By Jen Snyder
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sound advice and the name of the game for Eric Mueller, 27, who founded Pirates Press, a San Francisco vinyl record brokerage company, in 2005. Coasting on the rise - and fall - of the CD and the renewed popularity of vinyl, Pirates Press has brought in more than $5 million in sales this year.
The walls of Pirates Press' SOMA office are coated with candy-colored singles and full-lengths - some with pictures, others with etchings. Some of these albums are as much visual art as they are musical art.
“Jocks collect baseball cards and nerds collect records," explains Mueller, trying to make sense of the variety. "A lot of people collect something. For those people vinyl is great.”
It’s amazing to me that in a world where an album is just one click away, record manufacturing is doing so well. I love records for the way they look on my shelf, the smell of the jacket, and the pop and hiss of the needle, but in an iPod world is that enough to keep a so-called dead product alive?
Mueller believes that a record holds its value longer than a 5-inch disposable CD that was made for less than a dollar - not only in terms of the art and collectors value, but as a commodity as well. And you don’t have to choose vinyl over CDs because you can have both.
Pirates Press recently teamed up with Dropcards, a company from New Jersey, which makes inserts for records that contain a code that allows you to download the music for free. Dropcards offers all sorts of printing options for their customers, including eco-friendly cards that can be planted as seed pods. It sounds like a cool concept - less tear on the environment, and less scratched discs.
Besides, records are fun. “If we all end up keeping it alive you could still go to a club or a bar and somebody will be spinning records," Mueller says. "It’s not just a CD player on 'random.' It’s an involvement in creating a scene - even if it’s a scene in the room.”
What does Pirates Press have that other vinyl brokers don't? “We’re one of the only places where you can basically not know anything about making records and we can walk you through it start to finish and get you a quality product that you can rely on regardless of whether we’re into the music or not," says Mueller.
Pirates Press works with clients in more than 25 countries - from independent labels to larger companies like Warner Bros., Universal Music, and Atlantic Records. Yet making big connections isn’t the big picture. Mueller dreamed of being in the music industry because he wanted to help promote the music he loves. “Part of the goal is having an opportunity to have our own label," he says. "It's an opportunity to put out records for our bands or our friends.”
And that record can take any form. Mueller was hard-pressed to think of any kind of vinyl he couldn’t make. “People gotta create some reason why the guy at the store should put it up on the wall," he says. "That’s the true test.”
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