From the 60's psychedelic to the 'far out,' Aquarius Records serves niche music market

By Ian Kesseler

Around every two months, Joe Vierra gets an itch to visit his favorite local record store.

He spends time slowly browsing through the selections, searching for music from artists that remain harder to find at other stores. He’s aware that the offerings are based on staff suggestions, but he doesn’t ask for help. Vierra enjoys discovering new music on his own.

Vierra has been making this trip regularly for the past two and a half years, and he knows exactly why he has continued.

“It’s a great selection with no filler,” Vierra said. “Aquarius Records has the most diverse current line up of underground indie music from around the world, all in a relatively small space.”

Aquarius Records, 1055 Valencia Street, has created a niche in San Francisco by trying to only sell music that they love. They provide a platform for selling LPs, CDs and even some tapes from artist in genres that sometimes get overlooked or under stocked at bigger music stores. Staff members pick the music and publish their own reviews on their website. Most of all, Aquarius Records continues to connect with its customers by providing them with vital doses of metal, ‘60s psychedelic, drone and “far-out” world music.

Aquarius Records is a veteran to the music world. Before Tower Records transplanted to Columbus or Virgin Megastore moved onto Market, Aquarius Records set up shop just a Muni ride away.

Aquarius Records opened 38 years ago in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, making it the area’s oldest independent record store. It has since relocated to Noe Valley and then to its current location in the Mission District where it has operated for the past decade.

Aquarius Records co-owner Andee Connors, 38, has worked for the record store since 1993. Connors and partner Allan Horrocks have owned Aquarius Records for close to five years. How people buy their music has changed but Aquarius Records has pretty much stayed the same since Connors got there over twenty years ago.

“We’re a pretty punk rock, (do it yourself), old-school small record store,” Connors said. “We still keep inventory on paper.”

While a larger, more corporate music stores focu on the leaders on the Billboard charts, Aquarius Records does things differently. They specialize in carrying a few copies of a wide variety of artists, genres and formats. Metal, indie-rock and ‘60s psychedelic remain some of the best sellers, though Connors said it’s hard to pigeonhole customers by what buy.

“Good music is good music,” Connors said. “So lots of our customers order incredibly varied bunches of records.”

“We try to make it easy and fun and exciting for people to discover new and strange music,” Connors said. “We encourage metal heads to come in and buy some pop or drone or something they might not otherwise buy.”

This musical encouragement is in contrast with that of the big chain stores. According to Jeremiah Sladeck, who works for Virgin Megastore, chain stores sometimes base what they sell on things like “logarithms or what deals they can make with certain vendors.” For the chain store the staff has little or no say in what gets carried. Independent stores on the other hand have much more freedom.

“What the store needs rely on the people who actually work in the store, their musical knowledge, and their ability to recognize customer patterns,” said Sladeck. “Decisions about product in an independent record store are made from the ground up instead of from the top down.”

This ground-up approach has worked to Aquarius Records’ advantage. Connors said that the staff members hard work; passion for their jobs and a little luck all played a part in the success of Aquarius Records. But according to Connors there is more distinct reason why Aquarius is doing well.

“We definitely feel pretty lucky and grateful to all our customers,” Connors said. “We are always doing our best to keep those folks happy since they’re the reason we still exist.”

Aquarius Records isn’t stopping with the success of its physical store location and mail order website. Since younger generations are increasingly going to the Internet for downloadable versions of music, Connors thought a download site might help subsidize the cost of selling the physical music.

“We figured, some people are only going to want to download music,” said Connors, who hopes to start the service next year. “So heck, they might as well do it from us.”

Aquarius Records is doing well for now and Connors hopes that in the future they can build on what they have already set in place.

“Like any small business, we’re hoping to grow a little bit, find new customers and continue to share music with other music obsessives around the world.”