Irving Place Records, 1627 E. Irving Pl., on the East Side will celebrate its first anniversary on Saturday April 19, but soon after it will also grow, according to co-owner Terry Hackbarth.
From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Hackbarth and his co-owner Don Kurth will offer free limited edition record shop T-shirts with a $50 purchase and offer 10 percent off all vinyl and 20% off compact discs, cassettes, shirts, hoodies, sweatshirt jackets and hats.
They will also light a grill and cook up some snacks and Luke Lavin, who owned the shop when it was called Bullseye Records – and has been dealing music since – will also bring hundreds of records to sell.
But the real news is something Hackbarth let slip last week.
“We are very excited to announce that as of May 1 we are taking over the other side of our building, 1625 E. Irving Pl., which will double our size,” he wrote in an email.
The total square footage will grow to 1,542.
“What will we do with all this newfound extra space you ask? We will be expanding our vinyl, music DVD (and select movies), book inventories, making our CD selection easier to shop, adding a budget section, a stage for in-store performances an d a DJ booth. We hope the expansion will be ready by the end of the Summer!”
Hackbarth and Kurth are looking into reopening an interior connection between the spaces that existed back when the Constant Reader used bookstore used to occupy both sides of the retail space.
"We're hoping for more than a doorway," he says, "as much as possible. I've talked to several people about Constant Reader/Shrunken Head/Granfalloon, but everyone's memory is different of course. Ideally two-thirds of of the wall will be open."
Hackbarth and Kurth bought the store from Lavin, who opened it in 2006 after relocating his store, then called Farwell Music, from the Landmark Lanes building near North Avenue. Hackbarth, a well-known local musician, was also a long-time employee at the store.
Late last year, the store was the driving force behind a compilation of local music released on vinyl by Label 51 Recordings.
The new space was most recently occupied for about a year by a video and record store called Blast Radius, which recently moved to 2708 N. Booth St. in Riverwest.
All proof, I guess, that vinyl is indeed not dead.
"Physical media in general," says Hackbarth. "(We) will expand our CD selection, among other media. Heck, a bunch of my favorite albums are not on streaming services."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
