Working in a record store feels like being a part of a secret society. Once you spend enough time behind the counter and serve enough weirdos, you’re in. Avidan and I have been proud members of this society since our wild and wacky twenties. The years were pre-vinyl revival, and mainstream CDs reigned supreme in shopping mall stores. This never stopped us from acting as if somebody was filming a sequel to High Fidelity.
Even then, Avidan already had the look and feel of a legendary record store clerk. His offbeat record banter separated him from his coworkers. Years later, Avidan stuck around after the stores closed and people fled to new jobs. Some of us moved to other record stores, taking advantage of the new ones opening thanks to the ongoing worldwide vinyl resurgence. We still give the knowing nod to the person behind the counter. Don’t tell anyone, but we’re all secretly jealous of those who still work in record stores.
Avidan is a junkie of vinyl but also the record stores themselves, and he can hook you up with addresses for every store in every country he has ever visited and in places he’s never been to. His record collection is unapologetically Avidan, a blend of every corner of the world led by a load of Israeli music. He’s one of those lucky people surrounded and driven by his passions—the type of person you want behind the counter.
“I developed a love for vinyl from an early age; I didn’t have to do anything to look for it—it met me. It was at home, and I loved it visually and musically. It was always like that.”
Let’s start at the beginning. Were you born into this?
I got it from my dad, but really from both my parents. He had a lot of friends who were into it as well, all part of these decades-old listening groups—one for classical music and one for jazz. I’ve remembered them ever since I was born. I was around it all my life. I would hang out with them in record stores from an early age, and I loved it. It pulled me in.
I remember the first album I bought when I was six or seven. If I could find it now, I’d show you where I scribbled “Mom & Dad” in the liner notes. They say that whenever a record was playing, I’d stick my thumb in my mouth and start sucking it like a psycho. I was just so concentrated, listening to the record. I developed a love for vinyl from an early age; I didn’t have to do anything to look for it—it met me. It was at home, and I loved it visually and musically. It was always like that.
It seems natural to continue buying and collecting the records that interest you.
Yeah, totally. I knew it wasn’t a career path that would make me rich, but being around music all day was important. I knew I’d be happy being around as much music as possible, and as years went by, I understood that I wanted it to be my vocation. I don’t play any instrument; I took piano lessons for 18 months and left because the chair was uncomfortable, so playing was out. But I do love to listen and talk about it, so a record store seemed like the natural choice. I knew early on that I was not fit for a cubicle.
Your first job was in Tower Records, and you already considered yourself a vinyl collector. But back then, those stores didn’t really carry vinyl.
True. But you have to start somewhere, and it’s not that I didn’t try in other places. I think that I offered myself to Eli at Black Hole Records two or three times. He said no before approaching me while I was digging and suggested we give it a go. I left the store like I was high on something.
Where did you have more fun?
Tower Records was fun because it felt young and fresh, but at Eli’s, there were people with bigger gravitas. After two to three days there, coming to a shift in Tower Records felt like child’s play. Of course, Tower was bigger and more impressive; in that respect, Eli’s was more like a cool garage.
Eli’s Black Hole does have that romantic record store image; the grumpy employees, the smell of plastic and dust. Tower Records only had a funky smell from the AC. Sure, the management let you get away with certain things because they paid minimum wage, but it was still a chain store. Did you feel that, as someone with a background in collecting and having a wide knowledge of music, such a “corporate” place was somehow not right for you?
It helped me a lot; it felt like a normal person’s job. However, I love independent stores the most. They operate differently, and everything’s basically psycho. The people behind the counter are psychos, the customers are psychos… it’s all psycho. Beatnik, where I work now, is somewhere between the two.
Many of the customers are normies, and the team is more level-headed, and that’s cool. Tower Records had good CDs, imports, and good stock, but it managed itself like a nine-to-five workplace. I didn’t get up in the morning and come to work all giddy as I do in stores that are closer to my heart.
Record stores are the places I feel the most at home in. I can’t explain it, a place where you feel more at home than in your own home. I can be vacationing abroad with people; if I see a record store, I might forget to tell them where I’m going. I’ll just disappear. It never gets old; it’s not a hobby. I’m totally addicted to the music itself and where it’s sold, the people, the conversations, and the ideas coming out of there. To me, that’s so important. It’s not just the place where I buy the music; I take it home and enjoy listening to it.
