When the 50 attendees of the first annual DC Record Store Crawl crowded into Joint Custody, the shop was playing Steve Reich’s minimalist masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians. It was the most spacious stop on the tour, but the music it chose to serenade a wave of shoppers was symbolic of the crawl: not enough space, and not enough time to listen to the hypnotic 40-minute piece that makes up the album.

Sponsored by Songbyrd Music House and a host of other local businesses, the crawl was an opportunity to hit up record stores on a late-summer day in what is down time for many small businesses.

Among my fellow record crawlers were Ethan and Tiffany. Neither of them had grown up with vinyl, but came to record collecting later. Ethan’s epiphany was in college, when the deluxe vinyl edition of a Radiohead album lured him to a new format. While attending American University, he frequented the now shuttered CD Game Exchange in Tenleytown, which Ethan fondly remembers as a good place for bargains at a time before the vinyl resurgence had yet to reach full swing.

Tiffany’s interest in vinyl began just a few years ago after working at New York’s ARChive of Contemporary Music, which claims to be “the largest popular music collection in the world.” When she alerted me to the archive’s semi-annual music sale, I perhaps unconsciously drooled.

Tour swag included a limited edition pink 45 from Cyndi Lauper, a random free LP (mine was from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.), a TT Topperz figure, and a tote bag from Domino Records. Frankly, that last item wasn’t made for the truly seasoned crate digger. Fortunately, I had come prepared with a heavy canvas bag that was my last mail order purchase from New York’s late lamented Other Music.

Songbyrd’s tasty but modest brunch started with a plate of mini donuts and “nest-eggs,” hash brown cups topped with bacon. Bottomless mimosas threatened to inhibit shoppers’ discriminating palates, but as far as I know nobody went home with Gallagher—the Record Store Day limited edition picture disc, that is. [Note to self; if I bought it, could I write it off as research? Editors note: Nope!]

Smash Records (2314 18th St NW) was the first stop, and the space filled up fast. Strategic digging meant heading straight for the new arrivals bin, but it was still a challenge. I left the Berenstain Bears lunchbox behind and got the Realistic album of Big Band Moog arrangements, and the versions of “Aquarius” and “Walk On By” were as deliciously sick as I hoped they would be.

Ethan was a confessed soul fan. So at Smash, I recommended the first album by New Orleans funk greats, The Wild Magnolias. I was appalled that several browsers skipped right by a copy of the essential anthology The Kink Kronikles, but my job was to shop and report more than to evangelize.

But mainly to shop.

Red Onion (1628 U St NW,) was next, and promised an acoustic in-store performance by Philly band Good Old War, who would grace the W Hotel rooftop that evening for the crawl’s after party. They seemed like nice guys and good musicians, but I was distracted by the new album from 75 Dollar Bill on the wall shelf. The New York experimental duo will be coming to Rhizome in September.

A longtime favorite shop on mine for unusual records, Red Onion’s stock happily went from the sublime to the ridiculous: my purchases there included a 12″ single of “Mr T.’s Commandments” and Curtis Hoard’s spoken word album from 1982, Conquer the Video Craze,” whose deadpan descriptions of how to defeat, say, ‘Centipede” put it in the running for most boring album in my collection, competing even with snoozers like a three-disc set of selections from an Amway convention.

You can see me in action here at Joint Custody (1530 U St NW), the third stop on the tour:

During the early stops on the tour, those in the know wondered how this crowd would squeeze into Som Records (1843 14th St NW), my favorite shop in the neighborhood. Several tour attendees left the crowd at Joint Custody early to beat the rush. But for whatever reason, the tour had dwindled by then, perhaps worried about the prospect of 50 shoppers in that small space. Luckily crawlers came and went, and it was easy to navigate Som’s always generous dollar bins, which coughed up a playable green-label pressing of Black Sabbath’s fourth album.

After the crawl, I asked Dick Joseph, Label Services Rep for Warner Music Group, if the crawl had any connection to the news earlier this summer that the distributor would sever ties with any indie record store that placed less than $10,000 in orders per year. Joseph replied in an email that, “the crawls in no way relate to the news from earlier this summer. We’ve been working on the crawls since spring and are doing them out of love and support for independent retail and the music. We’re always trying our hardest to bring awesome events and promotions to independent retail.”

He also noted a Billboard report that downplayed the new distribution policy. As far as he knows, no D.C.-area stores have been cut off from direct distribution with WMG. And, in fact, the company has added an area client, thanks to the expanded vinyl selection at Songbyrd.

Admittedly, the new distribution policy only affects new vinyl, whose price points are sometimes triple that of CD or digital versions. As Tiffany told me, “we only collect used vinyl.” Thanks to the Washington area’s thriving shops, it’s easy for collectors like Ethan and Tiffany to fill crates on a budget.

Joseph’s enthusiasm for record stores seems typical of the younger crowd on the tour. “I’m a millennial and I can’t imagine my life without record stores, so I’m always trying to think of new ways to share my passion for record stores with other millennials that have or have not already discovered it,” he said.

Filed Under: dc record store crawl, joint custody, music, red onion, smash!, som records, songbyrd,