The Marin IJ featured us in February 2019 as we celebrated 40 years as a record store. This is their story.
Watts Music, downtown Novato’s iconic record store, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Located at 1211 Grant Ave., Watts inspires both awe and nostalgia. Darin Chace, 50, runs the store and has been involved with Watts for 28 years.
Chace, who has lived in Novato for 40 years, “started coming to the store in the early ’80s with my friends and we would ride our bicycles from Bel Marin Keys to downtown Novato and buy the latest rock cassettes from Sammy Hagar, AC/DC, Van Halen or whoever else MTV would play.”
“What I love most about running the store is that the staff and I make people happy everyday,” Chace said. “It sounds cliche, but it’s so cool to hear someone say ‘wow’ or ‘oh my god’ about an album they are picking up. It’s still what motivates me and keeps looking forward to going to work every day.”
When asked why vinyl holds such a special place in the hearts of audiophiles, Chace connected the experience to the culinary arts. “When you listen to music on vinyl it goes from being background music to foreground music. It goes from ‘just being on all the time’ to actually paying attention to it 15 minutes at a time. I equate playing a record is to making a meal as playing an mp3 is to microwaving a meal. One is convenience and the other is substance.”
Part of the nostalgia so many feel when they enter Watts has to do with just how rare it is to still be able to find a brick-and-mortar record store. In the age of the internet, as music became easily downloadable (both legally and illegally), most record stores went out of business. Chace said it was a close call for him and Watts to make it through that time.
“Oh man the Napster years, yeah that was tough. I almost lost my house. I had an auction notice taped to my door, that’s how tough it was. That was when all the chain stores (Warehouse, Tower, Virgin) all closed. The indies were lucky because we had, and still have, a very loyal customer base. Even during the height of illegal downloading and file sharing we still had customers wanting to buy CDs and eventually the rebirth of people buying vinyl again.”
Times are looking brighter now. “The first year of the vinyl uptick started in 2008 and now the industry is on its 12th straight year of double-digit growth. Even during the lean years we still were on Metallica’s side about stealing from an artist and still have our ‘Napster – Nopester’ sticker hanging up in the store.”
Chace said it is the community that keeps Watts going. “We just want to thank all our awesome ‘regulars’ and all the new people that have been discovering the store. Stop on by and you even get a free 40th anniversary guitar pick. Also mark your calendars for Saturday, April 13, 2019 for Record Store Day for the biggest day of the year.”