Local record store owner gives the scoop on alt rock vinyls and the state of physical media

Record store owner Tom Rule beside Moldy Toes Records banner. Lariat | Maceo Vadas

With a recent resurgence of physical media, especially for music, vinyl records have become a great gift for music lovers everywhere. With the ever-changing alt rock genre holding its ground amongst more self-realized genres like classic rock or punk, it can’t hurt to check in every once in a while to see what’s coming off the shelves at the local record store.

Owner and manager of record shop Moldy Toes Records, Tom Rule shared his thoughts on the genre, the state of physical media, and his recommendations on which alt-rock records to shop for with the holiday season on its way.

What alt rock vinyls have you seen go out the door recently?

I recommend Gang of Four’s “Entertainment!” a lot, so I sell a lot of those. But the alt rock stuff here, it just sells sporadically. Like, one person will come in and that’s all they’ll buy. “Sports” by Modern Baseball sells really consistently. A record that I really like that I play a lot is “Dying Surfer Meets His Maker”. So if we play it in the store we sell that a lot. The Strokes, lots of Sublime.

Do you have any thoughts on the state of alt rock right now?

It’s a weird genre because it was kind of created on the heels of punk, because people didn’t know what to call it, but it wasn’t really post punk, but it kind of was. I think it’s kind of gotten more mainstream than it was, say twenty years ago.

What are your thoughts on the state of physical media?

As far as this store goes, I sell way more records than CDs and tapes combined. For CDs and tapes, I call it the car hand-me-down theory: Kids would get their grandparents’ car and it came with a cassette player, so cassettes became kind of popular. Now the cars have CD players in them, so CDs are kind of bouncing back. But vinyl by far is selling the most of any of the three formats and it’s way better than streaming, you know?

What are some good records, specifically for alt rock fans, that would make a good gift for the holidays?

Overlooked stuff is kind of like that Gang of Four “Entertainment!” album. Refused “Shape of Punk to Come”. I have turned people on to that who have never heard of it before, and then it’s like their favorite record. It just depends, too, kind of like what frame of mind I’m in, because I’ve probably forgotten half the stuff one day and then I’ll remember it the next.

Are people usually leaving with one record or does it vary?

It kind of depends on the customer. To me, prices on vinyl are so f—ing expensive. I don’t know how people afford it. If somebody comes up with three records and I’m going, “That’s $106,” I’m just stunned. There’s a few distributors that are just extremely greedy and their records don’t need to be as expensive as they are. But you’ll have a label like, say Epitaph, their stuff is mostly that kind of punky rock stuff. They’re very reasonably priced, so that proves that you don’t have to charge $32 for a Beatles record if you can sell Rancid for twenty bucks.

This interview is an edited version of a longer conversation. You can find Moldy Toes Records off of Camino Real in San Clemente in Orange County, California.

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