Yellow stickers. I’ve come to the conclusion that the story of my life could be chronicled rather neatly by a series of yellow stickers.
There’s the brittle remnant barely hanging onto the first cassette I remember buying with my own money (Men at Work’s Cargo, circa age 10), the battle-tested shard fiercely affixed to the album that christened my earliest CD player (Led Zeppelin II, sophomore year of high school), the rough-around-the-edges-but-mostly-there remainder on the instant hip-hop classic my college roommate insisted I simply must own (A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory; he was right), even the unspoiled label adorning my most recent listening purchase (Ravi Shankar’s In Celebration box set, some three weeks old).
The tags came courtesy of Zia—technically, the sign out front reads Zia Record Exchange, but longtimers only use the three-letter designation—and could probably be removed with a fingernail and a dab of acetone, were I so inclined. As it is, however, you can’t dig through a stack in my multithousand-disc collection without coming across a yellow sticker or 10, as if a nondescript price tag were a badge of honor.
I began frequenting Zia as an Arizona grade-schooler, prearranging parental drop-off and pickup times so I could dig through mounds of used tapes without interference. When my friends and I finally turned 16, we’d routinely meet up at one of four metro-Phoenix Zia stores to drop our allowances on CDs with cool-looking covers by bands that, in many cases, we’d never even heard of.
In high school, when other kids headed off campus to eat lunch, we’d scarf down a burger in the car so we could spend 30 minutes trolling Zia. On weekends we made it an art, regularly hitting multiple Zias in a single day (you never know which one might suddenly have that rare vinyl copy of Neil Young’s Time Fades Away in stock ...).
As a college student, I missed Zia more than my mother (sorry, mom!). Where else could I trade in two old Yes cassettes I’d totally outgrown and leave with a Sun Ra disc my jazz professor had recently lectured about? Even after settling in Las Vegas, I drove around town with a trunk full of trade-counter fare; God forbid I should find myself in Phoenix, hopelessly unprepared.
And then in 2005, to my great surprise, Zia extended its borders. Not to Northern Arizona. Or to Southern California. But to right here in Las Vegas, specifically along Eastern Avenue, just south of Flamingo Road. Better still, we didn’t just gain a Zia, we were awarded a super Zia, largest in the eight-store chain. Happy days ensued for the Zia-obsessed (next meeting: 10 p.m. Friday), but the glee was soon tempered by the gnawing sensation that it couldn’t possibly last.
As the record industry convulsed and shriveled, and shops big (see ya, Tower; hasta la vista, Virgin) and small (bye bye, Big B’s and Balcony Lights) vanished from the Vegas Valley, it seemed inevitable that Zia would also succumb, sooner or later. For the seventh year in a row, CD sales declined in 2007, by some 20 percent from 2006 numbers, according to most reports. So it’s with equal parts joy and bewilderment that I write this next sentence. Zia Record Exchange will open its new Las Vegas location next month.
Yes, while the rest of the music world crumbles around it, Zia is expanding. Have reports of the compact disc’s demise been grossly exaggerated? Or did Zia scientists concoct some magic elixir to ward off the effects of the common downloader?
The way vice president/general manager Brian Faber explains it, Zia’s steady success has been a simple matter of shrewd market maneuvering and measured growth. “For us, it’s been about listening to our customers,” says the man who’s presided over the chain for the past six years (a Phoenix-based ownership group treats it principally as an investment) as we sit on the Eastern store’s raised back-corner stage. “For example,” he continues with a business sapience belying his linebacker’s build, “even though we’d always been a music store, when our customers said they wanted to buy DVDs, we listened. Same now with video games. And we do it carefully. We started with used games, then the hits, now we do full catalog.”
Indeed, I’m consistently amazed by how much of Zia’s clientele these days tends to crowd into the DVD section near the front entrance, a significant change from the years when music ruled the roost. Still, Faber insists CDs remain the chain’s bread and butter. “We had these monster DVD deals for the holidays, but most of the people I saw in the store were buying big stacks of music,” he says, beaming brightly in sharp contrast to the somber Tom Waits song playing overhead.
Ultimately, Zia’s advantage over Tower, Virgin or Sam Goody is—and has always been—its used selection, and its ability to turn over that used selection. The trade counter isn’t simply part of the store; it’s the essential component. Used CDs bring $3-$5 in store credit (30 percent less in cash), and savvy patrons make full use of that service to regularly freshen up their collections, picking up used discs that typically cost around half the price of new counterparts.
