“I wanna listen to something…I turn to my records,” Euclid Records Manager, Aaron Mayfield, said.
Mayfield has been with Euclid Records for the past seven years but has been in the music buying and selling industry much longer. He loves records as opposed to digital because it promotes individuality, he said.
The two-story store, tucked into a cozy strip along North Gore in Webster Groves, boasts a hefty collection of over 85,000 records. They also sell new and used CDs, media equipment and literature. Most famously known for its jazz collection courtesy of Owner Joe Schwab, Euclid is bound to have something for the well-versed individual.
The store first opened its doors in 1981 in St. Louis’ Central West End. Since opening, the store has moved around four times and has been in its Webster location for 10 years now.
Euclid Records is managed by a team of two, Aaron Mayfield and Nick Kuntz. They both shared a common feeling towards the art of vinyl records, what they describe as a very personal experience: The joy of digging through crates, finding new and old albums that you have known and loved.
Mayfield stated that for centuries, music has been humans’ most raw and natural sense of expression, and that getting to share the self-expression of artists new and old to customers is part of what makes the job not feel like a job.
“Music is a meeting place,” Kuntz said. “It is a way for people who do not know each other to communicate with others.”
Though vinyl has seen a resurgence in the past years, it’s no secret that listening to vinyl is not the number one choice of many listeners. With streaming services making songs readily available at people’s fingertips, most won’t choose to wait until they are with their records to listen to any music.
Still, Mayfield and Kuntz want to support records and other physical music. Both said that buying physical music directly from the artist is one of the best ways to support them, especially when they are a smaller artist. Whereas on digital, artists receive a very small portion of the streaming earnings. Not to mention streaming music, as Mayfield described, is a “a loss of thump, groove, life.”
Looking for something to spin? Mayfield shared his top pick: Funkadelic’s 1976 album “Hardcore Jollies.” Kuntz recommended the 2016 release of Frankie Cosmos’ “Next Thing.”
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