Fans band together to save record store wiped out by fire

Record stores are meant for listening: the crinkling of plastic sleeves as customers thumb through record crates, the oohs and aahs induced by a rare find, the tunes beaming from the speakers.

But when owner Sam Lock got to the Record Exchange in Frederick, Maryland, one night late last month, the first sense that flared was the smell: smoke, billowing out of the three-story building that had housed the shop on North Market Street since 2010.

“When I got off (Interstate) 270 … I could smell it, like, that far away,” Lock said of the fire, which he was told blazed from about 9:30 p.m. until around 4:30 a.m. “And I could see the smoke, and I was like … that’s not just a small fire on the ground.”

The front door was already busted open, and firefighters were pouring torrents of water to extinguish the fire on the top floor. Lock saw it all flowing out the Record Exchange’s ground-level doorway, taking a couple records out with it. In a single night, the shop “lost pretty much everything,” he said. About 20% of its stock was left, most of it CDs.

But record store lovers from Frederick and around the country quickly banded together to help the store rebuild.

Lock, 55, had come to the area in 1997 to open up five outposts of the once-mighty Record Exchange franchise, including locations in the Washington, D.C., Adams Morgan neighborhood and Silver Spring, Maryland. But the 2008 financial crisis sank three of them, and in 2019, Lock sold the Silver Spring branch, leaving Frederick his one and only.

On Aug. 25, a day after the fire, he started a GoFundMe to offset moving costs for a new location and what remained of his inventory. The goal was $30,000, and just a week later, music fans had helped Lock meet it. “Never met y’all or been to your store, but cities need their record stores as cultural centers,” read one donor’s post from Denver. “The record exchange is an integral part of our community. Frederick needs you!” read a local’s.

The support reminded Lock why he’s stuck around for so long.

“I’ve had kids come in donating 20 bucks, and they said they started shopping here with their dad when they were 7,” Lock said. “People are like, ‘I bought my first turntable and record from you guys, and you really got me into it.’ … It’s really come back to us (with) the GoFundMe. I cry every time I take a look at it.”

Another boost followed at what remained of the physical shop. On Wednesday afternoon, after a few days of salvaging efforts by Lock and his pals, the Record Exchange was slinging vinyl again. Sort of.

It was a name-your-own-price sale, with all the proceeds going to Lock’s lone employee, Zach Willems. Records, CDs, cassettes, DVDs, posters and toys in cardboard crates were being sold as is on the sidewalk, in front of the now-yawning front door and the damage within.

Much of the ceiling was exposed, the rest draping along the right side of the store. Peeks of light shone through holes in the apartment floor above. Entire crates of CDs were floating in water in the store’s storage space. Mold had already begun to dot the records and fixtures along the wall.

Out front, Willems was dutifully answering questions from passersby out front about what had happened. Willems, 29, had been working at the Record Exchange for more than a year but a regular customer for a decade. He was on vacation when the fire broke out. Wednesday was the first time he saw the store in its current shape.

“I had seen the pictures,” Willems said. “I kind of knew what I was walking into. But it was still shocking. I finished closing up at night (on Aug. 19), walked through this place, looking around like, ‘Man, what a cool place to work,’ and walking back into (it) now was, man …”

Thankfully for Lock and Willems, customers were excited to extend their support and poke around what was left.

Christine Wisniewski, who had a stack of metal CDs in the crook of her arm, said she was “devastated” when she heard about the fire, which Lock said remained under investigation.

“I used to come downtown a lot, and this was always one of my must-go places,” said Wisniewski, 27, who was born and raised in Frederick.

“It’s peaceful to me,” she said. “It’s people who like music and appreciate it as much as I do, and this was a really nice place for people to feel welcome no matter whatever your genre interest was.”

And even at this makeshift sale, Willems and Lock were eager to keep the spirit of the shop alive and dispense record-store-clerk wisdom to regulars who missed it.

For Joseph Romanic, 19, the store was essential in fostering his passion for music. He became a regular in the past year, and brought his friend Reyna Rabeau to the sidewalk sale. Romanic and Willems ping-ponged recommendations of doom metal, indie and prog rock to each other, while Rabeau snatched up some rap CDs, including Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic.”

“The guys here have always been so nice. It doesn’t matter who has been working,” said Rabeau, also 19. “They’ll be playing something, and you can just be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so cool. I never knew I liked this kind of music.’ It’s something different every time, and I love it.”

Customers outside, like online donors in the days before, also wanted to know what was next. Would Lock get a new storefront? Would he stay in Frederick?

Lock played coy; he didn’t want to jinx it, but he had a lead. A day after the sale, in fact, he signed a lease, with plans to reopen by December.

The Record Exchange’s new location will be on North Market Street, too, just a few blocks away.