It’s kind of crazy - with technology enabling anyone with five minutes to kill and internet access the ability to find and download even the most obscure music - vinyl records seem to be seeing a bit of a resurgence. The coolest thing about this whole MP3 revolution is that I now have fast access to a soundfiles of a record that I’d probably never ever be able to own a physical copy of (saaaaaaaaaay, The Middle Class - Out Of Vogue 7″). The worst thing is that now I don’t even need to leave my house to find music. I like to leave my house! I love record stores!

Luckily, Philadelphia has a whole lot of stores that cater to vinyl aficiondos and one of those stores is Beautiful World Syndicate. Completely bucking what would be seen as common sense, BWS is doing so well that they’ve just opened a second store.

I sat down with Beautiful World Syndicate’s John Robinson to talk about it.

Fun Vampires: For the uninitiated, where are Beautiful World Syndicate and BWS II located?

John Robinson: The first store is at 1619 East Passyunk Avenue - between 11th & 12th & Tasker & Morris. The new store is in West Philly at 4801 Pine Street. It’s actually on 48th between Spruce and Pine!

Both stores are open noon to 9 every day. We’ve got no website right now, except some old Myspace page that nobody has the password to. BWS -STRICTLY ANALOG, SON.

FV: I know that you are a collector nerd yet i am always amazed at the amount of great / rare stuff that is priced to move at the store - you all seem to operate the opposite from other stores that jack up prices and hang “rare” records on the wall for all to gaze at or pay inflated prices for. Is that intentional? If so, why?

JR: Yes and no. We often buy pretty large collections so we just don’t have time to research every record and price it accordingly. Records just fly under the radar and wind up priced too low. We need the records to move fast because we buy them at an alarming rate. So, while it’s not necessarily intentional, we know that it happens and we’re fine with it. Even if we know the value of a record, we will pretty much always price it well below the going eBay rate. Otherwise, why wouldn’t people just get it from eBay? As long as we can sell it for something more than we paid for it, we’re good.

All of the employees here are record collectors, and we like having a store where people can still have good scores. It’s fun and it keeps the customers happy, even though we kind of hate the customers. Well, the annoying ones at least.

FV: In the era of MP3 technology and record industry witch-hunts, you are thriving enough that you’ve opened a second store - that sounds crazy insane - what, if anything, have you noticed about the recent vinyl buying public?

JR: We get all sorts of different folks in the store, though most of them are dudes. We get young dudes, old dudes, weirdos, tweakers, et cetera. While a lot of our customers are regulars and/or producers who will spend all day digging, we get a large amount of people who buy records more casually. We all know that CDs are pretty dead and, while MP3s are really convenient, I think vinyl is the primary way for a certain demographic to have a more total connection to what they’re buying.

Mainly though, I’ve noticed that 90% of 45 collectors are assholes.

FV: What is your current favorite record that is in stock right now?

JR: Since we just sold the two Lip Cream LPs we had, I’m going to go with a record called something like Gangland Rhythms on Folkways from 1959. It’s recordings of like 12 and 13 year old kids in some group home in Harlem reciting raps and poems they had written. Real cool Last Poets-like vibe, only fifteen or so years earlier.

FV: Since you are a collector nerd - tell me what youve been listening to lately

JR: Hardest question…

1. Nifelheim - Envoy of Lucifer (not a record…MP3s that I illegally downloaded. Sorry Swedes.)
2. Randall of Nazareth - S/T lp
3. Swans - Love of Life lp
4. Keith Hudson - Brand lp (Plug: We’ve built up a pretty killer Reggae/Dub section over the last few months. Buy them so Yates doesn’t kill me for spending all the store’s money on sketchy JA pressings of sketchy JA releases)
5. Hawkwind - Space Ritual (Sides 1 and 4 only. We found one of the two LPs in the store with no sleeve, so we pretty much leave it on the turntable).

FV: Speaking of turntables at the store - I hate it when I can’t hear something before I buy it. Can people listen to records at the stores?

JR: Absolutely. Well, not new (as in, unused) or sealed records though. That would be dumb.

FV: I know that you and Yates (Jon Yates - BWS owner) got a bazillion records from some place in Camden. Any good stories about that haul? Was it as wild as I’d imagine it to be?

JR: Oh man…I could go on forever about that particular buy…essentially, Jon bought the contents of an old, long-closed record store - about 40,000 LPs and 30,000 45s - on Broadway in Camden. It’s entire inventory was on the second floor of a diner. We got there at about 8am and, in the half-block from the car to the store, I was offered all sorts of lewd acts in exchange for Xanax or other pills. I did not have any pills and so I couldn’t partake in these unspeakable acts. I knew it was going to be a great day.

When we walked in, the restaurant was super crowded. This dude yells “Task force!” and everybody ran out. Apparently we look like cops, which is pretty cool. I haven’t seen a place empty out that quickly since the last time Clockcleaner played.

All day long, a small group of women chilled at the restaurant…ALL DAY LONG! Just hanging out there with their babies - who ran wild the entire time. The women took turns smoking crack in the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs where we were loading out records. As we took each load out someone would always say, “Wow!…I bet those are worth some money.” Yeah, thanks…

We put the records into our van, which was parked in a vacant lot next to a grassy patch that served as the ground stash for the local crack dealer. He was pretty friendly though, and didn’t seem to mind that we were next to his little pile of drugs.

I’ll stop there. Camden is always a good time. Highly recommended. Would do business with again. A++.

FV: Amazing!

BWS - 1619 East Passyunk Avenue

BWS II - 4801 Pine Street

Both stores are open noon to 9 every day.