Earlier this year, I saw on Instagram that Matthew Caws was visiting local record stores on Nada Surf tour stops so I made a pitch to his publicist, Brady Brock. “If Matthew would like a tour of the Columbus record stores when he’s in town, I’d love to be his tour guide.”
Columbus is spoiled, there’s an embarrassment of record store riches in Ohio’s capital city, and I knew I could fill Matthew’s afternoon with an adventure around town. Brady responded quickly and told me Matthew was interested and that he had 4 hours to spend with me. So, on a rainy Spring afternoon, I picked up Matthew outside of the A&R Music Bar where Nada Surf would play later that night and started the tour. First stop, Spoonful Records (144 E. State St.) which was just a short drive from the venue.
On the way, Matthew and I chatted.
Did you ever work at a record store?
MATTHEW: I met my wife working in a record store in New York, a place called Earwax. My first job when I was 17 was in a record store called Record Runner at the time. Then it was called Hideout. Then it was called Subterranean. And it was run, and then later owned, by this guy called Michael Carlucci, who was in a band called Winter Hours. I started out covering the store when he was on tour and then I ended up going on tour with him as a roadie. He was a real mentor and this shop was in the basement and it was really small. The walls and the ceiling were covered and it was all Patti Smith, Television, Flying Burrito Brothers, Faces, probably other stuff that I didn’t know at the time like Wire and stuff.
Michael turned me on to a lot of stuff and played me the first Dylan stuff that I had heard that wasn’t on The Greatest Hits. He gave me a VHS copy of that thing where Dylan and Lennon were filmed in the back of a car. It’s from this movie called Eat the Document. I think it’s a DA Pennebaker film that never officially came out. This scene is Dylan and Lennon in the back of a car and they’re both really high and kind of nervous around each other but also endearingly kind of, you know, teasing each other, just being very funny.
Anyway, Michael was a real mentor and I loved working in that shop. It was about to change hands so we weren’t getting any new stock so there was no processing, and we didn’t take credit cards. It was the simplest job and I was living at home so sometimes I’d pay myself by just taking a 45 from the back room.
SPOONFUL RECORDS
Back in the car, the conversation continued.
Did you have siblings that turned you onto music?
MATTHEW: Yes, very much so. My older sister Hillary started listening to WNYU. We were both listening to classic rock stations together, what was modern rock then. But she started listening to WNYU and really got into New Wave and got a Trouser Press subscription and she started wanting to go to shows when she was 16. She didn’t go to a lot of parties or anything, I think my parents didn’t want her going. They were worried about her going to clubs by herself so my dad took her and they went to see The Pretenders and then they went to see REM opening for the Gang of Four. By the third concert they were going to go to, I was starting to wonder – I was 13 or 14 – “Can I come too?” We saw XTC on the Black Sea tour with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts opening. That was really great. And then we saw U2 on the October tour. Those are two I went to with her.
She was a big influence and then she went to Harvard and was on the radio station there and would send me a few air tapes and stuff. She really loved her Program Director, this guy called Jeff Weiss, who ended up being an A&R guy at Warner Brothers. He worked with the Flaming Lips and stuff. The big things for her were Joy Division, REM, The Soft Boys and The Yardbirds.
When you’re on tour and going to record stores, do you always have a list with you?
MATTHEW: No, definitely not. That’s unusual, but to justify being taken to all these amazing stores and to make the most of it, I thought I should cobble a list together. I do a fair amount of streaming but I really love to listen to records and I’ve recently invested in a really good record player that’s in my studio right next to my computer with good speakers. I’m turning to listening to records as a kind of centering thing, like, “let me put something on and really just move into this.” I’m making music and listening to albums and thinking from the point of view of the listener. “What music will I want to sit and listen to and be transported by?”
I tend to buy more than I listen to and wind up having a stack of things that haven’t been opened. It’s tough to find the time. Do you have that problem?
MATTHEW: There’s a fair amount, for sure, and I’m that way with the books too. But it’s super exciting to have a really good rainy day collection of stuff that you’ll get around to. Then again, I’m trying to remember that there aren’t always rainy days and I kind of have to make listening to records happen. And, I love record stores and book stores and libraries because they are places where you go and remember things or get curious and have your mind jogged.
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The next stop was a Columbus institution, Used Kids Records (2500 Summit St) where Matthew picked up the Beatles Rubber Soul.
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USED KIDS RECORDS
How much is nostalgia purchasing for you? Like, buying things that you remember from being younger and maybe even used to have as part of your collection?
