IT’S ‘VINYL-LLY’ HERE: Rediscover vintage records, eclectic tomes at Backstreet Beat

Published 7:11 am Thursday, November 5, 2015

Starting a new business for the first time at age 64 isn’t exactly the retirement advice doled out by most financial planners.

But what do they know?

When staff reductions led to the loss of his position at the Art Institute of Seattle, long-time photography teacher and noted island artist Raymond Gendreau decided to be his own boss and finally follow a dream that had been persistently in the back of his mind for many years: to open his own vintage shop.

Though experienced at operating a commercial photography studio, Gendreau had long toyed with the idea of turning his weekly appearances at the Fremont Sunday Market and eBay dealings into more traditional entrepreneurship in a place all his own.

Gendreau was seriously into vinyl since it was cool the first time, and his new store in downtown Winslow, Backstreet Beat, offers adventurous customers the chance to treasure hunt through the best of his epic and personally curated trove of records, CDs and books, the result of decades of travel, collecting, buying and selling.

The shop — located at 265 Winslow Way East, Suite 102, down the ivy-adorned alley between Danger and the former location of The Traveler — is one of the only retail outlets offering secondhand records in the entire county. Its wares include items ranging across the collectible scale, from cheap paperbacks to fine first editions and from common vinyl standards to rare and precious pressings.

His collection includes somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 records, Gendreau said — of which about 2,000 will be in the store at any one time — and literally more books than he can count.

Eclecticism and discovery are the order of the day at Backstreet Beat, so don’t expect any neat computerized inventory or this month’s must-read crowd pleaser. You’ll have to be a little braver in here. Bring your interests and your sense of adventure, Gendreau said, and you will undoubtedly uncover a wonderful surprise — maybe even a new favorite.

“It’s the kind of a bookstore where you don’t go in saying, ‘I want this.’ You go in and say, ‘What’s here for me?’” Gendreau said.

His shelves are generally arranged by genre — you’ll find Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson sitting chummily beside Charles Bukowski in a section he likes to call “Beats and Bad Habits” — and his records are displayed the same way, from classical to rock ‘n’ roll and punk to “the oddball stuff,” he explained.

An unwavering vinyl collector himself, Gendreau said that even he was surprised when the format came roaring back into popularity as of late, and he strives to reflect the changing interests of new collectors in the albums he stocks.

“It’s kind of like a second resurgence because it came back about 10 years ago just a little bit and now it’s come back even more,” he said. “The interesting thing that’s happened is that [record shows and shops] used to be like a reunion, an old folks reunion with all these old guys with their little notebooks going through trying to fill the gaps in their collection, and now it’s a lot more young people — and surprisingly — it’s a lot more women.”

With this new breed of young collector, Gendreau said, has come fresh predominant interests and tastes in the vinyl market.

“The scope of what people want has broadened out,” he said. “I couldn’t give away a Joan Baez record 10 years ago. Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, that stuff has got a following [now].”

That’s interesting, but let’s cut to the chase. So, honestly, does music sound better on vinyl?

Gendreau said yes — sort of.

“People ask, ‘Does it sound better?’ Well, it sounds better because you play it through a system that sounds better,” he explained.

“I think mostly it’s just kind of a reaction to digital technology,” Gendreau said of vinyl’s return.

“When you listen to things on earbuds and your computer, it’s a really lousy way of listening to music,” he added.

Despite the proliferation and ease of digital content, it is the sheer fun of collecting, Gendreau said, that primarily ensures the continued popularity of physical media.

“The object is kind of cool,” he said. “I think it’s the same thing with books. You can read a lot of stuff on a Kindle, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s not on a Kindle that’s really weird and really interesting and this is the place where you’re going to find it.”

In addition to domestic discoveries, Gendreau said he is especially proud to have the chance to introduce readers to many international authors, a group who also receive their own special section in the shop, whose work he has collected.

“Stuff that’s not mainstream,” he explained. “Authors from Africa, Latin America [and] Eastern Europe. A lot of these people end up winning major awards, like the Nobel Prize for Literature, but we don’t know them that well.”

Some current fictional staples, however, will be markedly absent.

“I can safely say that there will be no ‘Twilight’ in here,” Gendreau laughed. “But there will be John Green. He’s worth adults reading, so I’ll have him. Nora Roberts? She won’t be available, she’ll be having coffee with James Patterson.”

Having coffee, that is, someplace other than Backstreet Beat.

Adorning the walls of the shop will be framed album covers, yet another unique aspect of vinyl that Gendreau feels contributed greatly to the medium’s resurgence, as well as his own original photography. The island lensman’s work has appeared in full-page spreads for the likes of Alaska Airlines, Texas Monthly and on the cover of Time magazine, as well as in a recent Bainbridge Island Museum of Art solo exhibition.

Bainbridge Island, where he and his family have lived for nearly 30 years, Gendreau said, is the perfect place for the kind of soulful secondhand shop he’s always wanted to own.

“It’s a great community; it’s supportive,” he said. “I think that Bainbridge needs to kind of stay funky. It can’t get too precious.”

Backstreet Beat marked its grand opening Sunday, Nov. 1 and will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 206-780-6721 for more information.

Golden oldies

Backstreet Beat, Winslow’s newest vintage shop, features a diverse collection of secondhand records, CDs and books.

Where: 265 Winslow Way East #102, down the ivy-adorned alley between Danger the former location of The Traveler.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Info: Call 206-780-6721.