New record stores in Istanbul keep old music format spinning

Far from becoming obsolete in a digital era, as many expected, the record format for music has remained popular enough for brand-new stores to be opened in Istanbul specializing in new and used vinyl.

Though sales can be slow, the collectors-turned-entrepreneurs who own these stores believe records will keep spinning well into the future.

“Vinyl records has been in use for approximately 60 years,” longer than any other format, Mete Avunduk, owner of Vintage Plak in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. A record collector since the mid-1980s, Avunduk said opening the store was “a natural result of collecting” and the best way to get introduced to more records.

Vintage Plak sells every type of record, at prices ranging from 3 to 300 Turkish Liras. Avunduk purchases records from antique shops domestically and from flea markets and tucked-away little stores abroad. The shop’s customers, he said, include “beginners, people who have advanced a bit [in their record knowledge] or believe they have, people who are just curious, people who love [records] and, of course, professional collectors and international DJs.”

More than digital music sales, shop owners say, the lack of vinyl production in Turkey is the biggest problem for the record-collection culture, as is the competition their stores face from online auction sites.

Musicians Deniz Bayrak and Cafer İşleyen are partners in the record store Plakhane on Hocazade Street in the Beyoğlu district. They started out as collectors before opening Plakhane in the fall. “We did not have the idea of opening a store at first, but then we [saw we] owned enough records to do so,” Bayrak told the Daily News. Asked if the need to sell records ever conflicts with their desire to collect them, İşleyen said it was hard at first but they are running a business now.

Naturally, they purchase some records they want to keep, “but we do not have that luxury,” he said. The partners sometimes travel abroad, but the trips are not just for buying records, as the cost is too high. Friends from Europe bring them orders when they visit Turkey and Plakhane’s proprietors also buy secondhand records from collectors who want to sell.

The increasing interest in vinyl among young people, combined with the continuous loyalty of older collectors, ensures the future of the format, according to Bayrak and İşleyen, who sell records at prices ranging from 3 to 150 liras. Old Turkish records are naturally more expensive, even if they are too damaged to be played.

“Tourists searching for Turkish records come to the shop often. Domestic customers are more into alternative rock, but they also want old Turkish records too,” said DJ Ozan Maral, who has been running the Deform Müzik shop in Beyoğlu’s Çukurcuma neighborhood along with Tayfun Aras for the last three years. Though Aras believes music will survive outside the digital format in the form of vinyl, since the CD is already about to complete its lifespan, he said it is hard to making a living selling records.

“We would not be able to survive if we did not also perform as DJs,” Aras said.

According to Aras, Deform Müzik has 50 to 60 “serious customers” domestically, but their numbers are not increasing. So why do he and Maral continue with the business? In response, Aras said he has always been a record fan, collector and dealer and intends to remain one. “It is music mania,” he said. “At any given moment, somebody can walk in the door with great records to deal.”

Source: Hurriyet Daily News