Robert, My Black Vinyl Story – Side A

In the early 1970’s, I discovered music the way a lot of kids discover trouble, through older friends with cool older siblings. I was 11, in the 6th grade, and suddenly I wasn’t just hearing what was on the radio, I was getting a crash course in what these much cooler teens were spinning. These older siblings of my friends, that I looked up too, were passing down Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath, America, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Uriah Heep, The Rolling Stones and so much more. These bands and their albums released my vision to a new world of thinking, a new world to live in. Music stopped being background noise and started becoming something much more influential in my life.

In my teens, I was a paperboy with a weekly ritual. Daily I would deliver the evening newspaper and then every Saturday I would collect my financial rewards for this service from my customers. After collecting, I would pedal my ass off to the local record store. Those crumpled bills? That was my vinyl record money. And the record store? That was my church.

I would spend hours digging through record bins of that store, reading outer album liner notes like sacred messages, trying to decide which album was the one that would come home with me that day. Would it be Pink Floyd today or something entirely new. Perhaps a new band today, a new profit with a new profound message for me. Tough decisions for my limited budget. 

Over the years, I got to know the folks behind the record store counter. They were effortlessly cool, always spinning something I hadn’t heard, always willing to talk music. New recommendations, the Ramones, Lou Reed, Patti Smith. They didn’t know it, but their suggestions opened new windows for me to climb through. One day the manager looked at me and said: “You know this place like we do. Want to work here?”

And just like that, somewhere in my 18th year of being on this planet, I crossed over to the other side of the counter. I wasn’t just collecting records; I was now living them. I talked music all day with customers and coworkers who spoke the same language: great riff, gritty vocals, what a cool melody, that album kicks ass! That job didn’t just change my life, it gave me an identity. I was in the music industry and treasured it!

But the influence of music didn’t stop at the turntable. It started to guide everything in my life, how I dressed, what I read, what I believed and how I spent my time. It split my mind and perspective wide open. Every record felt like a window into a different world, new possibilities, a new life. And yes, I wanted in. I was ready to live it loud, strange, bold, a full rock & roll life.

I vividly recall one day listening to Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” in the late 70’s, that voice, that attitude, that line,“I gotta get away, I gotta get out of this place.” Life changing!

That was it. It was time to go!

So, I packed up my Toyota wagon I had named Fred and started the trek from Wisconsin to Phoenix, towards the vision my music profits unveiled and presented to me. That feeling. And yeah, to work in a record store. Because where else would I be.

Music didn’t just shape who I was. It presented visions as to where I should next go. And, that I did!

Phoenix was my record store B Side. I showed up with a head full of riffs and a heart full of restlessness with a pent-up purposeful need for discovery. The comfort of that first record store job in my home town in Wisconsin was behind me now. What lay ahead was undefined, but I knew one thing for sure: I was chasing the real rock & roll life, not just the soundtrack.

Phoenix hit different. New supersized large city, new faces, new scenes, new culture, new vibes and new clubs with unique new bands. The record stores here weren’t just places to buy vinyl, they were gathering grounds for likeminded people interested in all aspect of music, crossroads for musicians, misfits, audiophiles, and curious wanderers. And I was one of them. I wanted to live inside the music: crate-digging by day, catching shows by night, hanging out with bands after hours, talking classic and new artists with anyone, and always on the search for creative people with limited or no rules.

This was no longer about escaping. It was about arriving!

The rock & roll lifestyle. Yeah, it was exactly what I’d read and heard about. Maybe even more!

It was music on blast, night after night. It was backroom parties and green room passes. It was whiskey-stained setlists, sunrise hangovers, and conversations that only made sense at 3AM. It was fast, loud, chaotic, and absolutely electric!

For six years, I lived it full throttle. No brakes. A nonstop train fueled by late nights, loud concert venues and clubs, and an assortment of offerings they warned you about. And I loved it.

Somewhere around 24, I looked at my life and realized if I kept it up, I wasn’t going to see year 25. That wasn’t drama. That was truth!

So, I hit pause, no I hit stop! Time to dry out. Sober up. Change my habits. Time to make a real change, not because someone told me to, but because I knew I needed to. My vision needed a major adjustment to see my 30’s

I enrolled in college. I chased a business degree. I wanted to try my hand at business, at structure, at building something that would last longer than a hangover or a one-night show. College was supposed to be a clean break. A fresh start. A way out of the warped groove I was in.

I traded late nights at clubs for late nights in the library. My calendar shifted from tour dates to test dates. I was focused, clear-eyed, self-driven, rebuilding. I was on a mission to reinvent myself. The business world was calling, and I was ready to answer.

But even in the most structured moments, between economic lectures and marketing case studies, music never left. It was still there, humming under the surface like a familiar bassline. When everything else felt like strategy and structure, music was the one place I could breathe freely.

I didn’t leave music behind. I couldn’t. Music had raised me. Saved me. It was part of me. I was part of it. So even while I traded dive bars for textbooks and tour posters for spreadsheets, I carried the records with me. The rhythm never left, it just changed tempo.

Thirty-four years. That’s how long I spent in what I’ll call my professional career, deep in the world of consumer-packaged-goods, building businesses, launching brands, leading teams, and climbing the ladder one strategic rung at a time.

The first 12 years of this professional work were classic corporate hustle. Suits, meetings, business acronyms and metrics. I delivered results, earned promotions, and checked every box the annual playbook laid out. But then one day I met an entrepreneur, and just like those first albums, something clicked. It was time to go, I gotta get out of this place!

I realized there was another path. One with more freedom, more risk, less conformity, living on the edge.  Sound familiar? Yeah, sounds like Rock & Roll! So, I jumped from the comforts of corporate business to the adrenaline surges of daily unknown risks. And in the entrepreneurial business years that followed: I again scaled brands, built companies, lead teams but with the everyday unsaid risk of losing everything should the business fail. Exhilarating, I loved it!

Even as I stepped deeper into the business world, raising money, boardrooms, branding and spreadsheets, I would find myself referencing album artwork in pitch decks, naming file folders after musicians and Rolling Stones songs, or sneaking out early to catch a local set in a dive bar across town. And, every once in a while, someone in a meeting would lock on to the vinyl records displayed on the shelf behind me and my desk and say, “You into vinyl records?”

Hell yes, I was!

That love of music never turned off. It just played on a lower volume, still steady but waiting for the right moment to turn the volume back up. Because no matter how far I went in business, music was still my island. And I was never going to stop coming back to it.

And then came July 2021, a moment that most business executives only dream of. I stood on the platform at the New York Stock Exchange and rang the bell on Wall Street. But I didn’t do it in a pinstripe suit or polished shoes. I did it dressed in all black, my signature look, black denim jeans, a black hat, a belt worn off center and a ponytail halfway down my back.

Still me. Still that kid from the record store. Just on a different stage, and, as that bell echoed through the floor, I knew something else with absolute clarity: I was finished with that path.

Now it was time to get back to what mattered most. It was time to reinvent myself and return to the music.

That’s when the idea hit me, full volume, no static: Black Vinyl Stories.

A space where the stories, sounds, community of music enthusiasts wrapped in the spirit of lyric, notes and inspiration come to life again. A new ambition. A real one. The one I had been heading toward all along.