A Dad Goes to Waterloo Records in the New Era of Vinyl

Records are back and bigger than ever

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Re-issue

I recently spent a few days in Austin, Texas, to interview Michael Malice. I hadn’t been there in about a decade, and I was nervous.

Of every city I’ve been to, Austin has heaped the most misfortune on my head.

I lived there in my early 20s, a disastrous voyage into the sudden depths of adulthood. Dropped out of college, then high-tailed it back to my parents’ house in Houston. And for the next five years, Austin kept my attention. I spent a lot of time there. Friends, girlfriends, concerts, festivals.

With each trip, I was clobbered by a new disaster, including an ambulance trip the time I got jumped on 6th Street.

Eventually, I stopped trying to wedge myself into the bell-bottoms and pursued my love of music elsewhere.

So, while in town, I visited some of the places I used to love.

This move is always risky. You’re facing the past, fiddling with memories. You could extinguish the light you once believed in—the realization that seashells don’t actually contain the melody of oceans.

But I had time to kill, so I went to Waterloo Records.

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SXSW

The first time I visited Austin, when I was 17, I went to Waterloo. It made Best Buy look like Kmart.

The records were overpriced. Which was nothing new: they have always been. The thrill came from finding a good deal on a record you’ve been hunting for.

The handful of times I attended South by Southwest, I always saw shows at Waterloo. It’s got a little stage in between the two banks of cash registers.

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Mind the Gap

An ordinary building at the intersection of 6th St. and Lamar Blvd., across from the giant Whole Foods Market, Waterloo comprises 6,400 square feet of unwashed space. While it is smaller than megalith record stores like Amoeba, it is still a sizable beast.

Above the entrance, there’s a “Waterloo Records” sign styled after the insignia of the London Underground.

The air conditioning rushed out the door, into the heat as I walked in. Like always, music was blaring, someone had just plattered one of my favorite albums, DJ Shadow Entroducing…

Ten years ago, this coincidence would have hyped me up and possibly even blown my mind. Why wasn’t it?

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Napolean

In 1839, the Republic of Texas relocated its capital to a tiny village named Waterloo. Which was then changed to Austin, in homage to Texas hero Stephen F. Austin.

Throughout its history, the city of Austin has, in turn, paid homage to Waterloo.

Austin grew, evolved, deepened. It became a music city. By some accounts, it became the music city. Marketing campaign or not, this reputation proved true.

Then, in 1982, Waterloo Records opened its doors, facing off with chain music stores, corporate bigwigs with locations off highways and in malls.

Maybe more than any other location in Austin, Waterloo propelled the city’s musical persona.

There are a ton of record stores in the capital city. I used to know all of them, like a golfer instinctively aware of the right club out of the dozens collected, by tradition or preference.

Waterloo is not the coolest record store. It doesn’t have the most—or least—impressive selection.

What it offers is plentitude.

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Fear of a planet

The biggest change to Waterloo, in the decade since I’d last visited, was the loudness of the politics. Which was probably a projection on my part: I changed far more than it had.

All the flags and bumper stickers you’d expect. All the miniaturizations of a culture too big for itself.

The customers bounced around. I found it hard to tell who was a local and who was visiting—presumably, most were visitors. But the fact that I couldn’t tell was enough to make me question my familiarity with the setting, despite having spent hours in this building over the course of years.

Sometimes you think you’re a pilgrim, but you’re really just a tourist.

Pilgrim status had always been my goal when visiting a record store. I was eager to avoid acting like a tourist. Now, I didn’t care.

Older, I’d outgrown the elasticity of Austin’s youthful politics.

So the political optics at Waterloo Records weren’t blaring, but definitely liberal. I was deep in the liberal territory that’s deep in conservative territory. Which supposedly emboldens the haze of Austin’s liberal mirage—or oasis, depending on who you ask.

Although even this ambiguity is superficial. For all the city’s Hippie-level Leftoid weirdness, there will always be a counterforce, the shape and girth of Alex Jones, longtime resident.

Last time I visited Austin, Joe Rogan hadn’t relocated his anti-woke empire. And the gentrification was much lighter than it’s gotten.

The industrial makeup had changed, too. Now, you can practically feel the closeted libertarianism of the Big Tech presence.

Lots more tourism, and tourism makes a place more conservative, even if only behind the scenes.

My younger self probably wouldn’t have noticed any of this, preferring to enjoy the bustle that kept this place alive, as vinyl as a medium appeared to vanish toward 8-tracks and cassettes.

But then everything changed, and even Walmart began hocking vinyl at exorbitant prices.

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Record-breaking

Between 2003 and 2008, more than 3,000 record stores closed. It was a strange time. The CD was dying out, just like all other physical media.

The future was digital. No real ownership. A lifetime of the subscription model.

Then, in 2008, vinyl records gained some clout. Sales jumped by 89%, the highest level since 1984. Within four years, vinyl sales exploded by 1,000%.

Then, in 2022, vinyl regained its title as the most popular physical form of recorded music.

Waterloo never stopped selling vinyl. There was no major slump for Austin’s music-store landmark. In fact, it very likely played a role in the vinyl revival.

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Dark Side of the Moon

I wandered the aisles for an hour or so, lost in the library scent of plastic-wrapped records in bulk. Now that I’m a dad, I don’t get many aimless, leisurely trips. The freedom made my head spin.

It had been years since I’d been to any record store, an activity that I used to perform at least weekly.

Life is different when there’s no time to waste. It’s easy for me to believe the notion that every seven years, you’re an entirely new person.

Throughout my 20s, in various cities, I always lived near record stores.

Fatherhood led me elsewhere, and thank God that it did. But, as I poked at Jazz albums, I realized that this didn’t have to be a tragedy.

I wasn’t here to mourn the freedom of the young man I used to be. Nor even to balk at the idiocy that I somehow survived—although that is truly miraculous.

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Technics

My record player, a sweet belt-driven Technics, has been in need of repairs for nearly as long as I’ve been a father. Parenthood is so consuming that, when cherished possessions fall into disrepair, they often wind up in the garage.

The record collection I spent years building has become somewhat decorative, although my kids love to fiddle with the covers and, if I don’t catch them in time, poke at the vinyl like it’s a frisbee.

So as I crabbed down the aisles of Waterloo, I realized that it would be foolish to buy a record. Yet I kept browsing. I felt the twinge of muscle memory while crate-digging through rows of vinyl.

There were plenty of classics, some of which I already own. Plenty of new albums I hadn’t encountered yet, because I just can’t keep up with new releases like I could before having children. These days, I’m far more familiar with the soundtracks of various musicals and kids’ TV shows that play on repeat at home.

Waterloo has a nice little collection of DVDs, so I poked through the Family section and nosed around for Westerns. But then I remembered that we no longer have a DVD player.

CDs would be a waste, too. Sadly. I grew up surrounded by those jewel cases.

Waterloo has tons of souvenirish tack, postcards, stickers, Funko Pops, candy, thingymajigs, gag gifts, and so on. But nothing I could justify buying.

So I grabbed a Funkadelic t-shirt. I would have preferred Metallica, who have actually played at Waterloo Records, but whose “Ride the Lightning” tee was sold out in my size.

Years ago, I came here with dreams of becoming a music journalist. Now I had made it, and then some.

I no longer felt the enormous, capsizing presence that used to overtake me when wandering a record store. Church offers so much more.

Because the people we become leave remnants of what we sacrificed or outgrew along the way. After four days away from my wife and kids, there was only one place that could restore me in that way: Home.