's crazy.
What's the- isn't there like some famous American quilt? Or is it a flag? Did I see a flag? Betsy Ross maybe.
Yeah. Betsy Ross has obviously a bunch of different ones. You can call them quilts. You can call them flags. I guess that's what they are. But she's got a lot of famous ones. Ken Burns actually collects quilts, and he keeps them in his house, but he'll show them occasionally. Very cool. And then there's, you know, the AIDS quilt, that was a big thing. It's all woven into the history of America and some European countries for sure. And then there's a lot of folklore about quilts and the underground railroad and that they were used as codes and things like that.
Really? Like maps or like...
Like maps. Yeah, so when you make a quilt, you've got all of these blocks that we're making now, and then you've got a back layer and then you've got this soft cotton batting in between. You gotta sew those three layers together. So the stitches that sew those layers together is the 'quilting'. That's actually the term it's called. And those would be maps, like you would quilt a shape of a map. So it would be the same color thread as this background. So you wouldn't really notice it unless you knew to look for it. Those would be maps and then there are certain different patterns. So you see we're doing a simple pattern. This here is a much more complex pattern. Different ones would mean friendly things to different groups of people. But it's all an oral history. So a lot of people will tell you it's not true. But that's okay. Cause I think folklore is interesting anyway. And then if you look, there are certain pockets in the country that they have different styles of quilting and it's completely based on when the slaves of those areas got freed, whichever part of Africa those people were from created a whole pocket of this art form in a different way, based off of the textile traditions of that area. It's fascinating. It's so cool. I've done hours and hours of research on that switch can be very boring.
No, that sounds interesting to me.
It's fascinating stuff. It's really cool.
Yeah. That's cool.
YEAH. THAT'S ONE THING THAT I HATE IS WHEN PEOPLE WILL COME IN ON BOOKS OR GROUPS OF HISTORIES ON QUILTING AND THEY'LL SAY, YOU KNOW, 'THAT'S NOT TRUE. YOU HAVE NO WAY OF SAYING WHEN THIS PATTERN WAS INVENTED OR WHEN THIS WHATEVER WAS INVENTED, CAUSE NOBODY WROTE IT DOWN'. WELL WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE NEVER GOT TO WRITE THINGS DOWN SOOOOO.
YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT A VERY SPECIFIC THING THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ERASED ANYWAY. IT WAS ERASED BY NOT BEING ALLOWED TO BE WRITTEN DOWN ANYWAY.