As a customer, it’s the best thing in the world. As a tourist, coming into a place you don’t know and starting a conversation with the seller, seeing what’s there and what hooks them, is a huge part of it. It’s fun, and you learn a lot from it.
Why collect a physical format? And why vinyl? You could have replaced half of your vinyl collection with CDs, and you could easily have sold most of it and gone digital.
I started with vinyl because that was there at the beginning, at home. I won’t go into the debate of CD vs vinyl; of course, it depends on the setup and the print quality, but—I’m going to sound like a cliché—there is a difference in sound. Maybe it’s psychological.
A CD, even though the bandwidth is wider, it sounds metallic to me, like more info but less open. From a young age, the ear gets used to a certain sound. CDs and vinyl do not sound the same. I’ve been around vinyl since age zero, and it was the first thing I heard at home. And we can go further with the cliché and talk about how the cover is bigger and better, the nuances of this print and that print, and all that. Its world is wider, more content, more artwork. That appeals to me.
CDs are less interesting. Some things might sound silly, but there are also the gestures you make when you turn them around. It’s like a junkie whose fingers automatically roll a piece of paper, like a ritual he’s used to. I’m used to it; it comes to me naturally. When I collected CDs, all my hand movements were naturally designed to handle them. When I started working around vinyl, the muscle memory kicked in when I returned to records.
One legendary record salesman in Tel Aviv, his biggest beef in the past years was with younger customers, who would dig something out and look it up online on their phone or even listen to a bit on Spotify. He hated that and used to say, ‘You come into a record store; I’m the professional here; ask me!’ He felt like this new generation didn’t understand the importance and meaning of the record seller. Do you feel that sometimes?
You’re referring to someone coming to the store without a specific goal. People are intrigued by vinyl for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, it’s the cover, and other times, it’s the genre. If you’re interested in a genre, then come ask; I might be able to help. In that respect, I understand him. I often won’t even offer my opinion about what they came to buy; they just entered this place that gives them all this content. None of us think we’re atom scientists, but it’s also not a convenience store. I can give you something; if I don’t know, I’ll say I don’t. Customers don’t try us out enough. If it’s something I think I can help with, I’ll say something.
What do you think about new collectors? I’m thinking about people who start collecting these days, how it’s easier for them to get ahead quickly with all the information available and the internet making it more possible to find things. When we were young, we had to work hard to obtain knowledge to find records.
It’s important to have patience and to apply discretion. For instance, new collectors nowadays in the local market will invest a lot of money in building a collection of Israeli music. They don’t understand that today, they won’t even get to see half of the albums they’re searching for, and if they do, it will be for crazy prices. They should focus on the records they like, priced according to their budget, and not devise a plan to build a collection. It’s nice to have such a plan. In reality, that’s not going to happen. The way the market looks and behaves these days, one should act more reasonably and carefully.
You mean, they don’t understand that it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.
Exactly. Some people are new to records and want to start getting busy with vinyl. They’ll spend a lot of money on records for the first few months, and then you won’t see them anymore. For some, they invested in it, and it wore off. They got into it because vinyl is a trend, and now they’re left with a player and some records.
Young people getting into it seriously happens more nowadays, but it’s still uncommon. Some got into it lately and are showing some kind of progress. I’m not trying to mold them; they should tell me what they want. But in my professional opinion, I won’t say that many of these people would dive into years of it and have walls heavy with vinyl.
“Record stores are the places I feel the most at home in. I can’t explain it, a place where you feel more at home than in your own home. I can be vacationing abroad with people; if I see a record store, I might forget to tell them where I’m going. I’ll just disappear.”
Can you tell me a bit about what kind of records you collect and why?
I started from prog, but that wore off at some point. Prog and Israeli music were my introductions. In my late teens, I started digging through Israeli music so that love has always been there, and it’s still a big passion for me. Beyond that, a lot of beat, but not only English. In the last few years, I’ve looked for a lot of library music, French and Italian soundtracks, Mediterranean music, and I really love Turkish Music.
Tell me more about Turkish music, which came up in our conversations in the past.
It’s not the heavyweight Turkish ballads we also have here (a genre of Israeli music) but more seventies. I don’t know; something about it resonated with me. Even though they started playing with electric guitars in the late sixties, the instrument wasn’t connected with their culture. But they’re very musical people, and this clash of east and west, you see it in other places, but with them, it sounds the coolest to me.
