Located next to a bright little bagel shop on Colonial Avenue, Skinnie’s Records’ black and neon storefront might seem a bit surprising.

Crossing over the threshold into the store, however, I was greeted by the comforting smell of vinyl, the contrasting colors of the t-shirt racks, a faded carpet, and a slightly intimidating face. He might look a little rough, and he might be slow to greet you, but he’s actually really sweet.

I’m talking about Putty the dog, but the same could be said about his owner, and the owner of Skinnie’s, Steve Athey. Sitting behind the counter, Steve’s black sleeveless t-shirt and bandanna could probably both be bought at his store, and although he might have softened a little with age, you can tell how commanding his rock-and-roll presence must have been in his prime.

Skinnie’s Records actually sells records, something that may be obvious but is worth mentioning in this download-centric world we live in. And it is a good thing they do, because otherwise they probably would have been sunk a long time ago.

“That’s what primarily pays the rent here,” says Steve. “That’s the saving grace for me. And yeah, that’s been the resurgence I guess as far as the public has been concerned in the last two years. There’s partially a nostalgic factor, and I’m going to attest that the analog warmth of listening to a record doesn’t have that cold, digital, sterile sound to it. You don’t just flick a switch on and walk away; it’s like ‘Oh, let’s sit down and listen to this.’”

Other music stores might have seen LPs as outdated. Steve kept them around, trusting how valuable they are.

“Since day one, I’ve sold records,” he asserts. “As they went out of fashion, I still did, so I’ve maintained building up a sizable inventory. Fortunately now, that’s the only diversifying thing I did over the years, that wow, thank goodness this paid off or I’d be like all the other places and going belly up.”

There used to be a time when Skinnie’s was vital.

“Just back in the mid- to late-’80s, there was no standard distributorship,” says David Lee Ballard, a music lover who lived in Hampton Roads in the ’80s and again now. “So if you wanted most English pop and alternative you either went to Skinnie’s or you had to drive to DC or New York, or ordered it somehow. Skinnie’s impact on the ’80s punk, new-wave scene was really phenomenal.”

While selling and promoting albums from local bands also used to set Skinnie’s apart, the interest there now is “sad,” according to Steve.

“Sure, it’s not like there’s no talent in local bands,” he concedes, “but the interest there is nil. I mean, outside, you just don’t have, like ‘Oh, wow, I want to check out a new band, and on top of that, a local band!’ Those people don’t exist.

“Being that this area is so transient, [people here] have their own home, their own bands back home they might like. But around here there are too many bands and not enough audience. So it’s not what it could be.”

David Hausmann, co-owner of The Boot restaurant in Ghent, and former owner of the late (and independent) Relative Theory music store on Granby recognizes the decline as well, and believes it applies to all artistic interest in our area.

“For the general decline in music stores, it has more to do with a general decline of art within our community,” Hausmann suggests. “Not sure if we ever really enjoyed abundance, so it might not exactly be in decline.  You could look at the area with a microscope and say these years were good, but that holds little value in regard to generations actually making their living from creating art.

“For the size of our metropolitan area we should have a thriving artistic community,” Hausmann said. “I would believe nearly all folks in Hampton Roads truly making a living from creating/facilitating art are either satisfying constituents outside of our locale or they are creating kitsch. I don’t have any research to back that up, but there have been metropolitan studies saying we are quite low on the creativity index.”

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