By Don Dawson

Welcome to Community Conversations. We’re speaking with Mitch Harrison of the newly minted Next Chapter Records, located in downtown Putney, right on Route 5/120 Main Street. He sells all things vinyl – from the affordable to the hard-to-find. This place will devour your Saturday, in the best way possible.

WOOL.FM – Welcome Mitch – so great to have a local record store close by in Putney. Why don’t you share your background with us?

 

MH:I have been a middle school science teacher for 25 years, starting out in New Jersey and moving toNew England over 20 years ago. I have always had a love of music and sharing music with people that goes back even prior to high school and certainly through high school and then college, radio and all those things, seeing a lot of live music over the years and enjoying that with friends and family, and this seemed like a natural extension to all that.
WOOL.FM: What would you consider to be your favorite genre of music?

WH: That’s always a tough question, and I’ve been trying to hone that a little bit more because it seems to come up more when you’re around music and talking with customers every day.

I seem to always gravitate towards music that has meaningful lyrics..That brought me to a lot of Texas singer-songwriters. Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark and others, too. John Prine. Lucinda Williams and others. Really good stuff. I was a big Springsteen fan growing up in North Jersey. And I continue to be. I was a Ramones fan, saw them several times when I was great, so I can appreciate a lot of different genres. I was pretty deep into talking heads and REM and kind of post punk type of stuff, too.

What’s interesting in opening the shop is learning how much more is out there. And I continue to learn so much when customers come in the door who are so interesting and knowledgeable about certain genres of music, and they educate me today. It was so nice. There were two women up here who were from Harlem and Brooklyn, respectively, and they were here for an event at Sand Glass Theater right up the road here. They stopped in and looking around, and we were chatting music and they wanted to hear certain Afro beats stuff that I had. I put that on for them. And so it made me appreciate some of what’s in my own shop that I’m not spending enough time listening to. I’m really trying to dedicate a little time each week to not just play my favorites but to put music on that’s going to expand my palate a little bit.

WOOL.FM: I think that I’ve learned that about my own record collection because people have said I shouldn’t just do my show about artists that I appreciate. I go through my record collection and I’m constantly amazed that I have albums from different artists that I probably have never played.

MH: Yeah, I think that’s important. And I don’t know if you’ve gone on exploreD the vinyl community on YouTube.

WOOL.FM: Yeah, I follow a couple of guys, and the problem is it just eats your day.

MH: Exactly. You go down the rabbit hole. But there are some fun activities that they do. There was this one (record shop) that challenges listeners to listen to a certain number of records in your own collection, that you haven’t heard in a certain number of years. And just going through that practice and then sharing that experience and just what you said, you kind of pull these things out and you remind yourself, wow, I used to like this. About 50 years ago, I played the heck out of this. And what happened?

WOOL.FM: I do my best to bring in five records on Mondays. But none of them can be records that I’ve listened to in recent memory.

WH: You’re talking about your show as a buyer of a records or like me, being the owner AND the buyer. You have to have a desire. I think we all do. To kind of mold the shop a certain way because you appreciate certain things, and you want to kind of bring that to the world and introduce people to certain music. But you really have to find that balance of not only providing the things that you like, but also the things that are on the edges of your taste that other people might like.

WOOL.FM: Do you have a piece of Treasured Vinyl in your own collection?

WH: Yeah, in the vinyl community, we throw around the “grail” term a lot, but something landed in my lap that I thought would never have. I did a lot of preparation for opening the shop and I connected with a friend who I hadn’t seen since high school. So, he’s pulling things out showing different albums and I’m getting all excited about it. Then he pulls out a Springsteen, Born to Run Promo. The test pressing. So, there are maybe 200 of those that have ever been pressed. It has the script on the cover, so I knew right away what it was. I told him and you know this is a big money right and he said no, and he pushed it back in the box. It’s part of the collection. That’s in my collection and it will remain there for quite a while. It’s a piece of music history that I’m thrilled to have.

WOOL.FM: Do you own a lot of your original vinyl from when you were a teen?

WH: I didn’t have a really big collection, but I had enough, and I would say that maybe 12 years ago or so, I just hadn’t played them in a while, and I was primarily playing CDs. So, I decided to sell them. I sold them as a bulk lot and sold them very cheaply. Not too long after that I started regretting, oh my God I can’t believe I got rid of Talking Heads ’77.

WOOL.FM: A case of seller’s remorse.

WH: Right, big time sellers’ remorse. Fortunately, I have gotten back some of the key ones that I was missing through that collection I was telling you about. One of the things about being a record store owner, is it’s hard not to pull ones out and just bring them home.

WOOL.FM: I would imagine. Even doing this radio show. I don’t need anymore records but always find myself pulling things out of crates at yard sales or record shops saying – yeah, I don’t need that but then find myself at some with a stack of “new to me” vinyl. That leads me to my next question, are you buying vinyl, either things walking in the door or through collections?

WH: It’s really interesting so one of the fun things is the hunt. And that’s probably true for any type of collector, not just vinyl. It’s going through the crates in a thrift shop and finding some gem that found its way in there. So, I really did a lot of buying and I had to do a lot of the searching over the last year. But since the door opened so many people have been coming to me. So, I am buying for sure, but I have to be more selective. I’m asking a lot more questions when people call or walk in the door – before I even look at it. And sometimes those questions lead to me pick up things and another time it leads to a lot of what I see out there regularly.

