{"id":137091,"date":"2024-02-22T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=137091"},"modified":"2025-01-07T10:25:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T16:25:34","slug":"this-is-only-the-beginning-the-end-of-all-music-marks-12-years-of-vinyl-vibes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/this-is-only-the-beginning-the-end-of-all-music-marks-12-years-of-vinyl-vibes\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Only the Beginning: The End of All Music Marks 12 Years of Vinyl Vibes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year marks the 12th anniversary of the opening of beloved local record store End of All Music<\/a><\/strong>, located on the northeast corner of Oxford Courthouse Square<\/strong>, on the second floor of the Duvall<\/strong>\u2019s building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End of All Music opened on March 12, 2012, at its original location, about a mile and a half up the road on North Lamar Boulevard in a small building that had formerly been a Mexican grocery store.
Owner David Swider<\/strong>, along with friends Bruce Watson<\/strong> and Patrick Addison<\/strong>, who both worked at local record label Fat Possum<\/strong>, had been discussing how Oxford needed a record store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swider would complain that he had to drive to Memphis to go to record stores, because there were none in town. There had previously been Hot Dog Records<\/strong>, which went out of business in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a pretty good period of no record store in Oxford, so I had the idea, and Bruce had the money,\u201d said Swider. \u201cHe didn\u2019t have the time, but had a little money and some records. And I had the time, but no money. We got together and found a little spot on North Lamar. They were moving, so we got the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swider recalled the basic, metal structure as being \u201chilariously built\u201d but \u201csuper cheap.\u201d Also, the building was horribly infested, so they first had to gut it then paint it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was the only employee at first. And while Watson was the owner, Swider was the manager, and every year moving forward he would gradually buy a piece of the company until around 2015, when he finally owned the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo without Bruce there definitely would be no End of All Music,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was the early brains behind it with me. I really didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swider had been working at Square Books<\/strong> downtown, and had urged owner Richard Howorth<\/strong> to start selling records there, but he wasn\u2019t having it. \u201cRichard didn\u2019t want to go into the record business, so I figured I would try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the initial location was off the beaten path, Swider described it as \u201cperfect, with low overhead,\u201d and that most of their original clientele consisted of \u201creal record heads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only way to draw customers was to maintain a good stock, due to lack of foot traffic in that part of town. \u201cThat ended up helping us a lot when we moved, because we were already used to catering to real record people, not just everybody,\u201d Swider said. \u201cWhich was great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said one of the store\u2019s historical highlights was in July 2016, when USA Today<\/em> published an article in its travel section, called \u201cVinyl lives! 10 great record stores for a musical treasure hunt,\u201d which included End of All Music, along with seasoned institutions like Amoeba Music<\/strong> in Los Angeles and Grimey\u2019s<\/strong> in Nashville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt kind of blew my mind, and was just an absolutely crazy thing to see in USA Today<\/em>,\u201d said Swider.
Although not a musician, he has always found himself an avid collector from a young age, beginning with comic books and baseball cards. \u201cI always took really good care of my stuff,\u201d said Swider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He credits his older sister, who turned him onto some of the popular music of the 90s, such as Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Alanis Morissete for his eventual transition to collecting records instead.
\u201cThat kind of scratched that \u2018collector itch\u2019 for me,\u201d he said, as he would eventually seek out entire catalogs of classic artists like John Lennon or Frank Zappa, among other common favorites for audiophiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I think my record buying habits were formed,\u201d said Swider, which eventually blew up in high school and college. \u201cI\u2019m probably my best customer, to be honest,\u201d he laughed, \u201cI try not to tap into my own supply, but you know, it is one of the main reasons why I opened a store, because I like to shop for records. Now I can go straight to the source, which is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End of All Music has hosted numerous events over the years, and some of his personal highlights include in-stores, which would invite local bands to come to play. In the first location, bands and DJs come set up in the front parking lot. Swider fondly remembered one day having three bands play, when he brought his Weber grill from home and served hot dogs to visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose were very memorable,\u201d he said, of these events that were all not only free and open to the public, but also kid-friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Record Store Day was also a big draw at the original location (and continues to be), which Swider calls \u201cthe perfect start to our business,\u201d and provided great experience when it came to opening the downtown store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just blows my mind to think it\u2019s been twelve years,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes it still feels like one or two.\u201d
The 12th anniversary will be on Friday, March 1, and the DJ will be local writer Jack Pendarvis<\/strong>, who had also done so in the early days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also artist Josh Burwell<\/strong>, who has been sharing artwork at the store since it opened, will be presenting a new t-shirt. Later that evening, all the clerks from the store will DJ at City Grocery<\/strong>, upstairs at the bar from 7 pm until close, doing all-vinyl sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have to thank Oxford for keeping us open for twelve years,\u201d Swider said. \u201cI\u2019ve met so many amazing people that have now become really good friends, just from the record store being there. Also people like Richard Howorth, for opening Square Books in 1979. And Ronzo (Ron Shapiro) and Bill Ferris\u2019 legacies. Those people that came thirty or forty years ago that have made Oxford what it is now. I kind of consider End of All Music to be keeping that torch going for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, Record Store Day is coming again on April 20, at both the Oxford location and its sister store in the Fondren<\/strong> neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi<\/strong>, which opened in October 2021. The Oxford event will have an afterparty at Circle & Square<\/strong> brewery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This year marks the 12th anniversary of the opening of beloved local record store End of All Music,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123909,"featured_media":137097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[191,31,192,11396,2428,27945,5,4,27944,2981,4515,602,367,3],"class_list":["post-137091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-business","tag-bruce-watson","tag-city-grocery","tag-david-swider","tag-hot-dog-records","tag-jack-pendarvis","tag-josh-burwell","tag-mississippi","tag-oxford","tag-patrick-addison","tag-record-store-day","tag-richard-howorth","tag-square-books","tag-the-end-of-all-music","tag-the-local-voice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DavidSwider-Crop.jpg?fit=1440%2C1030&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123909"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137091"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146192,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137091\/revisions\/146192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}