Rick Carlisle at Orpheus Records in Clarendon. “They’re not making any more originals of albums. Vinyl may disappear as baby boomers disappear.” (Photo by John Mcdonnell)
Turnarounds Are Tough When You Can Only Go 33-1/3
By Marc Fisher
Middle-aged man walks in to price a first-edition vinyl Bob Dylan album. Young woman collects a John Prine LP for her father. Longtime customer and vinyl enthusiast browses the latest rock reissues. And then, in a busy midday hour at Orpheus Records in Clarendon, the phone rings: It’s the landlord, and the news is good — sort of. Orpheus, already displaced from Georgetown in 1999 after a couple of decades there, is still going to lose its storefront on Wilson Boulevard, but the date of execution may be delayed.
Owner Rick Carlisle greets the news with a shake of the head. He is psychologically prepared for the end; a going-out-of-business sale banner is already waving outside. But the daunting task of somehow unloading 120,000 record albums weighs on him.
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