On the record: Charleston's love of vinyl

There was a time — before the iPod, Zune and Juke — when the music aficionado bought the whole album, not just a single song.

The ardent pursuit of music didn't end with the iTunes store; avid listeners hunted their tunes down. They walked, took the bus or drove to every record store within a 50-mile radius in pursuit of "Rubber Soul" or "Ziggy Stardust" to complete their musical library ... at least for the time being.

It would seem like those days have vanished now, when people have millions of songs at their disposal with the click of a mouse. More than several years into the glistening digital era, music today exists in a realm of ease, access and selectivity.

The old-fashioned lover of the groove-y, 12-inch, vinyl record is hard to come by. But if you look hard enough, you'll find that a handful of enthused collectors, exhibitors, performers and defenders of the LP roam among us.

Rick Zender: Collecting for nearly 50 years

The John Rivers Communications Museum at St. Phillip and George streets exhibits a collection of more than 14,000 records in a historical variety of media, ranging from Edison cylinder records of the late 1800s to popular rock-'n'-roll albums of the '60s.

The museum's curator, Rick Zender, has been an avid vinyl collector since he received his first record as a gift at age 6. Forty-four years later, Zender's personal collection is more than 2,000 LPs, and he's searched through yard sales, flea markets, shops and the Web to find them all.

"The fun part is hunting the records down," Zender says with a grin from behind a pair of round spectacles. "Just like any hobby, you get into it and it's gratifying to look at what you've collected and say, 'Hey, it took me 10 years to find all of these albums released by all of these artists.' "

But the truly devoted don't stop at studio albums. "Sometimes British covers were banned in the U.S., so they redid the cover," Zender says, "Even though I have an American version of a Kinks album, I want the original. After that, maybe the French versions. It gets obsessive."

Obsessions can get expensive when a disc in pristine condition costs anywhere between 50 cents and sometimes thousands of dollars. But, unlike the popular MP3, vinyl is a potential investment. "Certain pieces of Americana hold their aesthetic value," Zender says, "One thing you have to wonder when people download music is, what kind of monetary value do they have to show for it? It's not a tangible product."

Clay Scales: Store owner, vinyl lover

Clay Scales, owner of the cozy and artfully decorated 52.5 Records on upper King Street, agrees that "there's nothing to hold" with a digital format.

"What I love about vinyl is that there's the whole package of sitting down, opening an album and listening to it while you admire the art and all of the extras. It's very different from just plugging in your headphones," Scales says.

The work of artists such as Roger Dean, who was famous for his fantasy art on Yes album covers and the photos and social history of 1968 that fill the insides of "Magical Mystery Tour," has never quite been replaced by later media. And "with vinyl, you get the best sound," Scales assures, "I've played records before in the store and customers were in disbelief that it was a record because of the sound quality."

As Charleston's premier vinyl vendor, Scales encounters his fair share of enthusiasts.

"We get people in here who will sit there for hours and dig through those stacks of hundreds of discs," he says, referring to the bins of 7-inch singles that rest on the sales floor. "You know those people are dedicated if they're willing to put that much effort to find one song."

Hunter Bazaco and Tony Mele: Local DJs

When it comes to effort, local disc jockeys Hunter Bazaco, 26, and Tony Mele, 24, go to great lengths to preserve the integrity of their performances by spinning only vinyl.

"DJ-ing today is less involved with the audience. You can go to a live show today and pay lots of money to see a DJ staring at a computer screen," says Bazaco, "If people spend money to come see us, they're going to know we're doing the work for it."

By work, Bazaco isn't just referring to spinning techniques and hand motions during a party, but the manual labor required before and after it. To DJ a show using only vinyl demands that they carry five or six crates of records in and out of the venue, each crate weighing more than 30 pounds.

Mele, the more fervent collector of the pair, doesn't mind. He actually prefers to share his assortment of hundreds with those he performs for, especially after he's added a rare gem.

"When I found Company Flow's 'Funcrusher Plus' at 52.5, I did a lap around the building. It was like the movie 'Chariots of Fire,' " he recalls, "I mean, there's a reason why you can't burn albums like that. When you really love an album, you have to hunt it down. Either that or you have to trade something for it, which means giving up something else that you like in order to have it."

A trip to the record store is a chance to socialize with others who are enthused about the same things. Some enthusiasts even throw vinyl parties to listen, share and trade records with friends.

But while the experience is social, the material collection of an anthology of music remains a personal reflection of the owner.

"My vinyl collection describes me best. It's why I talk the way I talk or do the things I do," says Mele. "It's something that will show my legacy when I die."

Sign of the times: The lure of digital music

Caroline Millard, a 20-year-old sophomore at the College of Charleston and general manager of the school's radio station, CofCRadio, boasts an iTunes library loaded with more than 5,000 songs. And what about vinyl?

"I think I might have one under my bed," she says. "I can understand that there is something charming and kind of nostalgic about records. But it's a lot simpler to go online and find the song you want and have it instantaneously. You don't have to travel to a record store and spend hours finding what you want."