Interviews: Vinyl Collective

Our own vinylophile Ben Conoley recently spoke with Virgil Dickerson, the man behind Suburban Home Records and most recently, Vinyl Collective. Ben and Virgil discuss the importance of vinyl and the resurgence that seems to be taking place.

You can click Read More for the interview.

Virgil Dickerson is a busy man. Besides running Suburban Home, he has recently started a record store/foum under the moniker Vinyl Collective. We talked to Virgil recently to see why he things vinyl continues to thrive within punk rock.

You recently moved your office into your home, how did the transition go?

I think with vinyl collectors, it's the same enthusiasm behind collecting baseball cards, Japanaimation, toys or whatever it may be. There is something special about having a hobby like that.

We've been in the house for a month now. The move went better than expected. Getting work done is actually happening, it has become a more efficient for us. We scaled back some of our staff because we couldn't afford to keep everyone on, and our move cost us, we kept on one employee but we used to have eight people. It's going as well as expected.

With the office at home do you ever find yourself trapped there?

I get my moments, but I try to go out and do stuff. Tonight Propagandhi is in town. Last week I saw Minus the Bear and that was a great show. For the last however many months some friends and I have been watching Lost and getting dinner every week and my wife and I haven't killed each other yet.

How are things going with Vinyl Collective right now?

Vinyl Collective is slowly progressing. We are probably going to do the new Portugal the Man record. There was some hesitation from Fearless and the band, they were going to do it on their own. But for whatever reason they decided it was going to be us. And the new Every Time I Die album is most likely going to be coming out with us.

The vinyl box set you recently did with them sold really well.

Yeah they did. We sold out of the colored ones before we got them manufactured.

Where does your interest in vinyl come from?

When I first got into punk and indie music, vinyl was still pretty big factor. I guess it never really died, but I kind of fell in love with the format even though growing up I never bought any vinyl, although I would by singles and some LPs here and there, but I grew to love the format. I feel it is more important now than ever because of digital music - it's so soulless. There is a generation of music fans who will never hold an album in their hands. I always loved liner notes and packing

I got the new Sage Francis LP and the liner notes say, "If you are reading this it means you have somehow gained access to a rare vinyl recording. It means you can read. It means there is hope," which I chuckled at.

You read that kind of thing a lot - there's a lot of press and people keep putting out articles saying it is coming back. It never went away, but it is making a resurgence.

What led to the creation of vinyl collective?

We have put out vinyl ever since I started to put out releases - the first two releases we did were vinyl. There was a point when I stopped, records are more expensive than CDs and sell less. I stopped doing it for a while and then we did the Fear Before the March of Flames Art Damage picture disc and I thought we should start doing more vinyl. But I guess anyone that follows what I have done knows I am always trying to think of new things and how to do things different. The vinyl we were putting out was doing well. The idea originally was more of a forum and it became a store along with that. We started to put things out and it organically grew from there. Sometimes I feel I should abandon everything else, but I also feel like I should stay wellrounded

What kind of response did you anticipate?

I didn't have a lot of expectations, I knew there were vinyl organizations out there, but the feedback has been overwhelming. There are so many labels that are putting out music and if someone puts out a record there is little fanfare, but dedicating a whole store to vinyl, it's something that although not completely unique, it's not something that everyone is doing. Although it is impossible for us to carry everything, for certain niches we do carry every title.

Why do you think people get so passionate about record collecting?

I think with vinyl collectors, it's the same enthusiasm behind collecting baseball cards, Japanaimation, toys or whatever it may be. There is something special about having a hobby like that. I had a friend who used to collect but over the last few months he has gotten obsessed and has put every penny he had into it and tripled his collection. It's neat to be able to collect something you love - the artist, the art. If you have something where only 500 are made, it's special. Like other collectibles it is the uniqueness. People want to get the first pressing, I think of how special that all is.

What’s up next for Vinyl Collective?

One thing I have been struggling with is the idea of taking on an investor. The only thing that is stopping me from putting out ten releases a month - not flooding the market - but releases that have never seen light on vinyl, is cash flow. We are a small business and are always struggling. The only thing stopping me is that we only have the funds to put out a release here and a release there. My hope is that the Vinyl Collective releases will go hand in hand with the other stuff we carry. I would love to carry some of everything, but I would love to put out more titles. It will have to grow organically unless the right backing comes into play. But I have 10 releases for the next 10 months. Some of them will be super limited - such as 200 copies. A lot of the bands we work with don’t have the demand that Every Time I Die or Minus the Bear have, so it won't make sense to do huge runs, so we will make 200 of them.

There's a lot of press and people keep putting out articles saying [vinyl] is coming back. It never went away, but it is making a resurgence.

And that way they’ll likely sell out, which is nice

That's what makes it kind of neat. It is a special item; it's not going to be around forever. I don't follow Ebay, but I hear the Every Time I Die box set has gone for a good price.

One idea I would love to do and that one of the guys I buy from is working on is to start a Wiki page just for vinyl. It was supposed to be a resource so people can find out what has been released and on however many colours. wiki is a tough language. When I started looking into it I wasn't going to use their platform.

I know you have many things on the go in addition to Vinyl Collective, how are they going?

With Suburban Home, we are still fighting the good fight. We plan to have a pretty full release schedule, but it is harder to sell these products that people get for free. One of our saddest things recently was Drag the River calling it quits. I feel we are cursed, whenever we get an act going they call it a day. They recorded a lot of stuff that never saw the light of day on vinyl and we might release their final studio album and all these b-sides. People all over the states record their stuff live. I love that band and I like to think their music will stand the test of time, but while we wait I am going to release Jon's old band Armchair Martian, re-release Tim Barry's demos in august. We have a new artist, Josh Small and we are releasing his second album - Tall by Josh Small. We have Tim and Josh doing an east coast midwest tour and in September they are both supporting William Elliott Whitmore which is great because his fans will be all over them. Ghost Buffalo has a really good lineup and they are working on stuff.

It has to be tougher than ever for a band to keep up with it at a small label. It seems more so now than ever that promoters don't care as much about the small bands - it will be interesting to see how things shape up. But Suburban Home is going strong and we are going to try to release more country and root-rock music, we are putting more focus on that. A lot of us started with punk rock and it went from there to other stuff. My dad liked country but I disliked it quite a bit, but there is a lot of great indie -country bands that are just so good.

We also do the site Indiehq - it's basically a site that I started with a friend. The idea is to write about what is going on in the indie music industry. Every Wednesday we post an indie sales chart and discuss what is happening in the music industry. The idea behind it is to hope that it becomes a forum for people to talk about indie bands and unsigned bands.

Is it hard to do all of these things, most of which take in no money, when you also have a business to run?

It's hard, but it's something I am passionate about. Suburban Home and Vinyl Collective take a lot of time, but at some point you have to find a place to put your energy. The things that drive you are the things that don't make you money and I decided to focus on things that made me happy - independent music.