You can’t mistake the light, crackling sound when a needle is placed on a record and it begins to play. It’s a process to hear music from an album, not the instant gratification of using an iPod.
Nobody knows this better than Dave Belson and Brian Coleman, co-owners of Want List Records, who recently marked the independent shop’s one-year anniversary. Their business is located at the Mall at Echo Bridge (381 Eliot Street) in Upper Falls. [UPDATE: Want List Records is moving from Newton. Its last day open in Newton will be December 28, 2023, and it will reopen in Belmont (113 Trapelo Road) in early January.]
“Opening a store during a pandemic was a gamble, so I feel like last year’s goal was to survive, which we did,” said Belson, a Newton resident. “Now we want our humble store to thrive. Our wonderful customers continue to support our goal of rescuing record collections, and the community continues to reach out to us so we can find new homes for records they’re no longer listening to.”
In tune with music fans
Nestled between small shops carrying bric-a-brac, vintage paintings and other antique pieces, Want List Records’ exterior is decorated with album covers and a grid of 45s hanging over the doorway.
The music selection includes old-school records, some CDs, and yes, even cassette tapes. Between crates of Americana and avant-garde albums, fans also can find a local section with Newton artists like Mark Sandman of Morphine and Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein.
“We always try and have a good mix of all genres, even if we do sell a lot of rock,” said Coleman, a Westborough resident. “Artists we sell on a very consistent basis, and we always wish we had more of their albums, [include] Van Halen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Marley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Fleetwood Mac, De La Soul, Public Enemy, New Order [and] Fela Kuti, to name just a few!”
“The one trend I have noticed since we opened is our customers, for the most part, avoid reissues,” said Belson. “They will happily pay for a clean, original pressing of a record even if it costs more than a modern reissue.”
Coleman said most sales take place in the store itself, rather than online (at wantlistrecords.com).
“It’s a great mix [of customers]. Probably 50 percent from the immediate area (including Wellesley, Needham, and obviously Newton) and the rest from all over, from the North Shore to New Hampshire and even the edge of Cape Cod,” he said. “If you have good records at fair prices, record collectors will find you, no matter how far away you are.”
Music enthusiasts from near and far recently visited Want List Records during its first in-store event. Skippy White, owner of his now closed, eponymous chain of record shops, came to discuss Boston’s blues scene while signing a recently published compilation featuring many musicians he discovered. Fans from Newburyport, Charlestown, and other locales traveled to Newton to hear him reminisce and to purchase “The Skippy White Story” album.
Currently, there are no events planned, but Coleman said they’ll likely do more in the future.
Taking a chance, looking to the future
Coleman — a writer whose book, “Check the Technique,” has been part of the curriculum in Newton North’s Hip Hop Culture class — and Belson were both DJs at Boston College years ago where they knew of each other. After meeting later in life, they decided to take a chance and open a brick-and-mortar store, since Belson already ran the Want List Records website.
When they first opened, Coleman initially supplied the shop with thousands of albums from his own massive collection, and the two friends are always on the lookout to buy more.
“When it comes to our future plans, it’s not very complicated — we want to keep providing our customers with great records at fair prices,” said Coleman. “We hope to keep buying bigger collections so we can provide even more records, and as long as we keep our ‘regulars’ happy and get new people in each week, I think we have a fighting chance of continuing to do well.”
“There’s a lot of records still out there, so we’re going to keep on keeping on for the foreseeable future,” said Belson.
