A Place Where Scratched Vinyl Can Be Golden

The Rev. Lawrence Bausch says the sources of life’s wisdom are often surprising. He said a fountain of insight might be right there in front of you, and you won’t even know it.

So, for his universal truths, he often heads to El Cajon Boulevard, to what used to be a massage parlor.

It’s now a record store--Off the Record. You can buy a Beatles album for $450 or sell one of your Johnny Mathis records for 10 cents. Actually, Johnny might be Mathis non grata at this place.

But Bausch isn’t. He’s a loyal, paying customer, who finds nuggets of revelation tucked away in envelopes that don’t--unfortunately--take away the scratches that work on the soul like fingernails on a blackboard.

But as the man behind the counter points out, with a frizzy-haired shrug, life isn’t perfect, is it?

Bausch bought one of his favorite albums--”Riding With the King,” by John Hiatt--at Off the Record, which revels in the offbeat, the forgotten and the never-knew-about, whether it’s new, used or on album, tape or compact disc.

Off the Record is the sort of store where the Severin Browne and Livingston Taylor sections are likely to be bigger than that of their brothers (Jackson and James).

It’s by no means the only vintage record store in the county, but, Bausch says, it’s one of the best. And it is, as David Ritchie, one of its customers, pointed out this week, “funky to the max.”

“It’s really one of the best in Southern California,” said Bausch, the priest at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Ocean Beach. “I grew up in Los Angeles, but I’ve lived in San Diego since 1966, and I love music, so I’ve been to lots of stores like this.”

A few years back, Bausch happily discovered the Hiatt album, parts of which have made their way into Ocean Beach sermons.

“There’s this great song on there called ‘You May Already Be a Winner,’ ” he said. “This guy keeps getting all this sweepstakes junk mail, like we all get, with the headline, ‘You May Already Be a Winner!’ He talks to his wife about it, and they laugh about it, and then he realizes that, because of the way they care for each other and the love that they feel, they’re winners in a way that money can never duplicate.”

Larry Farkas said that Off the Record, which he co-founded with Richard Horowitz in 1978, has brought them exactly that kind of happiness. He and Horowitz were working for Wherehouse Records, which Farkas said simply refused to stock the marginal, the bizarre or the in-your-face “punk” music that they longed to sell.

They opened on El Cajon Boulevard 11 years ago, added a “used” store next door five years ago and have since invaded Encinitas and Hillcrest, where a new store opens next month.

Farkas is proud of the fact that the Irish rock band U2 was on the shelves at Off the Record long before the masses discovered the group. He likes the store’s status as an “underground” shop, where even the artists themselves occasionally wander in. Band members from Husker Du and singer Henry Rollins are among the faithful who Farkas says often find what they need at Off the Record.

Unusual Singles Found

In the singles rack, you can find a category for Paul and Paula, a bubble-gum ‘60s duo, whose one hit was “Hey, Paula.” Incredibly, you can’t find that one, but you will find a string of other Paul-and-Paulaisms, such as “Holiday Hootenanny.”

“We like being thought of as an alternative place,” store manager Keith Larson said. “We’re really not for the people who like to listen to Whitney Houston or George Michael. In our new section, we tend to start where Tower (Records) and (the) Wherehouse stop. And, in the used building, well, you might find Frank Sinatra and the Sex Pistols side by side.”

Bausch says he’s found records at Off the Record, which caters largely to a San Diego State University crowd, that he could find nowhere else: The early work of country artist Nanci Griffith and Irish classics by the likes of Tannehill Weavers and Ossian. He says he shops at Rockaway Records, Lou’s Records in Encinitas and the Blue Meanie in El Cajon. He likes them all but says “Off” is No. 1.

Farkas, 38, said he has so many record albums that he didn’t want to say for publication how many.

“That many?” someone asked.

“ That many,” he said with a worried look.

Worried About CDs

He says the business has been a thrill, but he worries about the impact that compact discs may soon have on discount houses such as his. He carries CDs, but the vast majority of sales are records.

“It’s going to be real interesting to see what happens,” he said. “It could end up like baseball cards, where it’s a market mainly for collectors. Ten-year-old kids are no longer getting record players for Christmas. They’re getting CD or tape players. I find that kind of sad.

“I love records. As a kid, I loved watching them spin around on the turntable. I’d like to think there will be this huge market for vinyl, but 78 (r.p.m.) records are worthless and eight-track cassettes are worthless, so will long-playing records be worthless, too. Five years from now, it may be that one part of our store will be new stuff--CDs--and the other part will be vinyl meant for collectors. Like me.”

It may be, as Farkas pointed out, that lots of records will cost as much as the Beatles album on the wall with a price tag of $450. It’s the original “The Beatles: Yesterday and Today,” which bears a rarely seen cover with the Fab Four wearing butchers’ outfits.

“It’s the genuine article,” Farkas said, with Bausch noting that that’s pretty much what the store is.