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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
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As Neil Young put it in the album Rust Never Sleeps, “Hey, hey, my, my/ Rock ’n’ roll will never die.” But eventually, and Neil can vouch for this, it turns a little grey and white. Kind of like Denver’s most recognizable record store, Wax Trax (on 13th and Washington in historic Capitol Hill), which celebrates its “pearl” anniversary Sept. 20 at the store location.
For 30 years, Wax Trax has been a source for a multitude of music, selling first records, then cassettes and CDs, and eventually all of the above, and in both new and used condition. Trax’s selections feature not just national acts, but a large compilation of local musicians who promote their music and play at the shop.
“It had always been my dream to own a record store,” said co-owner Dave Stidman. “We’ve always supported the local music scene and we’re glad we’ve been able to provide a venue for that.”
In 1978, Stidman along with friend and fellow social-worker, Duane Davis, bought the little record store (then located on Ogden, between Colfax and 13th) from Jim Nash and “some guy named Danny.” The previous owners were disappointed by Denver’s less-than-booming music scene and wanted a bigger piece of the post-punk pie. Suddenly the two county social workers were working with troubled teens of an entirely different kind.
“We were tired of trying to rescue adolescents. We wanted to corrupt them,” Davis joked. “But (Stidman) and I have undoubtedly done more social work with our employees than supervising. We hire teenagers — kids into the rock ’n’ roll life. They’re totally fucked. But they’re great kids.”
And they turned out to be a pretty valuable market, too.
“I think a young population regularly lives in Capitol Hill,” Stidman said. “They’re not necessarily rich, but they’re interested in local music scene, and they keep us going.” Another factor that keeps Wax Trax going, especially in an increasingly difficult music market saturated by digital downloading, is their niche of specialized, hard-to-find music. “We have a lot of rarities, limited-edition records and used vinyl that you don’t see very often,” said employee of 27 years, Dave Wilkins. “We still have people looking for that kind of stuff and know about it, and they come here to get it.”
All in all, the rustic record bins provide a nostalgic romance with the music Denver’s grown so fond of, and the owners and employees offer a knowledge and understanding of music that can’t be found by online summaries and obnoxious, bourgeois bloggers.
“I just love to hear people talk about how music affects them, how it excites them and how it moves them,” Davis said. And if you’ve got the turntables, Wax Trax has the means, and the time, to keep the Denver music scene moving.
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