Photo: New Wax Trax store | Here’s all the details on the new spot! By Pete Stidman, co-owner of Wax Trax | As my brother Sam Rosenberg, our contractors, and I have labored on our new satellite store on 32nd Avenue and Meade Street in Denver’s Northside over the last couple of months, we’ve heard hundreds of exclamations from passers-by. A common one is “Finally, a record shop!” in a neighborhood that hasn’t had its own record shop since the mid to late 1960s (that’s when we guess that the Barnard Record Shop at 4100 Tennyson St. closed).
To celebrate, we hosted a Grand Opening celebration this [past weekend] at the new shop with bands and DJs, TONS of giveaways of concert tickets, speakers, slipmats, food, gift certificates and more. Our marketing lead Delaney is largely responsible for all this hooplah, and it is substantial.
Right now, the closest shop to our new neighborhood is actually Wax Trax on 13th Avenue – a one hour and thirty minute walk away. Both Black and Read in Arvada and Chain Reaction on West Colfax, two great shops, are just a little farther away.
Our neighbors are visibly excited to have a record store walkable to their homes, but I’m sure other folks have a lot of questions. Why is a shop like ours, that has been the same for soooo long, suddenly spreading out? Why did we call this location Northside? Didn’t that take a shite ton of work? Or who’s gonna work there? So this little article is here to answer some of those.
Well, one obvious factor on “why did we do this?” is that vinyl is back in a big way. Some of our most loyal customers these days are still in their teens. And we feel fairly confident that vinyl will hold its allure for hardcore music fans over less tangible competitors like streaming. But also, operating a record store in 2025 has its share of challenges.
One is consolidation in the music industry. In short, the major labels (Universal, WEA, and Sony) seem to believe that they can shrink and shrink the percentage share of the sale price that goes to record stores, which makes it harder to pay our staff, the rent, etc, and still make a little profit.
Another business-type reason is resiliency. For instance, the City of Denver is incredibly neglectful of our 13th Avenue location, so it’s nice to have other locations if the worst were to happen. There are a couple of significant fear factors here. For years, our storm drain at 13th and Washington has been thoroughly clogged, and in one rainstorm a couple years back we actually had to sandbag our entrances and our basements partially flooded. A big storm could really do a number on our flagship store.
Also, a couple months ago, the city removed the crash bollards from the corner in front of the store without telling us. We only noticed a couple of days ago that our store is once again vulnerable to the dozens of crashes that happen every year at our intersection. And, as many of you know, the store has been hit by cars several times over the years, once narrowly missing killing one of our staff, and another time actually killing the driver of the vehicle as they flipped over and hit our front entrance. Needless to say, a crash like this would close the store down and cost us tens of thousands in lost business. I can’t imagine why the city decided to remove these bollards given our well-known history, and our clear requests not to ever do this, but they inexplicably seem to take the side against our store as often as they can.
Yet a third reason more locations help is they allow us to do more cool stuff. Yep, selling more records means we can afford more overhead like employees who spend their time making creative content or cooking up fun events.
So why did we call this shop Wax Trax Northside? Well the short answer is that’s what everyone who’s lived here a long time calls it. The official name of the neighborhood is West Highland, and to the east is another neighborhood called Highland, and the area first got heavily settled because of a flood in the mid 1800s (hence escaping to the Highlands) but prior to a few crafty developers bright ideas in the booming real estate market of 2000s, nobody called it that. Instead there was a thing called Northside pride. The Stidman family has been in the area since the 50s, so it’s our tip of the hat to that pride.
We did a lot more work on this shop before opening up than we did on Broadway. At that shop we put some stripes and shelves on the wall, got a cheap plastic sign, built about a dozen racks, and moved in. For the first six months or so there was the famous clear plastic “murder wall” separating the business end of the shop with a makeshift woodshop where we slowly built the rest of the racks, and about a year later, we got our lovely neon sign from Morry’s Neon.
This time around we found a fellow named TJ Rivers with a company that could crank out those racks faster, we bought a paint sprayer so we (mostly Sam) could fully paint the inside of store and those racks quickly, and then we hired Jae and Kevin from Oddworldsigns to make a killer sign out front, and the nocturnal Jher from Landmark Tattoo on 13th to do an MF Doom mural in the back. Our carpenter Nelson Ross also put some nice wood trim in a few key spots that make the place look a little classier. All these folks put in a ton of work, I was mostly on the phone or online coordinating all the little things and finding random pieces of furniture. This week we’re just focused on getting more records in there. It’ll take a month or two to fully fill it up.
One of my favorite things to do is to find two new staff for the store. Finding people who fit with the culture, who respect our history, and who can build a better future is powerful – our staff is the bedrock of Wax Trax. Even with our entry level positions we try to find folks who have skills that can help us build the quality of the shop. This time we received nearly 150 cover letters and resumes, and without naming names we hired people who have experience in retail as well as management, stereo sales and repair, and website design. So with luck on our side as well, in addition to their smiling faces at the register, our stereo dept and our website may be seeing some improvements soon.
Wax Trax, as I have said many times before, is bigger than me and our family members and staff working in it. It’s a Denver institution with connections to people’s lives that go wayyyy back. It has a life of its own and I see our family’s role as its caretakers, making sure it continues to thrive. We stand for keeping used and new records separate, for catering to (nearly) all tastes and diving into as many of the nooks and crannies of the music world as we can, and for walking the tightrope of fair prices and fair wages for our staff. Oh, and of course, we stand for bringing everyone we can together around music. In that vein, we hope you can get your butts on down to the new shop this weekend.
Contact:
New store: (303) 831-7246
Address: 32nd Avenue and Meade Street, Denver, CO
Used store: (303) 860-0127
Address: 638 E. 13th Avenue Denver, CO 80203
Email: info@waxtraxrecords.com
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One of Texas’ Oldest Dancehalls Has Been Saved From Closing
By Abigail Rosenthal, Culture Editor, Chron
A Texas dancehall that was set to close on October 11th after more than 100 years of two-stepping will keep the lights on after an investor came through at the last second.
Current owner Abbey Road said that after news of the closure spread, Coupland found a buyer. She previously said that the building had been for sale for at least two years.
“Because of all the hype about the closing of this dancehall, a fitting buyer found us,” Road wrote on Coupland’s Facebook page. “We have been working overtime behind the scenes to get a deal done so this dancehall can move forward. This group of music-loving, memory-making, tip your hat, hold the door kinda folks are gearing up to make some much-needed repairs and updates to the dancehall and are bringing a lineup of some of the best music makers to Coupland before year’s end.”
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Read the rest of the story here:
https://www.chron.com/culture/article/coupland-dancehall-texas-reopen-21093210.php