Until recently, I traveled to Istanbul once or twice a year. I fell in love with that city and already have my favorite places. There’s always something to do and new stuff, and it’s just a huge, huge city. People don’t understand how big and impressive it is, how cool and full of life. I love the record stores there.
Lately, I feel like everywhere is getting expensive and includes fewer new things. But that might be because my interest has shifted lately, for instance, toward library music and soundtracks. I never liked people who say they love everything. You’d ask them what they’re listening to, and they’d say everything. Now I say everything. I’m learning from everyone all those years at Eli’s and even now.
Is Zafer Dilek representative of your Turkish kink?
Dilek in Turkish means heart. This is probably his rarest album, but that wasn’t the point; I searched for it because I wanted a copy for myself. It’s a banger from almost the beginning all the way to the end, all uppers, a crazy party. One bit is heavy on the electric guitar, and the east-west clash is perfect. You don’t see this one, and there are no reissues or anything. I have been looking for it in Istanbul for years. One day I went into a store, and found it! It’s a pricey record today, but I paid much less than the regular price because one side was ruined.
Two hours later, I found a good-looking copy in another store! I got to exchange my copy and added something to make the difference; it wasn’t too expensive. I have two or three Dilek records, and that’s enough for me; I don’t have the itch to complete an artist’s discography.
What draws you to a specific record when you’re in a store? What makes you say ‘I need this?’
I have my “love interests.” I’ll go to a certain section because it interests me musically. There’s the matter of what tools the person digging currently has. A collector friend likes to say that you can tell how a funk group will sound by how they look if the afro is too big, it’s not good, or if they’re dressed a certain way. There are no rules. In my preference, if it’s from this or that country, from this or that year, if the song’s name appeals to me, if the players’ or producer’s name rings a bell.
So where does Mario Y Sus Cartas fit in?
That was just bizarre, a cover depicting a mock robbery. I heard it in the store because I told to myself ‘if it’s not good, then never mind,’ but it was priced so low that I would have bought it just for the sake of that cover. I hoped I could get a good song or two from it, and I did.
Katz & Carasso, also for the bizarre element?
It’s an Israeli soundtrack on 7-inch. The whole point of having this one was for the nice Oshik Levi bit. I really love soundtracks and 7-inch records, so this is both. It’s not about the movie; it’s about the singer.
How about Salute to the Young? Also, an Israeli oldie.
This one’s an old beat compilation and it’s in high demand. It has the young Matti Caspi, Hillik Tzadok has an excellent track, and the Miri Aloni song is very nice. It came through a local seller who got his hands on a heavy collector’s estate, and he knows me, so I got there first. I left a substantial amount of money there, can’t even tell you how many records, but it had some heavy hitters. This one was expensive, for sure.
I was surprised to find that swing album by Royal Crown Revue; didn’t know you’re into swing revival.
It has nothing to do with me in any way! But there’s one track here, the one from the movie The Mask. That’s what it’s for. The movie was important throughout my childhood, and we loved it. That song they’re playing at the Coco Bongo was stuck in my head, and during some online search, I found out it was available on vinyl, so I wanted it. It takes me back and is a fun track to DJ with.
“I love independent record stores the most. They operate differently, and everything’s basically psycho. The people behind the counter are psychos, the customers are psychos… it’s all psycho.”
How about the album Badabada, after you said you don’t collect jazz–is it in your collection because it’s Israeli?
Jazz is not my cup of tea, but this one’s more communicative and has more upbeat and animated tracks. There’s also a nice kink here with the logo of the Israeli Broadcasting Network. I like that. I try to avoid jazz, so I don’t have much in my collection. This one has scat; she vocalizes beautifully. She was really on an international level, and she even had a career abroad.
“Nigel’s [Addmore] biggest hit combines two things I can’t live without: music and hummus.”
How about La Linea?
My good friend! (Showing his ankle tattoo of La Linea), it’s the only tattoo I have. I wanted him like this, walking with me everywhere I go. I’m crazy about animated films, and I love him, his reactions, and the violent mood swings. Love the music. As far as I know, this is the only La Linea music from the series that is on vinyl. Weirdly, I haven’t looked up what the musicians recorded beyond this.
I haven’t listened to Nigel Addmore for ages, and now, thanks to you, I have… and it’s mind-blowingly good!
