Michael Serafini Interview

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MICHAEL: After a while the section that I was buying got a little bigger. One of the things I always wanted to do for myself at Gramaphone was, well - I can remember many people not being helpful or being rude. I remember some record stores not being helpful at all. You couldn't listen to anything. And being a young DJ who was trying to find all the good music, there would be stuff you were missing and probably didn't know it. You couldn't hear it at some stores. At a place like Gramaphone where there were 5 million records, you wouldn't know where to start. I always wanted to help people who came in the store by recommending things. Whether it was something new or a good old record that they may have never heard before, I wanted to help people find what they were looking for. I think people that came in started to like that. They would start to ask me to help them. I think that made my position here a little more prominent rather than just being someone who was buying for a section. I just wanted to help everyone who came in because I just didn't think it was cool that just because you worked at the store YOU got the cool records. Why couldn't everybody else get them also?

5: When I first started shopping at Gramaphone a long time ago, it was very intimidating. People working there were assholes at first.

MICHAEL: Yeah. A great guy, Carl Meyer - I love him. He is a really nice guy and even nicer after he mellowed over the years but I can remember when I first came to the store he was like, "Whadda ya want?? Whadda ya lookin' for?! I do techno. Don't bother me." I'd be like, "Sorry, I don't know who else to ask around here." I thought stuff like that was kind of fucked up.

MICHAEL: Naw, I don't know. I just know that I did it. I mean especially nowadays when business is the way it is, you want to do everything possible to sell music. A lot of people don't want to dig. You do get people who do want to dig and don't want your help. But then again there are a lot of kids, especially young guys, who think it's intimidating when you walk in, wondering "Where do I start? What are the cool records? Where do I go to find what I'm interested in?" I would help them. I mean DJ-wise, a lot of guys who are younger than me and who came in a generation after me look up to me because of that, as opposed to some of the guys who'd already been coming in for years. They were just used to it being the way it was.

5: You mentioned how business is. Can you elaborate on what is happening and what you think is going to happen?

MICHAEL: It's really hard to say. I don't think vinyl is going anywhere just yet. I don't know if its still going to be around in 10 years, but its not going anywhere just yet. There are so many records that were made and put out that used vinyl will probably still be around because not everyone can have everything online and available for download. Maybe eventually, someday, there will be a point like that, but I don't see that happening soon.

Right now it's not very good, but it is good for the people that are still hanging in there. Dancetracks in New York closed down so that only leaves Joe Claussel's store that actually has a physical store and is dance music related. There are other records stores in New York but most of them are small and more indie or CD oriented. On the West Coast, Tweakin' is for sale. There is Amoeba and Primal, but Primal only has a web site. Amoeba is the only thing around there that is a large institution of a record store. I think Record Time is still around in Detroit so that only leaves a few record stores. I mean there are only about six record stores in the country that are major record stores. In the United States there are millions of people.

It may not be very good but if you're hanging in there, the people who are still looking for records are coming to you. Once we get our website up we'll be able to see that. We see it on our eBay store definitely. Our eBay has blown up. We do really well on eBay. Hector, Andy, and Tracey have really done a lot of stuff to make it work.

You see it's turning almost how it was 30 or 40 years ago. Only mom and pop records stores are opening up because now you do it because it is what you want to do. And you know you're not doing it to make tons of money. It's like it used to be back in the day.

Almost all the records coming out now - at least 90% - are from independent labels. They are not coming from major labels. Major labels send out downloads to their constituents. You're able to buy their stuff on Traxsource or what ever. There are only a few like Defected, which is a sub-major label. Its not like Columbia, but it is fairly major. They are one of the few who is still doing vinyl constantly. Most of the stuff now is coming from small labels or guys who want to have their stuff on vinyl. They do it because they love it, not because they're going to sell 5,000 copies.

That's why someone will pay $150 for Capricorn I Need Love. When he was doing it, it wasn't because he was looking to sell 5 million copies. It probably didn't even sell 50,000. So now with records like that - the ones people are looking for that are so rare - they want to pay a lot of money for something like that. Now you get people doing runs of 500 or 1000 and you'll be lucky if you ever see it again after that. You need a demand to do a second pressing and a lot of times you don't have it.

The economy hurts too. The fact that the price of oil is so major hurts. People are also trying to be eco-friendly so they say, "Don't buy vinyl because it's made from oil." Plus the dollar is down and all the pressings are done overseas so you are paying overseas' prices for records while the dollar is at its lowest. So all those things are against the domestic market. If you go overseas to England, France or Japan you'll find that their vinyl sales are doing okay. There was an article in Billboard and an article in Wired magazine that said vinyl is on a comeback. That is probably because out there, it is costing them a lot less than it is costing us.

5: As far as DJing - where are you trying to take it? What are your goals?

MICHAEL: I feel that I have already reached one of my goals, which is to play at and be a part of one of the biggest and longest running nights in the city. But taking over the store has put a little side thing on that. I don't push as much with the DJing because of all the stuff I have to do now.

I'm hoping with Gramaphone and a couple good nights that I play that I can help get the scene back to being a descent House scene. I want to reach out to more people and a younger generation. As much as I love my House community, I get sick of seeing the same people at every venue. I mean I love them all and love to talk to them, but I kind of wish there were a little more people going out like back in the day. Back then you could go anywhere and hear House. Now there aren't a lot of places playing it. Most of these places that book a House DJ tell them they have to play some hip hop too. It seems the regular shmoe doesn't understand House Music and doesn't really care either.

5: So what would you propose? If everyone would listen to Michael Serafini what would you propose?

MICHAEL: [Laughs] Stop playing hip-hop in nightclubs. That would be my proposal. Only play hip-hop for the last 15 minutes of the night. That's how we used to do it back in the day. They did that at Shelter and Crobar. You'd have House music all night then when it was time to go home at the end of the night you'd throw a couple hot hip hop records and then drop a James Brown record or something. Everybody loved it and went nuts. Now when you hear hip hop all night it s just too sexual and too aggressive.

One thing - if I could do it and I would do it and I probably wouldn't make any money from it - is start throwing underage parties like they used to do back in the day. That is one of the reasons why the house scene was so good is because all the young kids could go and hear this different music - different than what they heard on the radio and they loved it. It is just like with how you now see a lot of the old rave kids out when you go to clubs now. Something like Medusa's or Prime and Tender.

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