MATTHEW: I mean getting that Beatles mono, that’s definitely nostalgia and that also sounds so great in mono. I try not to buy in a fetishy way where it’s just, “I love this record.” It’s more like, “Do I love this record and maybe not know it well enough that I’ll want to listen to it?” So, there’s a practical side to buying records.
You know, another formative experience I had was that my best friend growing up, his older brother – actually I’ve probably said this in so many interviews, maybe even in the Big Takeover magazine – was at boarding school. We didn’t see him a lot, but the posters in his room were so interesting. He had modern art and prog rock and stuff. When we were 13, he was home one day and he asked me and my friend, Philip, “You guys want to come into my room and listen to some records?”
We sat down on his bed and it’s such a gift because he had our attention. He played three records with no commentary. He played all of the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia, the Velvet Underground’s Loaded and Talking Heads’ Remain in Light front to back. This was one of the things that changed my life. And still, to this day, those three records triangulate so many aspects of music that I love.
We had a crazy experience with Joey Ramone. There’s a record called We Will Fall and it’s a tribute record to Iggy Pop and The Stooges. We did a song called “Sick of You” and Joey did “1970.” There was a record release party and this New York label asked us if we’d back up Joey because we were the only other New York band at the thing, so it was just for geography sake.
Joey was doing “1970” and “I Wanna Be Sedated,” so we practiced those for two weeks straight. We were so excited. We go to rehearsal and Joey’s so sweet. I have to hand it to Ira (Elliot), our drummer, as he kept the tempo because there’s this guy, Daniel Rey, who’s super nice, who was Joey’s producer at the time. He counted it off at the speed that the Ramones had arrived at doing “I Wanna Be Sedated” live which is way way faster than the record. Daniel was doing what he was supposed to do, “This is the way the Ramones play it now,” so he counted it off and Ira’s like, “Hang on. Would it be okay to do it at this speed?” and he counted it off like the record which is not crazy fast. Joey really liked it so we did the two songs and then after the show he said, “Hey, if you guys are ever doing a show in New York, learn your seven favorite Ramones songs and I’ll get up and sing them.” We wound up doing that at Coney Island High and it was so great. It was so much fun. I think word had gotten out because there were more people than would normally come see us, and there was this feeling of anticipation in the room.
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Next stop on the tour was Lost Weekend Records (2960 N. High St).
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LOST WEEKEND
Do you keep track of new stuff?
Matthew: Not in as focused a way as I have in certain periods of my life, but that comes and goes. I’ll definitely check out Top Ten lists at the end of the year and try to get a clue of what I missed. That’s how I heard about the Cindy Lee record. I hadn’t heard about that until the end of the year when it was on so many people’s lists.
I try to keep up a little bit. That’s part of what is great about going into record stores, too, just hearing what people in the stores are playing. I was on a promo tour for Moon Mirror and playing in some record stores and at two or three in a row, they were playing the MJ Lenderman record, which I was a little bit late on.
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As we headed back towards the A&R Music Bar, there were two stops to make. The first was at Records Per Minute (2579 N. High St) where, upon entering, we were greeted by the sounds of The Kinks’ Arthur album. Matthew asked if I was familiar with it and, after telling him that I wasn’t, he bought me a copy. I repaid the gift later that evening by giving him my (autographed) Laughing Chimes record, a release that I thought might be right up his alley.
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RECORDS PER MINUTE
Where do you go after Columbus?
MATTHEW: We’re going to Pittsburgh. There’s a great record store called The Attic that is a labyrinth, room after room and a lot of stacked boxes. It reminds me of this movie called Flipside, which is about a record store. It’s really interesting and it’s about a lot more than just the record store, it’s kind of a hoarding story. It’s in New Jersey. The guy making the film has these visions of going back and helping the guy redo his store, clean it out and then by the end of the film he comes to an epiphany. It’s about his own unfulfilled dreams and unfinished projects. It’s a beautiful thing and maybe a time capsule or a museum.
Have you held onto your vinyl collection? Did you keep it during the ‘90s when vinyl production slowed down and CDs became the thing?
MATTHEW: I never sold my collection. I lived around the corner from a store called Rocks in Your Head during the height of CDs. I was still buying seven inches. I think I did more of that during that era.
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Our last stop was Magnolia Thunderpussy (1155 N. High St.).
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MAGNOLIA THUNDERPUSSY
When we returned to the venue, Matthew invited me onto the Nada Surf tour bus and agreed to show me the records he had picked up in Cleveland and Columbus.
