Arcade Records And Tapes Q&A With Bill O’Neill

Bill O’Neill, owner, Arcade Records and Tapes

by Scott Messenger

In the age of the iPod, you might expect a business plan focused on selling vinyl long-playing albums to make for some lonely days at the shop – even if you’re the only second-hand record dealer in town. But for Bill O’Neill, 69-year-old owner and operator of Arcade Records and Tapes in downtown Medicine Hat, the extreme exercise in niche retailing has been turning a reasonable profit since he started in 2004. Motivated by nostalgia and the recent resurgence of hi-fi turntables, customers come for gently used pressings of favourites lost to that garage sale years ago, when it was the CD that heralded the future of recorded music. Whatever those titles may be, O’Neill will source them. But with a collection of 8,000 LPs, 16,000 45s and 3,000 78s (and a few thousand cassette tapes and CDs), he’s probably already got them, ready to be dusted off to prove that all markets, regardless of commodity, really are cyclical.

AV: When did you start collecting records?
BO: 1985. [My wife and I] had our music that we liked when the kids were growing up and we bought a new stereo. I bought my first Billboard [music charts] book and it listed the top 40 songs from 1955 to 1984, so I started collecting the No. 1s and then all the top 10 and then finally all the top 40, of which I have only five left to find.

Are you still looking for them?
It’s difficult here in Medicine Hat. I don’t know if some of these were ever released in Canada. All of them are from 1955, ’56.

Do you have a long background in retail?
No, I was a teacher for over 30 years. One day I was a retired teacher and the next day I opened up the store.

Who are your customers?
They range a lot. There’s some older people, but there’s lots of younger ones that have gone back to the turntable.

Why?
The sound in the vinyl is better than the CD. The best example is that I always listened to Patsy Cline on CD. I had a [vinyl] copy of her first album and I took it down to the store and played it for myself and it blew me away. Her voice was marvelous and I did not get that feeling listening to her CDs. There’s just a fullness to the sound – what lots of people say is a warmth to it – that just isn’t there with the CD. The MP3s are even worse; the kids that listen to that stuff are getting some pretty bad recordings. I do [stock] some CDs and tapes, but as I’ve said in the past, it’s just a job selling CDs and tapes.

What’s different about selling records?
We all have memories with our music. For older people, it’s particularly tied up in their vinyl. I never pressure people to sell me their vinyl. If they are willing to give it up I’ll take it, but if not, I’m not going to pressure them to get rid of their memories.

Where do you find your stock?
People bring it down or I go to their house and we make a deal on it. I did make a trip out to Swift Current to look at a collection. It was like 7,000 albums, but it was stuff I had a lot of. I have storage problems. My two-car garage is full.

Have you had any valuable surprises?
I picked up a 25-cent album in a second-hand store. I’d never heard of the group so I brought it home and it turns out it’s a very rare psychedelic rock record from [a Canadian band] called Cargo. The book price on it is between $400 and $700.

But still, the market clearly favours MP3s. That doesn’t concern you?
If I had the [Internet] skills, it would be a different ballpark. Going international, particularly with the collectible stuff, is where you’d make the good dollars.

And that’s where you might be heading?
If I can get my grandson to help me out.

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