{"id":19781,"date":"2020-12-03T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19781"},"modified":"2020-09-24T16:12:20","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T20:12:20","slug":"truly-fine-citizen-citizen-vinyl-launches-in-the-blue-ridge-mountains-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/03\/truly-fine-citizen-citizen-vinyl-launches-in-the-blue-ridge-mountains-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Truly Fine Citizen: Citizen Vinyl Launches in the Blue Ridge Mountains (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a> …<\/em><\/p>\n

Ragland\u2019s facility is set up to provide full, turnkey service. Some tasks are subcontracted \u2013 sleeve printing, and electroplating (the latter to be done at top-rated companies like Nashville\u2019s Welcome to 1979 Industries) \u2013 but Citizen Vinyl customers have a single point of contact. \u201cWe’ll be the first person that they upload their source materials to, and then their packaged records will be picked up and shipped from here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And Citizen Vinyl can take on even very small jobs. \u201cThe minimum [run] that we\u2019re going to offer is 300 units,\u201d Ragland says. As with any vinyl pressing project, fixed costs \u2013 making of the stampers, lathe cutting and so on \u2013 make the customer\u2019s per-unit costs prohibitive below that level.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ragland emphasizes that Citizen Vinyl is a home-grown operation, one that leverages Asheville\u2019s well-deserved reputation as a music and culture hot spot. \u201cWe\u2019re not borrowing any money,\u201d he says, characterizing the investor team as \u201call local money that wants us to see us create an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Citizen Vinyl facility is spacious and unique. The impressive edifice was built in 1939 as the home of the mountain city\u2019s two daily newspapers, Asheville Citizen<\/i> and Asheville Times<\/i>. The papers combined in 1991, and scaling back by parent company Gannett means that today only a handful of newspaper staffers have offices on the second floor of the building. (Printing was moved out-of-state in 2009).<\/p>\n

That means that Citizen Vinyl has a large, open and bright space on the main floor for the bar, dining, performance stage, record store and DJ booth. A massive window on one side of the common area puts the printing press on real-time display for visitors. And everything about the space is centered around vinyl. For example, two turntables are set up behind the bar, and each day, bartenders are given a curated stack of LPs to play. The selections are relevant to the day. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s the anniversary of Abbey Road<\/i>\u2019s release,\u201d Ragland suggests, or possibly the birthday of jazz great Nina Simone, born in nearby Tryon, N.C.<\/p>\n

Because of Asheville\u2019s compact size and walkabilty, and thanks to Citizen Vinyl\u2019s strategic location downtown, many of the city\u2019s top music venues are a short walk or quick drive away. The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, The Orange Peel and The Grey Eagle are just three of several music venues situated within a mile of Ragland\u2019s new facility. That means that in-store events \u2013 live sessions, record signings and curated album discussions \u2013 can seamlessly figure into the schedules of both Citizen Vinyl and touring music artists.<\/p>\n

The building’s third floor is home to Studios A and B of Citizen Studios; they began operation while renovation and construction on the manufacturing and retail areas were still going on downstairs. As it happens, Studio A was originally the home of WWNC-AM, a station that at its peak was rivaled in technology quality only by New York City\u2019s RCA Studios. Mastering Engineer Ryan Schilling recently acquired a fully restored Neumann VMS-66 lathe that he\u2019ll use in Citizen\u2019s mastering suite, also on the third floor.<\/p>\n

Ragland has definite ideas about what\u2019s fueling the long player\u2019s resurgence. \u201cThe CD doesn’t offer the visual, tactile, physical artwork element that is so appealing to record enthusiasts,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd streaming \u2013 now with high-res, 96kHz 24-bit WAVs you can download \u2013 has made CDs fairly redundant.\u201d And those facts have driven the popularity of vinyl. \u201cThe record album is multi-sensory, tactile and experiential,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Playing vinyl is interactive; the listener has to get up after 22 minutes or so and flip the disc over. \u201cAnd some of us need that,\u201d Ragland says. \u201cI think it\u2019s part of a larger cultural trend based on digital fatigue; we need to slow down.\u201d The vinyl listening experience encourages that. He describes the scene: \u201cYou’ve got your turntable, you pour yourself your favorite beverage, and you turn your phone off, and you’re like, \u2018You know what? I\u2019m just going to be in the moment. I’m going to sit down, put this record on and open the gatefold [record sleeve] on my lap and I’m going to read. I’m going to connect with this band.\u2019\u201d With records, Ragland believes, \u201cyou can do all that at a much deeper level than you can with streaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the appeal of vinyl as an expression of one\u2019s lifestyle. A listener might discover new music via Spotify, Amazon Music or another streaming medium. \u201cYou can sample the music, and if you want to take that experience \u2013 that love of what you’re listening to, and the intrigue you have with the musicians who are creating it \u2013 to the next level, there are two things you can really do,\u201d Ragland suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go to the shows, and have that magical, special in-person experience. And you can buy a record, which is the next step in the engagement spectrum. You think, \u2018Oh, I love that Phoebe Bridgers album. It’s really great. I like it so much that I want to buy a record. I want to put it on my shelf in my apartment. It is a part of my identity. I am associating myself with that.\u2019\u201d The vinyl record is an artifact, something with which the listener can associate his or her identity. \u201cThat’s why I like it as a musical choice,\u201d Ragland says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

From a more practical business perspective, Ragland is betting on vinyl\u2019s staying power in the marketplace. \u201cIt will be the preferred physical format for the foreseeable future,\u201d he believes. \u201cMaybe there\u2019s going to be something that will be developed that will be [superior], but vinyl has been around for 80-plus years. It doesn’t seem like it’s going away.\u201d He notes that even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, year-to date sales of vinyl are up 11 percent compared to last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m extremely confident about Peter’s ability to operate the presses to make really great sounding records,\u201d says Citizen Vinyl\u2019s CEO. \u201cAnd I have confidence in our ability to deliver a fantastic venue, bar, restaurant and record store.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get more excited about it every day,\u201d Ragland says. \u201cAfter burning 12 hours in the studio, I walk out through the main floor on my way out to my car. And I give myself a few minutes\u2019 quiet time alone. And it’s like, \u2018How did this happen?\u2019 There\u2019s been some magic. I just show up, take things one day at a time, and make myself available to that magic. And I do whatever I can to help keep the thing moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One … Ragland\u2019s facility is set up to provide full, turnkey service. Some tasks are subcontracted \u2013 sleeve printing, and electroplating (the latter to be done at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3668],"tags":[237,4337,3640],"class_list":["post-19781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-music-business","tag-asheville","tag-citizen-vinyl","tag-gar-ragland","cat-41-id","cat-3668-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19787,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions\/19787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}