The Fine Art of Family Magazine

Visit Rockaway Records in Los Angeles, California

Meet Brothers Wayne (pictured) and Gary Johnson, the owners

Find A record store straight out of the past, when going to a record store was an event. There’s everything from CD’s to LP’s to rare collectibles, posters, instruments, DVDs, plus plenty of staff and patrons totally obsessed with music. The store feels like a very neat and organized garage with things plastered on every single wall and racks upon racks filled with music of all kinds.

The Backstory Call it “a hobby that got out of hand over 30 years ago.” That’s how Wayne Johnson, 56, describes the way he and his younger brother Gary, 50, came to be mainstays on the music memorabilia scene. Before going to the legendary “Capitol Swap Meet” in 1978, the pair had no idea of the collectible potential of music. There, in the parking lot next to Capitol Records in Hollywood, they witnessed people popping their car trunks and selling music for prices they never thought imaginable (about $50 to $100, which was no small amount at the time.)

Feeling inspired, the wide-eyed brothers, then in their twenties, began scouring local garage and yard sales for rare and out of print records, which they would purchase for maybe a quarter and sell for 40 times that ($10). Their hobby eventually grew into something big that required space, so they opened their own shop called Rockaway Records on Glendale Boulevard in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles. Named after the Ramones song “Rockaway Beach,” the 3,500-square-foot store is now in its fourth location, all on the same block.

At that time, Rockaway was just the typical music shop selling records new and old. However by 1992, when it settled in its current location, the store had begun to break away from the pack and distinguish itself with a great reputation amongst sellers and buyers of collectible music. A customer can always find at least one Johnson in the store to discuss collectible vinyl (Gary’s specialty), collectible CD’s or memorabilia (Wayne’s specialty), or surely anything music related.

“The collectibles are one of our strongest points,” Wayne said. “Between myself, my brother and my employees here, I’d be willing to bet we’ve got more collectible knowledge than just about any store in the country.”

Just being experts wasn’t going to be enough though. About a decade ago when CDs peaked and MP3s were born, the Johnsons realized they couldn’t rely on the old ways of simply selling music in a store. They began to see competitors go out of business (nearly 4,000 music stores closed nationwide) because of cheap prices online and digital downloads. So the Rockaway boys took their collectible expertise and melded it with some savvy business sense to maintain relevance. In 1995, they launched www.rockaway.com as a way to offer unbeatable prices when buying music collections. In more recent years, they opened a store on Amazon and use eBay both to buy and sell merchandise and more.

In another major change, two years ago Rockaway stopped selling new CDs because the major chains were selling them below cost. It didn’t make financial sense to keep selling them. Doing away with a little of the new isn’t a problem at Rockaway. In fact, that’s their M.O. It’s a store about the music experience and that usually encourages looking back and remembering. For Wayne Johnson, that means buying old records and listening to the music of the 1960s. But it could mean anything to anyone. So that’s why Rockaway, now 30 years old, uses both in store expertise and a worldwide internet reach to give people the ability to find their musical memories, no matter what the cost.

[Photography by Germain Lussier]

Published on December 16, 2009

Tags: Capturing, Collections, Family, Featured, Heirlooms, Travel