Catch the World Cup Final and browse all sorts of classic and popular records, July 19 at La Rosa’s Southwest Record & Vintage Fair.
The eclectic market, which runs Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., is a combination of owner and operator David Slutes’ passion as a vinyl collector, and his love of hosting unique community events.
“We've done a couple of other vintage markets here and they just work so well,” Slutes said. “I've always loved doing these community events in my previous capacity over Hotel Congress.”
Since the venue typically hosts live music and DJs, Slutes said it felt like a natural fit for a record sale.
On Sunday, vendors from all over the state, as well as local Tucson shops will fill the hall of La Rosa, with hundreds of desirable records and vintage finds.
Records displayed at Wooden Tooth Records.
“Most of these vendors do everything. There's a lot of modern stuff, and there's so much vinyl being made currently with a lot of neat underground indie artists that you get a lot of that representation as well,” Slutes said. “We've also opened it up to some vintagey things.”
Tucson’s Wooden Tooth Records, is one of the local shops participating in Sunday’s record fair, and co-owner Jake Sullivan said he doesn’t think there is any cooler venue to host the record fair than La Rosa.
“Beyond being visually stunning, it's also just so perfectly thought out,” he said. “There's food, there's drinks, it's air conditioned, and it's a huge open floor space where tons of vendors can set up and it'll allow for a lot of people to hit as many different tables as possible.”
Sullivan said he is looking forward to making new connections and hopefully reaching a new demographic at the Record and Vintage Fair.
“What we're hoping to get out of it, is to meet some new people who have never encountered our store or help familiarize them with who we are and what our store specializes in,” he said.
As a lover of music and records, he is also excited to see what other sellers will bring.
“A lot of the time at these types of used media markets, there's a lot of people who are bringing out collections that maybe they've had in storage or in their attic or who knows what, that haven't seen the light of day in years,” Sullivan said. “So, we can also usually find some pretty cool records or collectibles to bring back to the store that would do great on our shelves.”
For Wooden Tooth’s selection, Sullivan said he has curated a variety of records that will give customers a good representation of their in-store inventory, just on a smaller scale.
Wooden Tooth Record's location at 108 E. Congress St.
“We will bring some of the popular new titles, new vinyl releases, things that have come out within the past few weeks or months that people are excited to find because it's current,” he said. “But then we'll also be bringing a lot of used collectibles. We just happened across this collection of audio file records by some pretty big-name desirable bands like the Beatles, Elton John, Santana, so we will be bringing some of those.”
They will also have some affordable, under $25 classic albums that are staples for people who are growing or just building their collection.
Records displayed at Wooden Tooth Records.
Part of the appeal of records for many of his customers, Sullivan said, is the novelty of physical media.
“We live in an era where so much stuff is digital,” he said. “So to be able to go to something like a record fair where you're actually flipping through different albums and seeing what grabs you, I think it's just such a different experience. You can get your hands on the records and hold them and see them, examine them, check out the artwork. I think it makes it more fun and is kind of a nostalgic thing that people are longing for these days.”
He said it also follows a trend among the younger generations where people are moving away from the digital world of cellphones.
“A lot of younger people are using film photography cameras and playing cassettes on portable cassette players and buying zines and reading books as opposed to e-books,” Sullivan said.
But if you need any more incentive, in addition to scoring new records, attendees of the Southwest Record & Vintage Fair can also expect freshmade pizza and soft serve margaritas from Sisters, and a live screening of the World Cup Final.
“It should be a really fun day,” Slutes said.
