When Residency Records’ new location closed at 6 p.m. this past Saturday, it’s the first time the Salem shop has been empty in hours. But not for long.
Owner Breaux Silcio didn’t lock the front door. Even after the stylish neon purple “open” sign shuts off, a dozen more audiophiles snuck inside after hours, eager to see the new store at 7 1/2 Church St.
After four years on Bridge Street, Silcio moved Resisdency Records to downtown Salem in late February, effectively quadrupling the size of his vinyl vault. More than five shoppers would be a tight squeeze at the the intimate Bridge Street location. A dozen customers would feel like sardines. Yet at the new Church Street store, it’s not uncommon to have at least a dozen milling around the store.
“To be honest it’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” Silcio tells Vanyaland. “We had thought we’d see a little bump due to the location, but thought for sure we’d have a little lead up time before the crowds started appearing, but nope.”
The new shop sits between Salem boutique Die With Your Boots On (also a relatively new tenant at Church Street) and Cinema Salem, which is currently undergoing renovations. While the former Residency Records location certainly had worthy neighbors as well — paczki-slinging bakery Coffee Time, Chez Casa, and the Satanic Temple — Silcio says downtown Salem’s foot traffic makes it prime real estate for small businesses.
The instant draw of new customers quickly proved his point, even though the shop’s new space has barely been open for three weeks.
“Sure, our regulars are coming in, but there are so many new faces, some who live in Salem but just had no idea that we even existed — which is pretty common for businesses in Salem that aren’t downtown — or tourists that are just milling around town,” he explains. “Salem is a very walkable city and people just circle it over and over, checking out every shop they pass. My shop at least to some extent has become an impulse shop now due to being downtown, whereas on Bridge Street we were mostly a destination spot for vinyl enthusiasts visiting Salem, or passersby heading to and from the Satanic Temple.”
Moving downtown has actually been Silcio’s goal since day one, even when he first opened Residency Records on Bridge Street in 2018. Scarce real estate in Salem and lease commitments kept him from relocating sooner, although his extreme patience seems to have paid off. As part of a cultural “renaissance” on Church Street, Residency Records will provide Salem with a previously unheard-of variety of new music.
“You can fit five of my old locations inside this one,” he notes. “I get to experiment, and do different things to expand the Residency brand while still being able to keep what people loved about us intact… We love small hyper curated record stores, but being into literally everything under the sun, it was tough to be as broad as we wanted to be on Bridge Street due to space limitations. That won’t be an issue now.”
Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic actually helped fuel the shop’s much-anticipated move downtown. Between folks battling boredom with new music, and an increased emphasis on buying from local businesses, Residency Records thrived while many other sectors of the music industry wilted.
“There is real community benefit to supporting a local business rather than a major online retailer when you can,” he shares. It’s not cliche. It’s the truth. 2020 and especially 2021 were record years for us.”
“It’s not often spoken about but there were a handful of industries that thrived during the pandemic, indie record shops were one of them,” Silcio adds. “Being shut off from the world, and working from home combined with stimulus money, people who were already buying records just went crazy buying more records, and people who were kind of maybe casually getting into it at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020 just got sucked in, especially once Amazon halted all non-essential shipping. Small shops who sold online through their website or third party sites such as Discogs just saw massive growth.”
Silcio plans to flip that growth into a massive expansion of his inventory — not just by bulking up on different genres, but by adding record supplies, speakers, and turntables to his shelves. There’s even enough room at 7 1/2 Church St. to eventually host events, in-store appearances, and art showings. At a stone’s throw from Opus and Koto, two other Salem businesses that host live performances, Residency Records could complete a centralized trifecta of entertainment in downtown Salem.
“I really want Residency to be the go to place for everyone’s music needs plus be a place the local community can come together to support local and underground artists, because our love for that still exists,” Silcio notes. “There were things I wanted from a local record store that weren’t being provided 5 years ago. I needed to build it. . .We are trying to walk the fine line between the small, dark, and jam packed old school record store and the new school modern business that’s located in a city millions of people visit each year.”
As a resident of Salem, Silcio’s already acquainted with the culture of the community he wants to serve. This past winter, the Residency Records label saw its first release, Mach II from Lynn metal outfit Z28. Silcio’s also eager to pick up where he left off with other local collaborations, like Residency’s curated metal nights at Notch Brewing, which returns tomorrow night, and the shop’s involvement with Cinema Salem’s Night Light film series. With more Salem residents and tourists stretching their legs after a long winter, and more local businesses gearing up for the warm weather, Silcio says “the possibilities are endless.”
“While I haven’t done any hard research, I do believe we are now at least in terms of square footage, one of the largest independent record stores in Massachusetts, and we are stoked to make use of that fact,” Silcio concludes. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to be here a long time. We realize there is a lot of work ahead of us and we welcome it.”
Check out the space through Vanyaland‘s snaps below.