Hummus is my favorite food. My love for Hummus, of course, came before I had this on CD. About ten years ago, I went through a phase of manically searching for Israeli 12 inches, and I put a lot into finding this one. It wasn’t too expensive, but it’s not an easy grab nowadays. There is no version of the full album on vinyl, only three or four singles, all with these cool hand-drawn covers.
Dust & Grooves: Further Adventures in Record Collecting – Deluxe Slipcase First Limited Edition
Ok, so he’s from our era, but what about other stuff, like Jump – you have to explain this to me. We’re the same age, and this is from a decade before us and was a short-lived stage production. How did you even get to it?
It has Danny Sanderson, Uzi, and The Styles. It’s been around, and it has some tracks I like. It has a very flower-power, hippie atmosphere. It made some noise and was very controversial for its time; there were protests against it, so the show was taken off stage. The poster also came in some record collection, one of a few heavy collectors who also had posters. I was there for the records but also bought a couple of posters.
"I’ll take things out of the collection because my musical tastes have changed or if I don’t fancy them anymore. There’s hoarding, and then there’s collecting; collecting comes first.”
And Alexandra? Also, an Israeli oldie.
This is a 7-inch, with four tracks, and the important one is “Beatnik”—same as my current workplace! It’s a really cool and cute song that mentions LSD. It’s not a record you see every day, but it’s not the rarest either. I’m not boasting because the music always comes first. I won’t say that I don’t enjoy the prestige of having something rare; however, I am also not bragging as much as I used to. But I’m proud I own this one.
I do have a lot of things that not many people have, but that doesn’t do anything for me if the music doesn’t interest me. I’ll take things out of the collection because my musical tastes have changed or if I don’t fancy them anymore. There’s hoarding, and then there’s collecting; collecting comes first. I have no interest in bragging about walls of records. It looks nice, but I don’t need it to grow.
Do you feel you’re still missing a lot of things?
Always. I’m always searching. There are always specific things I’m looking for, and there are always new things that I come across.
Speaking of rare singles, how about Jackie Galil?
This is a very hard-to-find record. It happened to come my way without the cover, and that’s how I took it home. About a year later, there was a record collection for sale that had the cover but no record and was half-damaged. Eli spruced it up and made it look much better. It’s a job for delicate hands, and it’s not something I could have done myself. And that’s how the record and the cover found each other. It’s great when it happens in collecting. That’s completion for you, to have the item as it should be. As a collector, it’s very annoying when you only have the record and not the cover or vice-versa. If you had a record with a blank cover and knew there was an actual cover somewhere, wouldn’t you want to find it?
No, I like having it the way I bought it. The nostalgia is more important to me.
That’s a healthier perspective. I have the collecting sickness; I find it disruptive. It’s not that I won’t buy it. Some collectors wouldn’t buy an incomplete item, but I’ll take the half and make sure to make it whole. That’s also part of the fun and the adventure. It’s a game to buy something incomplete, especially if it’s hard to find. It will take time and might not happen, but it will be very pleasing if it does.
What happens if you find something that’s not a priority for you but incomplete, would you buy it for the sake of the game?
Yes, of course. When something like this inevitably happens, it’s better financially because whoever sells just the record without the cover does it for much less. It’s about finding the other half. A lot of the time, it’s a one-in-a-million shot. When it happens without planning, I always take it. If I can’t complete it, that’s that, but if I can, I have the whole item and paid considerably less for it.
That’s what happened with Studying All Day—this represents your post-punk side.
That’s a new one, actually, from a few months ago. I’ve been looking for this project for years. The artwork is great; I have only had the cover for ages. The record just lately happened to come my way. A seller advertised it in one of the groups, and it was snatched by a heavy Israeli music collector, not because he knew the record but because he was intrigued. He visited the store and told me about it, and I went crazy. Thankfully, he knew me well enough to appreciate how important it was for me. In this rare case, I said I was putting my pride aside and asked him if he’d let me buy it instead, and he was fine with it. That was something I had to have.
How about The Big Dig?
The singer Edna Goren used to buy at my branch of Tower Records with her son and grandkids. She probably won’t remember me, but I loved having her in the store. I love the first track, “Duggy Dig”; it’s cool. It’s the only soundtrack for the film, these two songs; no other music from the film ever came out.
Let’s talk about military groups, and why do they all sound the same?
