Johnny’s Records Remains Popular Despite Threat of Mainstream Obsolescence
The rain is cold but the music is warm in Johnny’s Records on a recent damp and dreary Sunday afternoon in Darien, Connecticut. John Konrad, the owner of the self-titled music store that has been around since 1975, sits at the front desk engulfed in his work. His desk holds an incalculable amount of notes and papers relating to album orders and recommendations, all condensed into a pile on the right side. No parts of the walls are visible as they are completely covered in purchasable prints and photographs of artists such as David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and above all, The Grateful Dead. There is little floor to walk on, as the single room is only a hallway stretching fifteen feet long and about seven feet wide. On Each side of the room there are shelves and drawers brewing with Vinyl and CDs of both classic, highly praised, wide release work alongside underground, niche material that only manages to grace the ears of few listeners.
“I listen to everything,” Konrad says. “It’s my job. It happens to be a job that I love so it’s really good. Every week I get a sheet of new releases and I’ll pick out everything I don’t know in there and I’ll listen to it so I know what it is. So if somebody comes in and asks me, I can have a conversation with them about it.”
A resident of the town since the age of five, Konrad grew up and opened his record store when Darien was a much different place then it is now. He described it as a somewhat tightly knit community, rooted in generations of families loyal to their homeland heritage.
“It was a nice middle class post war kind of a town,” he said. “There were always a lot of people around. A lot of Italian, a lot of Irish. There was a sense of family history in the town, which there isn’t anymore.”
Beginning around the late 80s and early 90s the community shifted, as the town underwent gentrification due to the increasing property values brought on by a popularized hunger for a cheaper suburban lifestyle while also having easy access to the city through the train line. This lead to many lesser income, yet richer in culture, families being bought out of their ancestral homes.
“Around eighty five, ninety, it just didn’t make sense to hold onto your house,” he said. “You could sell it for so much money. You look in the paper now and houses are going for a million dollars and up.”
Although the town and many of its locals may have changed, Konrad’s passionate love for music hasn’t.
“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t into music,” he said. “I can’t think back to a part of my life without music in it. I can remember at five having a record player and it being a big deal.”
Like all physical record stores, Johnny’s Records had to deal with events such as the inevitable popularity of digital listening, which caused the severe drop in physical copy demand. In the late 2000s, record stores were dropping like flies after they were shadowed by the omnipotent online music catalogue known as iTunes. However, only a couple of years ago, the clouds parted and the stores that survived now thrive as they were met with much affluence due to the vintage and retro becoming reinvigorated and acclaimed in the public eye. Even though he went through the turbulent time himself, Konrad says that he didn’t have it as hard as others because of the loyal and recurring fans garnered over the years as well as having a wider selection of items compared to other record stores.
“There were definitely some hard times in 2003 and 2004,” he said. “But by the time the digital boom came through it was about maybe 20 years into the store, and we just had so many loyal customers that they just rode us through it. We also always had a lot of rock collectible posters and t-shirts where a lot of other stores didn’t. We always had other things to fall back on.”
While not particularly known for it, Darien has some notable famous alumni from the public high school, such as recognized actor and actress Topher Grace and Chloe Sevigny. Some even managed to create relationships with Konrad himself like Richard Hall: The DJ and musician that goes by the stage name of Moby, who actually worked at the store during his teenage years.
“I knew Moby since he was five. His mother was a single mom who used to come in here when we first opened the store. I liked him a lot. He was a good kid. We had a good time together. To me, he was just another high school kid. He didn’t have any of that star ambience. He was just somebody I knew for a long time. I’m glad to see his success.”
Back in the 80s and 90s, before digital was common, Johnny’s Records had substantial attendance by high schoolers, as it was one of the only sources for obtaining music at the time. Now he’s gone from being able to recognize every kid in the graduating class to not being able to name a single student.
“In the 70s and 80s I probably knew every kid that liked music in the graduating class,” he said. “It’s a different demographic now. I can’t say that I know a lot of high school kids. There was a period where that just phased out around the mid to late 90s. I look at the graduating classes now and I don’t know any of those kids.”
Konrad and his store have had to deal with constant change for almost forty-two years now. Whether it is the new ways we take in music, the separation from the youth who were once his leading customers, and the near complete modification of the community he grew up with, Johnny’s Records has retained its position as a go to spot for musical necessities and a distinguished feature of Main Street, Darien.
“It’s just different,” he said. “Did I prefer it the other way? Yeah but y’know it is what it is. What’re you gonna do?”
