Unbroken record: The 59th running of a local vinyl and CD convention brought together regulars, first-timers and pros

At the Pittsburgh Record & CD Convention on Saturday, July 13, vinyl records were not a thing of the past. Instead, they were a way to spark conversations and community connections that simply streaming music just doesn’t promote.

This summer’s convention, at the West View Firemen’s Banquet Hall as it has been for the last three years, was the organization’s 59th show in its 28th year. The convention had smaller crowds than usual, according to its organizer Anthony Medwid, but the vendors and customers who attended were highly enthusiastic about the music and the community that comes with it.

Medwid said they’ve had customers from other cities, states and countries. Some customers have never been to a record convention while others have been to the same one five times.

Meet the customers

This was Greg Ballato’s fifth time at the Pittsburgh Record & CD Convention, despite living 45 minutes away in Weirton, West Virginia. His love of finding physical music that you can’t hear on the radio, as well as his “luck,” he said, in finding the exact records he’s been looking for keep him coming back.

Ballato, 46, started collecting records in 1996 – the same year that this convention started – as a senior in high school. His journey began by scratching records as a DJ.

“I started realizing how much great music I was finding on albums just by flipping the B-side and listening to the song that I would never have heard on the radio or anywhere else. So then I realized its merit, in that way, that I could discover all this,” Ballato said. “I was mining for gold. … That’s the kind of DJ that I wanted to be.”

He took his DJ bag, designed to fit an abundance of vinyl, to the convention to carry his new collection, totaling a few hundred dollars worth of records. If he buys multiple records from one seller, he said, they often chop off a bit of the price, and the feeling of seeing a record before purchasing it, as opposed to buying online, he found, is unbeatable.

“I leave here so happy,” Ballato said.

Zara Kruise, 20, came from Virginia with her father to this weekend’s convention. It was her first time at a record convention, and her dad has been collecting records for about five years.

“I think it’s cool that everyone has a shared interest that they can all come together for,” Kruise said as she walked around, admiring all the boxes of albums. While she is not from the area, she immediately noticed the friendliness between vendors and customers.

Najee Ahmad, 25, had never been to a record convention but thought he should stop by after getting into records recently. Ahmad moved to Oakland just under a year ago, so he is trying to engage in the local music scene and learn about its history. One of his favorite artists is Ahmad Jamal – “no relation,” he said – who was a jazz pianist from Pittsburgh who passed away last year at the age of 92.

“There’s definitely a lot of historical as well as current music importance [in Pittsburgh], which is cool,” Ahmad said. “And I do want to tap into that more.”

Kristina Deneselya, 44, is a fan of all things 1980s; they remind her of her mother’s record collection she would listen to in high school. Nostalgia is a common reason customers keep coming back to conventions.

“These are treasures,” Deneselya said. “Having this convention every quarter can get people out and makes people want to come and join in and look at all the people have for sale. I think it’s very important to keep things like this going.”

Meet the vendors

Ken Yao, 53, stopped through West View on his way to California from Brooklyn, New York, to lighten his load. He has been collecting records since he spent time at his college’s radio station and has been selling them for over 10 years.

Yao called Pittsburgh a “good way station” between the music cultures of the East Coast and areas farther west. He also believes that there is value in record conventions where customers can see a wide variety of records at once rather than going from store to store to find specific items.

“It’s a lot easier to get what you want here than, let’s say, at any given record store,” Yao said. “Otherwise, you’re driving throughout all of Pittsburgh, trying to get 10 different record stores helping you find the record that you want.”

Jeff VanFossan, 50, and Kelly Corcoran, 29, are familiar faces at the Pittsburgh Record & CD Convention. The two try to come to every convention hosted in West View. VanFossan and Corcoran met at a silent disco in Schenley Park and later began working together at Mixtape, a cocktail bar in Garfield.

Now, they are business partners selling records, hoping to open a brick-and-mortar store for vinyls in Garfield. As they are working on that, pop-up shops and conventions like this allow them to sell records.

While most vendors sell used or secondhand items, VanFossan and Corcoran sell new vinyl in addition to used records to provide a wider variety of music to their customers. However, they believe reselling records is what keeps the culture of record collecting alive.

“It’s nice that [the records] can recirculate out and people can enjoy them again,” Corcoran said.

Sharon McNemar, 73, frankly does not care much for record conventions, but she enjoyed the community feeling at the Pittsburgh Record & CD Convention. McNemar and her husband, Kip, teamed up to sell records as well as McNemar’s clocks, which are custom made out of old, unplayable records under the business name “ K&S Treasures .”

“I enjoy meeting people; it’s really interesting talking to them,” McNemar said. “A lot of times, a record will trigger memories for them, and they’ll talk about different things that were happening in their lives.”

McNemar has more than 80 clock designs and normally sells them at craft shows in the Pittsburgh area. This was the only record convention in which she participated, and while she is not overly involved in the record-collecting-and-selling community, she could tell that the community is strong and friendly.

Jerry Shimp, 50, of Ohio smiles for a photo at the Pittsburgh Record & CD Convention at the West View Banquet Hall in West View on July 13. (Jess Daninhirsch/PublicSource)

Jerry Shimp, 50, lives in Ohio but feels connected to the Pittsburgh music and vinyl community after selling at five of Pittsburgh’s record conventions. He became friends with numerous other vendors present at Saturday’s sale.

He enjoys the record world’s “little subcultures … That’s a big thing for me, is making friends and trading records,” Shimp said. “Buying stuff off of vendors, supporting other vendors, that’s pretty cool.”

Shimp began collecting vinyl at age 13 with a stack of Kiss albums from his dad’s coworker. His collection grew so large that he started his own business: Irish Dinosaur Vintage & Vinyl. In addition to records, he also sells vintage T-shirts.

“It makes me happy, so I’m trying to spread a little bit of joy,” Shimp said.

Jess Daninhirsch is a PublicSource summer 2024 photojournalism intern. She can be reached at jess@publicsource.org .

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