Pitchfork Records manager Dr. Svensson works cataloging albums at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
Pitchfork Records has been a downtown staple for decades. GEOFF FORESTIER
The north storefront of Pitchfork Records, a downtown staple for decades. GEOFF FORESTIER
Pitchfork Records has been a downtown staple for decades. GEOFF FORESTIER
Pitchfork Records has been a downtown staple for decades. GEOFF FORESTIER
Pitchfork Records has been a downtown staple for decades. GEOFF FORESTIER
Pitchfork Records manager Dr. Svensson works cataloging albums at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
Pitchfork Records owner Michael Cohen sifts through albums to mark prices at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
Pitchfork Records owner Michael Cohen sifts through albums to mark prices at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
Pitchfork Records manager Dr. Svensson works cataloging albums at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
Pitchfork Records owner Michael Cohen sifts through albums to mark prices at the downtown store on Wednesday, November 9, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER
With 49 years in the music business, Michael Cohen has seen it all. Lately, he’s been seeing it all again.
“Here we go again at the beginning!” said Cohen, the owner of downtown stalwart Pitchfork Records & Stereo, sounding both amused and a little incredulous.
Cohen was a student at Henniker’s New England College in 1972 when he and a few friends started selling vinyl records – then called LPs or long-form records to differentiate from the single-song 45’s. He says he was not particularly fond of music; it seemed like a fun thing to do. Then the friends wanted to sell so he bought the business for the princely sum of $400 in 1973 and didn’t look back. (By the way, the name pitchfork refers to Henniker’s agricultural history; the online music site of that name appeared decades later.)
Cohen quickly brought the store to Concord. Over the years, as LPs gave way to 8-tracks, cassettes and CDs, it moved up and down Main Street before settling 13 years ago in its current high-profile spot on the corner of Pleasant and North Main Streets, which once housed Foodee’s.
“It’s the best location in Concord,” he said. “We see everything. We see more than we want to see sometimes.
Pitchfork Records is a monument to the surprising resurgence of vinyl records, which have not only come back from the dead, but in 2021 CDs have actually surpassed themselves in this country. “If you asked me 5 years ago if this would last I would have said no, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Cohen said.
Much of Pitchfork’s business revolves around vinyl records. That includes hundreds of used ones that Cohen buys from people who (like this reporter) dumping their unplayed collection more than once seemed possible.
“It’s probably 20%, 25% of our business. The customer comes in, they downsize and it’s a win-win-win. They earn by selling something they don’t need; we win because it’s our business; and the buyer wins when they get a record they want,” Cohen said. “It’s the most profitable part of the business.”
The only non-winners are older people who complain that they gave away or threw away their old records years ago.
Pitchfork also sells many new records, both reissues of classic albums and recently pressed releases from current artists. The store also sells a number of different turntables for you to spin your analog tunes. And while new and used CDs remain a big part of the business, along with posters and other musical paraphernalia, it’s vinyl records that fill the windows and give Pitchfork its retro/modern aura.
“The customers are young, they’re old, people who’ve been shopping here the whole time it’s been open, a lot of teenagers from St. Paul’s come in and buy posters and vinyl. There’s a wide range of people,” said Dr. Svensson, a 2012 Concord High School graduate who worked at Pitchfork for three years.
The appeal of vinyl, she says, is multifaceted. “It’s the whole experience of going through them and finding stuff that you have no idea what it is and buying it because you’re curious, and there’s all the new vinyl, remastered and re-pressed, and all the new artists you can get. That’s it,” she said.
Perhaps surprisingly, Cohen said the advent of digital music and online streaming, which has devastated the finances of record labels and recording artists, hasn’t hurt him. Maybe that even helps.
“People hear something and then they walk in and buy a physical product. They don’t just want it on the phone; people want to own something,” he said.
The Pitchfork building is owned by Endicott Furniture, which Cohen calls “a big landlord,” and assuming music buying trends don’t take a weird, unprofitable turn – probably even the most old-school fan won’t. start demanding 78 or Edison Wax Cylinders – Pitchfork should stick around for a while.
“We’re an institution now,” Cohen joked.
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