WOOL.FM: I would imagine over time, your senses are honed to the process, clearly getting better at separating the wheat from the chaff.

WH: Oh absolutely. I’ve really learned to ask all the right questions and one of the biggest questions is, what is the main motivation for bring those records to me. Is it to just just get them out the house or are they looking to make some money? And I’ve had some really kind people who have come in and just donated their records.

WOOL.FM: That’s wonderful to hear.

WH: I have to be honest with some people when I don’t know that much about what I’m looking at. For instance, I just got some Brazilian music in – a box of Brazilian music. And it’s not in my wheelhouse and to be honest I could beef up my world music section. So, I said, are you willing to donate these because unless I spend some time researching this, I don’t know what to offer you. And he said, just take them. And I’m so appreciative of people doing that. I really feel like people really want this to succeed as much as I do.

WOOL.FM: I totally do. It’s great to have a local interest in my community. Are you using Discogs (an online vinyl reseller) or any other online resource?

WH: I have about 2,500 records on my Discogs store and so that’s part of the business as well. I’m happy to say that the majority of sales at this point are in store so I really would much prefer to sell to people who walk in the door. But I do use Discogs to sell but I also use it to find values. I also use Popsike.com. I think it’s good to use multiple sites. One of the things you have to watch on Discogs are those really freakishly high asking prices and also if they don’t have a good number of sales against a particular item, that reflects against their median price. You just have to be conscious of those things. One of the good things about Popsike is that they use more of the longitudinal data they’ve collected for 10 years, and I think that helps. I think there are plenty of people out there that want to hold the record in their hand, check out the condition, which can be so important when you’re talking pre-owned.

WOOL.FM: Where are you as far as technology is concerned? Analog? Tubes? Digital?

WH: I do have some turntables. I have Audio Technica turntables I get those through my distributor. I also get new releases from Stereo Mono (distributor). I may have speakers in the future. People approach me all the time, but I don’t see, in this location at least, that I’m going into that in a big way.

WOOL.FM: It does take up a lot of real estate on the showroom floor, so to speak.

WH: Yeah, but you know I get interest. In fact, I just had a guy order a little $400 turntable yesterday. And I was glad that I was able to order that quickly. I also have people wanting to sell me their equipment. But there’s only so much you can do and learn enough about. There are some simple turntables that I’ve taken on but I’m wary of getting in over my head.

WOOL.FM: Any big plans upcoming? Maybe for the holidays or in the coming months that you want to mention?

WH: I am trying to coordinate with the college radio station just up the road, Landmark College. I got a tour of the studio from the station manager and it’s a pretty professional operation for a college radio station. I’m hoping that we can do a live broadcast from here and if that happens, I want to turn that into some kind of promotion. Looking at possibly the end of this month (September) for that or maybe next month (October).

WOOL.FM: One last question for you – do you have anything in the store at the moment, that is a must have or you just know it’s going to run out the door pretty quickly?

WH: I’ve been posted a lot online; I’ll get a few interesting things in and I’ll post them. So more than anything else, I have certain customers that I know that are interested in certain things that I know. I just had a guy come in before and I got a copy of the Buckingham/Nicks album that came out prior to them being part of Fleetwood Mac. I don’t think it was ever reissued so it’s not an album you see very often. And this one customer comes in and asked me to put it aside. And when he came in to pick it up, he said, you have to stop posting stuff (laughing).

Largely I find the bread-and-butter records, the ones that you know that if they’re in good condition they’re going to sell. You can’t have enough of some of those. You can’t have enough Fleetwood Mac Rumors. if I get that in house, it will sell. But I think one of the things I’m really liking is, I have different clients that have specific tastes. This one client has me put aside anything interesting that’s Prog rock. And I’m not a prog-rock guy. It’s not my thing but I’m appreciating it more because it’s selling. I have another regular who loves jazz and he’s like if you get any decent Blue Note Jazz in, please let me know. I’m selling a good bit more jazz than I thought I was going to. I think one of the challenges this is particularly with the regulars is, I have to keep it interesting. When I have people walking in once a week once or every couple weeks. They don’t want to see the same mainstream rock records. They want to see something more interesting. They want to see a hard-to-find Velvet Underground record or something equivalent.

WOOL.FM: So that puts you in the position of not only pushing through your inventory but also procuring new vinyl. That has to be a challenge – at least to keep a balance.

WH: It really is and it’s important to find that balance. And that gets back to, what can I bring in with a collection, I can only have so much Jackson Browne. And I like Jackson Browne, but I can only have so much Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt. Every collection you look at has those and every so often, they will sell but if that’s all people are seeing, they start to not come in so often.

WOOL.FM: Mitch we want to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to chat with us and talk about your wonderful new venture.

I’d like to remind our readers that you can visit Next Chapter Records in person at:
120 Main St, Putney, VT 05346

Your Hours are:
Monday
Closed

Tuesday
10AM–5PM

Wednesday
10AM–5PM

Thursday
10AM–5PM

Friday
10AM–5PM

Saturday
10AM–5PM

Sunday
Closed

You can visit them at www.nextchapterrecords.com or contact them directly at (603) 723-4736. Best of luck in the future and I’m sure to see you in the very near future!