Like the Sugar House district west of Highland Drive, Broadway (300 South) is a haven for independent retailers like Slowtrain, a record store that primarily stocks more obscure indie music and local artists.
Since July, owners Chris and Anna Brozek have been operating a successful transplant of a Tempe, Ariz., store called Stinkweeds in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City that they’ve rechristened and made their own.
“People are really supportive,” said Chris Brozek. “After our first week open, we could already tell that we had solid regulars, you know, and they’re constant and consistent.”
But Slowtrain is about more than just selling records. Both owners are personally interested in their clientele and know many of them by name, especially those whose music or art they sell.
“We’re trying to build community among everybody-artists, musicians, independent retailers,” said Anna Brozek. “So it’s really about exposure, and I think we both find a lot of personal satisfaction in being able to expose people that we care about to artists that we care about, be (they) musicians or painters or sculptors, whatever. I like being that, like, the middleman. I think that’s the most fun part of the job.”
In addition to selling local bands’ CDs on consignment, Slowtrain also doubles as a sort of gallery for local visual artists such as Nick and Erin Potter, whose paintings and posters are plastered all over the walls.
“You don’t have to go to New York to see good art,” Chris Brozek said. “Or you don’t have to listen to the radio to hear good music. It’s in your neighborhood, you know, it’s here, so you may as well have an outlet for it. And not that there aren’t outlets for it,” he said, referring to other local stores like Graywhale, “but we just want to add to it, keep promoting it.”
Providing a venue for the arts in the Salt Lake area is central to the owners of Slowtrain, which is why they display local art and host small shows for underexposed artists and musicians.
“Local music just gets overlooked because it has that stigma, like, ‘oh, if it’s local, it sucks’ kind of thing,” Chris Brozek said.
“There’s so much good stuff here,” Anna Brozek said.
“But it can get buried,” Chris Brozek said, “so I think it’s important for us to try to get people to hear it.”
Even within the underground community, Anna Brozek feels there are mutually exclusive cliques.
“A lot of people listen to just The Wolves and The Vile Blue Shades, and there’s a certain scene that’s that,” she said. “But if we can get those people to listen to, like, The Lionelle CD, which is super cool?a lot of them like it?If we can build community and bridges between (different cliques), that’s great. I’d love to do that.”
Chris and Anna Brozek found their way into the indie scene themselves only a few years ago. They spent a lot of time on the Internet, downloading and listening to anything they could find.
“I didn’t realize (the music) was that obscure,” Chris Brozek said, “until I got into indie music here, like selling stuff-I still can’t find it.”
As for their hopes for the future, Chris and Anna Brozek would like to see the store prosper for as long as it can.
“We want to have our own fingerprint on this scene here in Salt Lake,” said Anna Brozek. “Be it the music scene or the art scene.”
She believes strongly in the artistic value of the products Slowtrain sells and is convinced that one day the iPod generation will stumble into a record store, “maybe never having gone into an indie shop like this before,” and be blown away by the beauty and tangibility of LPs as objective works of art.
“I guess it goes back to exposure,” she said, “taking those kids and exposing them to what exists.?I think eventually those digital kids will come around and want the real thing.”
Christopher Peddecord
Christopher Peddecord