Vinyl haven Used Kids Records never stops spinning
Since 1986, the beloved shop has linked students, alumni and neighbors through great music, stories and friendship.
The snap and crackle of vinyl records add texture to the blend of tunes coming from four vintage speakers at Used Kids Records. Two young women discuss an LP find. A gray-haired man pages through an old Rolling Stone magazine. A teenager chats with a store clerk at the front counter adorned with a small Brutus Buckeye statue next to two Elvis busts.
The scene feels timeless, like how a certain song can take you back, which is what many Buckeyes also experience upon a random mention of Used Kids Records. “Super memories, maybe the best memories of my life, per capita,” says Jenny Grabmeier ’92, ’95 MA, who worked at the record store for four years at its original location across from campus on North High Street.
This fall, the store will celebrate its 40th anniversary, an impressive milestone for an institution that has weathered so many changes in both the volatile music business and in the ever-shifting University District. But owner Greg Hall ’85 isn’t taking that achievement for granted. “Customers say to me that Used Kids Records is a cultural institution,” Hall says. “I’m super cool with that perception, but I think ultimately the place withers and dies if you’re not very active making stuff happen. The only way it’s viable or legitimate is to keep it a living, breathing thing.”
Used Kids Records opened in 1986 as a basement offshoot of Schoolkids Records, a separate business that went bankrupt. Founders Dan Dow ’76 and Ron House, and eventual co-owner Bela Koe-Krompecher (a College of Social Work lecturer), nurtured a unique culture that ingrained the store with Ohio State as a melting-pot gathering spot over three decades at two High Street locations.
Hall, who worked at Schoolkids Records from 1979 to ’85 while attending Ohio State, bought the store from Dow in 2014 and spit-shined its edgy, funky personality with an appreciation for preserving its unique legacy due to his own experiences there. He also immediately added a firm leadership belief: Businesses can’t be static.
That mindset is evident on a recent visit. A mixed vibe of honored past and go-go present permeates Used Kids Records, which moved in 2016 to its current location on Summit Street, about a mile-and-a-half northeast from campus. The counter and album bins are from the original store, as is the stage, where bands have continuously played for 40 years. They’ll do so this fall as part of an anniversary celebration, which includes listening parties that have proven particularly popular with young fans, sometimes drawing more than 200.
“They could just listen to music on their phones,” says Hall, who this year purchased Musicol, the longest-operating recording studio and vinyl pressing plant in Ohio, with plans to restore, reenergize and use the 60-year-old facility in the North Linden neighborhood of Columbus. “But the kids like to come hang out. You see them connecting.”
From day one, Used Kids Records has been about sharing and bonding, not just making transactions. “It was like a music club,” Grabmeier says of her time working there in the 1990s.
The club has included star visitors some days. The Ramones. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. Joe Walsh and fellow members of The James Gang held an in-store signing event in 2022. This year, Black Keys drummer Pat Carney hung out before his band’s show to sift through boxes of 45s.
Normal days, however, anchor the store’s history, providing small moments that have been the heartbeat of Used Kids Records through relocations, ownership turnover, a 2001 electrical fire and multiple changes in how music is consumed.
“You walk in and you talk to the employees,” says Jason Rawls, assistant professor of hip-hop in the School of Music. “As you’re finding out about their day, they bring up this record that they found, and you’re like, ‘What the heck is that?’ They say it’s something we got last week in a collection from Northeast Ohio. Then you get the whole story, the life of that record.
“And then some customer who’s looking at something else will say, ‘Oh, that’s a great album. I remember blah, blah.’ Then you’re getting another story. The interaction is amazing.”
Rawls, who grew up on the South Side of Columbus, began going to Used Kids Records as a teenager and now, at age 52, still visits four or five times a month. Sometimes, he’ll accompany The Vinyl Club in his role as faculty representative for that Ohio State student organization. He watches with joy as members self-discover music and discuss their love in a special setting.
“It’s the same as what we say about hip-hop culture—it’s about the community,” Rawls says. “That’s what makes Used Kids.”