Of course, that concept—so ingrained in the music-buying public in Phoenix—took some time to take hold in Las Vegas. “There’s an educating process,” Faber concedes. “‘Is this scratched? Is it broken?’ No, it’s cheap. Buy it!”
Even as Las Vegans warmed up to the idea of trading in and buying used, however, Faber says he knew the chain—founded as a tiny, single store in central Phoenix by original owner/operator Brad Singer in 1980 (Singer died in 1998, at age 46)—would ultimately succeed in Southern Nevada. “The Phoenix market and the Las Vegas market were such growth-oriented cities. After a while, we said, ‘How similar are these places?’ I came up here and drove around for a couple days and went home and said, ‘Oh my God!’” recalls Faber, himself a longtime Zia customer who shopped in the Tempe store as a teenager. “But we didn’t want to be part of the tourist thing on the Strip. We wanted to connect with the people in the community, and we’ve done that. It’s been a great move. We love it here. If we were a giant company, we’d put 10 Zias here, but you’ve got to grow smart.”
Las Vegas’ new Zia location—on Sahara Avenue, roughly across the street from the shuttered Tower Wow store—will be the second-largest in the chain, but is expected to house close to the same quantity of product as the Eastern store, thanks to taller CD bins that will elevate stock without encroaching on the store’s spacious layout.
Originally scheduled to open around Halloween, the new site, which sits in the city of Las Vegas (the Eastern store is in Clark County), hit a few construction-permit snags, as workers tore interior walls out of what used to be McGhie’s Ski & Bike.
Now, Faber hopes to be in business around Valentine’s Day, half-jokingly proposing a new slogan to celebrate its grand opening: “We love Las Vegas so much we’re gonna give you another store.”
Love. If it sounds corny in relation to a record store, chances are you’ve never thrown out your back digging through vinyl. You’ve never re-alphabetized your collection in your head as a way to beat insomnia. And you’ve never had to tell family they’ll have to stay in a hotel because your music has spilled over into what used to be the guest room.
For those who truly love record-shopping and remain committed to the physical preservation of audio treasures (compressed digital files be damned!), options are diminishing, fast. Consider how few actual brick-and-mortar shops remain in Las Vegas—local vinyl chain Record City, rare-record specialist Wax Trax, a few of those crappy mall CD stores, a section at Borders books and ... well ... not much else—and you get a sense for why Zia is thriving in the face of industry adversity. It has preserved not only the method by which we once purchased our music but also a diversion by which we once happily whiled away hours of our free time.
“We design our stores so you can spend time in them,” Faber says, disclosing that a recent chain-wide questionnaire determined Zia shoppers spend, on average, more than 30 minutes per visit in the store. “We want to give people a different experience than you get everywhere else. You go to Target or Best Buy and you close your eyes and you don’t really know the difference. At Zia, you’re gonna have a good time.”
In large part, Zia’s employees set that tone, organizing the music the way they see fit (a new “Industrial/Noise/Experimental” section offers evidence), constructing and painting every fixture in the store and happily chatting up customers who have questions, and very often those who don’t. Try talking music with the electronics-department staffer at Target next time you pick up a CD there.
Since opening, the Eastern store has hosted regular Friday and Saturday in-store performances—booking first-time-out local bands on up to Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Jurassic 5—and the Sahara location plans to do the same. The new store has also installed a retractable movie screen, in hopes of showcasing area filmmakers. “If we can think it up, we’ll usually get there eventually,” Faber says.
Still, as I wander through the newest version of my oldest music digs, I’m struck by one key difference: Today’s crowd looks a lot older. When I began shopping at Zia, the store was filled with teenagers and 20-somethings, but the crowd in 2008—even midafternoon on the weekend—tends toward the 40- and 50-something sets, even well beyond. So despite Zia’s best intentions to change with the times, I’ve got to wonder whether the chain can thrive long-term if its audience only gets grayer.
For his part, Faber sounds confident, saying all the right things—“Everything’s cyclical,” “I just see opportunity” and “What’s an iPod but a newer Walkman?”—but if kids no longer buy music, or at least the kind they can hold in their hands, there has to come a day when the formula for success no longer pencils out, when music vets alone can’t support the concept, doesn’t there?
Here’s hoping that day never comes. I’ve filled my trunk with trade so I can stockpile a few more yellow stickers just in case.
Spencer Patterson is the Weekly’s music editor.