Located in the heart of Carrboro, new record store All Day Records has created a niche in the Chapel Hill Music scene by offering only new and used vinyl records. Run by Ethan Clauset and Charlie Hearon, owner of Chapel Hill record label FrequeNC Records, the duo hope to impact their love of records on the community. Diversions staff writer Anna Norris got a chance to talk with Ethan about the origins of All Day Records, what they bring to the table and their hopes for the future.
Diversions: Vinyl’s popularity has been resurging for a while now, but did you ever consider it risky to bank on that popularity and open a store that is totally vinyl-focused?
Ethan Clauset: Not really. I’ve been selling records online for about 10 years now, and under the name All Day Records for about a year and a half. And business has been pretty good, pretty steady, so that’s been great. We paid our rent on the very first day. Hopefully that keeps up.
Dive: You’re located down the street from Cat’s Cradle, and on a major street in Carrboro. How did you get such a great location?
EC: Luck and persistence. I’d seen the space on Craigslist, and was interested because there’s not a lot of open buildings in Carrboro. We’d been looking for about a year.
Dive: So what exactly does All Day Records have to offer?
EC: We have mostly used records. We keep about six bins of new music, so I’d say that makes up about 10% of our store. The rest is used. A lot of used stores fall into the trap that they take everything that comes in, and then they fill up with stuff that no one wants. And we can’t run a business solely on our own tastes, so we try to do a mix of both. I think it works. We have a lot of experience with music and the local music scene. I’ve worked at WXYC for 16 years, and Charlie runs FrequeNC Records. We both have worked at Nightlight and been a DJ there. We still help out there sometimes. And we are trying to carry all the local records that we can.
Dive: What is the significance of the store’s name?
EC: Well, we made a list of possible names, and that one just seemed the best. Somewhere in Western North Carolina there’s a joint called All Day BBQ. So we just kind of changed it around, and it stuck.
For more information on All Day Records, check out their website or their Facebook page.
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