It’s an ever-growing digital world. Youtube, Spotify and Apple Music dominate the landscape and has changed on how we perceive music. Amongst this there are those that choose to long for simpler day of turntables and music discovery through crates.
Marc Chamberland is an employee at Turnitup Records, one of the most iconic record stores in Calgary. He spoke to The Press about the industry and how it is changing. Below is a transcript of that conversation.
Q: How long have you been in Calgary?
A: We started about six years ago; I think we started with two locations. One in Marda Loop and this location and then four or five years ago we condensed it all to this one here.
Q: How important is it to maintain physical media like records and CDs, with the rise of streaming?
A: I think it’s important especially because there are lots of artists, we have here in the store that we can’t find on streaming, Spotify stuff like that. Bands like Budgie, super influential to like Metallica and Iron Maiden, but you can’t really find them on Spotify and stuff.
Q: Where does your passion come from?
A: My dad was super into vinyl, and he gave away his collection when he had kids and then right before around the beginning of 2020, he decided to get back into it. I was always curious about it, so I got into with him, and I just like finding new bands, I have a bit of an eclectic taste as a listen to a bit of everything.
Q: What does your day look like running a store like this?
A: Pretty entertaining. We get like a lot of collections; we typically get in as you're seeing me do it now. We go through them and see what kind of artists that are sought after in the collection, stuff like Led Zeppelin, Tragically Hip, those kind of essential we try to get some of those in. Then what we try and do is try to trade or deal for those. We clean the collection, price, and appraise them then try to get them out on the floor quickly. Sometimes, we do demos of vintage equipment that we fixed up here in the store for customers. All in all, we keep the store neat and tidy, it tends to get dusty at times. And then yeah, kind of maintain make sure everyone can find stuff easily. As people get lost in gear at times.
Q: What formats sell the most? Why do you think that is?
A: Vinyl by like a mile. You know people always wanting to get back into it. It’s one of the best sounding formats to listen to. However, we still get lots of people looking for tapes and CDS and stuff, but mostly vinyl.
Q: What is your favourite record?
A: For me, it’s a weird personal favourite. I love Breakfast in America by Supertramp, that’s one can never get tired of listening to. I own like three pressings of it at home, so yeah that’s one of my personal favourites. Other bands I like are Budgie, like I mentioned before and Plasmatic, The Clash and Blondie.
Q: Is there a record you are looking for but haven’t found?
A: Not really in terms of unobtainable. The owner of the store is pretty good at going around the states and finding rare stuff to bring back here to sell. Anytime I have wish list it gets fulfilled quickly.