Video: Wombleton Records Owner Ian Marshall Talks Vinyl, Diggin' in the Crates and Record Store Day

For more than 700 independently run music shops across the nation, today's recognition of Record Store Day is a time to celebrate albums as tangible objects and to offer shop goers the opportunity to purchase physical copies of tracks not offered in digital format.

' Ian Marshall is not being glib when he tells you that's what takes place every single day at his York Boulevard shop.

Marshall specializes in hard to find first pressings of vinyl records released primarily in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, with outliers from the surrounding decades peppered into the mix. A longtime vinyl lover who became addicted to the form thanks to the "Greatest Rock Band in the World," Kiss, Marshall has spanned the globe (Holland, England, Jamaica) to fill out Wombleton's impressive and sort of daunting collection.

None of what Marshall offers can be found online--not only because he specializes in ultra-rare first pressings of albums long forgotten by the pop-charts and tastemakers, but because it is impossible to duplicate the feeling of gazing into the art on a record sleeve and hearing the needle drag across a rare find for the first time.

"It's fun to listen to records and to see a picture. To have the whole package--the whole mythology behind that is still important to me and I think it's still important to the people I sell records to," he said. "It's a ritual to me, and it's a fantasy world, and I don't think it can be replaced by a digital download or even a CD, necessarily, because a CD is tool small, you can't really get lost in it. You can't really go through the looking glass as easily."

Ed Note: We'd be remiss if didn't credit Marshall for not once uttering "Every Day is Record Store Day" at Wombleton Records.

Though purveyors of digital media have drastically reduced the perceived need for brick and mortar music shops, Marshall is defiant in his belief that the record store will never go away.

"People like things and they like to own things and they always have," he explained. "If they didn't like to own things they would have just been happy when radio came out and wouldn't have continued to buy records. People who say that the future is in this digital media stuff, they're probably right. But there will always be a dedicated group of people who like to own things, and you can sell to them like I do."

Marshall cops to being a tad circumspect about Record Store Day, despite his love for records and record shops. First, he explained, the celebration is driven primarily by contemporary artists putting out remixes of popular tracks solely though record shops. While that sounds cool, Marshall doesn't sell any contemporary music. Period.

Also, Record Store Day draws huge crowds to record shops across the country. Again, it's hard for any business owner to complain about that. But the vinyl-hermit in him knows that there's something far more fulfilling about mulling about an empty shop in search of something rare and beautiful.

However, as of Friday evening, Marshall had vowed to take a more positive spin on Record Store Day, and was surrounded on all sides by a fortress of records he was preparing for a sidewalk sale to take place on today. 

"There will be thousands and thousands of records all on sale for $1, $3 and $5 all on a sidewalk in Highland Park. People can dig for crap and get really good quantity deals. I've thrown some gems in there as well. First come, first served. It will be fun," he said. "I'm not a total curmudgeon on Record Store Day. We're gonna celebrate it this year, see how we do. If we don't do well, then forget it."