If you would have told me two years ago that there was a phenomenal vintage record shop right in the middle of my stomping grounds on the near west side of Cleveland, I would have made several guesses about which store you were talking about and all of them would be wrong. I had no idea Hodad’s existed until about a year and a half ago when a friend told me about some obscure northern soul 45s he had picked up there.
At first, I was confused about the nature of this store. I was sure it had to be a new place, I thought I knew every store in town! As it turns out, I must have been under a rock between 2003 and 2009, Hodad’s has been there the whole time. Earlier this week, I exchanged a few emails with Jon Mack, owner of Hodad’s, so he could tell us a little bit more about his shop.
In the few times I’ve been to Hodad’s since being tipped off to its existence last year, the term “best kept secret” comes to mind every time I stop in. Are you comfortable with people thinking of your store that way, or would you rather be the go-to place for all things vinyl in the Cleveland area?
One of the things about this store is that it hasn’t been open for full-time hours since 2004. We finally went back to full-time hours in September of last year. In the previous 6 years I decided to work from home and take care of my daughter and work in the store in the evenings. It was grueling at times, but made it all worth it.
The reason why I mention this is there are still people discovering the store now even in our 8th year of existence. I simply think the part-time hours and lack of advertising and such has made it like we’ve only been open 3 or 4 years as opposed to 8. In other words, some people are new or new customers and therefore it might be looked upon as a place that many aren’t aware of or a “best kept secret.” However, we have had many regulars who have shopped at the store since it first opened back on 2003.
Two other things; we are not located in a trendy neighborhood, or at least it isn’t anymore, which if you don’t know of the store’s existence, you probably won’t find it out by accident, maybe even if you are a west-sider. Finally, we truly believe we are one of the best vintage vinyl stores in the area. Now that we’re open full-time you can come whenever you want and we invite you to check out a stocked selection in a unpretentious, friendly environment where you never know what you will find on any given visit.
One of my favorite aspects of your store is that it’s just jam-packed with inventory, almost to the point of sensory overload. It takes a good while to get through the crates at your store. Are you working towards a more organized setup, or has it always been your goal to stock everything you can, even if organization falls by the wayside?
Of course any store would love to put out all their inventory in the most organized manner. I think that’s the goal of any store that carries vinyl. It can build up fast, it’s big. We’re not talking about Ipods here, we’re talking about 12″ and 7″ record stock multiplied by thousands. With that said, the plan for the store was and may still be, to tear down the wall to the left and expand to twice our current size. We had planned for this to happen by early this year. However we figured we would test that waters full-time to see if this would be financially feasible, just like
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Turns out it has been, even without a lot of money being spent on advertising. However, we have several options available to us right now, including, but not limited to buying the building out right and keeping renters up stairs, or moving to another locale with already larger space and still good storage. One of the great things about this building is we have full basement storage. When you’re talking hundreds of thousands of records, this is a must.
We also have stock in the back room of the store. So unless someone can provide similar space at a lower rent price, or a similar building that we can purchase outright, then we will likely stay with plan A and expand into the space next door. This would occur regardless if we buy the building out right.
Ok, an easy one. Your store has surfing memorabilia all over the place. “Hodad” is a surfing-related term. Why Cleveland?
I have been a fan of Instrumental Surf Music since I was pretty young. I also love warm weather, the ocean, and the like. This then grew into a bit of a fascination with Surf culture, including legit surf films such as “The Endless Summer”. It became a dream of mine to some day re-locate to a place that could provide all of this. Sort of like a utopia that would probably never exist. It is an escape from the 20 degree no sun cold of the Cleveland winters.
However, I have since grown into the fact that my heart is in Cleveland. In addition, I hosted a radio show for 3 years at WRUW 91.1 FM called “Revenge of a Hodad”—surf music of course! This was a good way to cross-promote the store without the benefit of advertising, which is not allowed on community radio. By the way, here in Clevo, there are still people who have never heard the surfing slang term “Hodad”. They actually believe it’s my last name or something. I guess I’ll get that till the day the store closes down, who knows?
What are your plans for the store for the rest of 2011?
Continue to try to bring in the most and best vintage vinyl possible. Since we went to full-time, I have people selling and trading stuff in almost every single day. This is kind of why we’re blowing up with vinyl in that small establishment.
In addition, just like previously mentioned, expansion! We will bring in more genres of music in a better organized manner. As I said we have thousands of stock in the basement and elsewhere that we don’t even put out. Our goal is to get as much out to please as many people as possible. If you decide to carry just a few genres you’ll never please the populace of vinyl lovers. I realize it’s unrealistic to please all tastes, but we’d like to come as close as possible. One more thing, we want to get those tubs of vinyl off the floor and on shelves. We know there are people out there with bad backs, knees, etc. Those people deserve the right to be able to look comfortably through all our vinyl!
Hodad’s Music International is located at 13413 Madison Ave. Lakewood, OH 44107. They can be found online via Facebook and their website.