Most of them probably had the same musical education, and that’s the style of the directors. I like stuff with more bite to it, but there are some cool tracks. This one specifically has some nice tracks, but I have a kink for covers, and there’s a very good one here, “Unchain My Heart.” They used to talk about the military groups as the Israeli establishment as opposed to the beat groups that were against all that, while abroad in those years, crazy things were happening in music.
Musically, we were still not that developed. It always sounded the same; it sometimes had a dialogue with jazz or funk but never had an edge. I’m not a collector of military groups; this one’s without a completion factor.
The hippie music of those days is represented here with Shimshon Miel.
I remember reading somewhere that he gave away copies of this one for free at one of the Nuweiba festivals in the mid-seventies, if I’m not mistaken. I think he performed in one of them. A strange bird indeed. It’s an independent pressing. He was this stoner hippie, and he looked like one, too; now he’s a rabbi or something.
This is my second copy after selling the first one to another collector. It was ten years before I bought it again. I missed him! That sometimes happens when collecting, when you regret selling something. But at that time, I needed the money. If I sold it, then I let it go wholeheartedly. Ten years later, it bugged me and I searched for another copy and found it.
Yael Shalibo was also an independent pressing; how did you hear about it?
It’s an obscure 12-inch. I don’t know anything about it; I just found it somewhere and realized it includes Israeli Madonna covers. I took it because it’s kinky. Israeli Madonna covers are kinky items! It was questionable in the original form, and then these covers made it even more questionable.
Speaking of questionable, you have this Tzadok Hatuka album…
A totally comedic album! I knew the James Brown cover, “I Feel Good.” It has some food in it, some of everything really, all of the things I like, and I have a silly side. It’s very light and funny. Also clicks with my love of Yemeni food, one of my favorite cuisines, and with football anthems.
My interest started with James Brown, but I was aware of the party happening here, which is one of the more bizarre records. This, too, is a private pressing, by the way. For me, this one’s just loads of laughs.
But then, on the serious side, we have Room 101
I love Yossi Elephant, he just clicks with many things. Firstly, to my home town Ramat Gan, because they’re from here. I used to hear Elephant from the windows here; this is his neighborhood, and I felt proud to hear it. But I love it musically; they had balls, and these guys were rougher than others.
There’s an emotion and power here that I love. Beyond the hometown thing, he can really move and touch me deeply. I don’t have all of Yossi Elephant’s stuff yet, and I don’t actively look for it, but with him, I’ll probably have his complete collection one day.
Then we go back to Lool 3, the comedic troup.
First of all, there’s the comedy side again, with a reply to the military troops with the first track, “Sour Sour,” as opposed to a big hit at the time, “Sweet Sweet,” and I’m here for it. It also has Arik Einstein in English. As my mother always says, every country has its Sinatra.
Fifty-Fifty is also for Einstein?
It has two songs by Einstein, one by Assi Dayan, and one by Gali Atari. It has the song “Good Leo.” Einstein’s voice here is so clean and beautiful. You can always recognize his voice, but here it has the best color.
The Gonks’ soundtrack album is also kind of a kink thing?
This is just a really bad British low-budget film. The best track appears only here, and the connection is my British thing. I’m not an Anglophile, but musically and style-wise, to this day, I think they’re the better nation. In the everlasting debate of the UK vs the US, technically, the US will probably take the music trophy, but I always connected more with the Brits.
This one has Ginger Baker and The Graham Bond Organization, who raised him. It has jazz but also a variety of beats and seventies UK Psych. The film is terrible, but the soundtrack has some nice stuff. It’s about my totality with Brits and especially with Graham Bond. I might have completed it here—I think I have all his records.
If you had to choose a store to work in, which one would that be?
There used to be this store in Notting Hill that always had crazy stuff in stock, and the place itself was bizarre, the whole situation was weird. It used to be one store owned by two guys named Bill. They fought, but neither wanted to leave the space, so the store was split. One side was called Stand Out; the other was named Minus Zero. There was a cash register on each side, and if you asked one Bill for something and he didn’t have it, he’d tell you to ask the other guy. They wouldn’t even talk to each other. I would have loved to work there but can’t choose which Bill I’d like to be my boss.
Avidan Weiss is an Israeli record collector, an avid Hummus expert and one of Tel Aviv’s most reputable record store clerks. Find him behind the counter at Beatnik Records in Tel Aviv or advocating for world peace around a warm bowl of fresh Hummus.
