WMUB Reports: Fresh Produce Records

WMUB+Reports%3A+Fresh+Produce+Records

My name’s William Rutladge, I’ve been managing Fresh Produce Records since late 2017, we’ve been in business I believe since late 2013. Right now we’re up to about 70,000 to 80,000 titles, it’s a pretty wide selection of not just vinyl but CDs, cassettes, I’ve got some music books, accessories and stuff like that. Our music collection is pretty expansive and on top of that we’ve got just an assortment of music related odds and ends that we keep around.

I do, it’s kind of a weird dynamic because people definitely have an heir about them of like we already had this record for years. I get a lot of people that maybe they’re buying the copy that will replace the one they had when they were a teenager or something like that. But I definitely sell a fair amount of not only Capricorn but Otis Redding, Little Richard, all that good Macon music.

For sure i would say actually a surprising amount of it is international tourism. I don’t think a lot of people realize the strong foothold the Allman Brothers gained in Japan and Germany and really just all over the world, I see a ton of people from Germany, Japan see a ton of tourists from both of those countries but really just kind of sporadically from all over the world and really throughout the year.

I would say as far as used media goes vinyl probably makes up about 90% of my sales, maybe even a bit more than that. It’s definitely the trendier media format right now in my opinion it’s all physical media I mean you can browse CDs and find beautiful music that you would never find looking online for and that’s my biggest attraction to the whole physical music store approach.

Without a doubt. Some of those from the classic era of Capricorn musicians, Paul Hornsby still puts music out through his own studio and label. It’s a small hand full, there aren’t a ton of people who still make the physical leap these days to making a release and Macon really does have kind of growing music scene that’s kind of finding its place in the world I think.

I would say it’s probably a decently even split. Maybe leans more to one side or the other by just a little bit. The main reason it does probably lean a little bit toward the older crowd is they’re a little more confident walking into a record store and it’s a little bit more familiar to them. Some of my younger customers I definitely get the sense that they’ve never been in a place like this, that’s completely understandable there haven’t been places like this since the, you know, 90s.

I really do try to… I don’t know if there’s anything I don’t have, I’m happy to get it. Never be afraid to approach the guy behind the counter and be like hey can you get this album that’s coming out. I literally on my phone all day take pre-orders from people so just don’t be shy about us getting the music you want in here, we’ll do whatever we can to do that. I’ve tracked down incredibly hard to find rare stuff for people, I’ve gotten in a new release that’s coming out for people, anything that I can get that will make you leave this store with a piece of music you appreciate I’m more than happy to do it.