Launched last night when The Chats headlined their Feedback Festival appearance, Gold Coast venue Vinnies Dive Bar have expanded to offer a 100 per cent independent record store.
Situated at the back of the venue, Vinnies Record Store will offer a selection of local, national and international records with punk, rock and hardcore vinyl set to be the store's bread and butter."There just aren't that many record stores left operating along the Coast anymore," venue manager Glenn Stewart says.
"You can still go to JB Hi-Fi and pick up the latest LP releases, but for someone that's after something a bit more niche, that can be harder to find nowadays. We want to help change that."
Like most great ideas, the initial seed of opening a record store came about by chance.
"The record store idea started by me ordering a Private Function record from Disdain Records – who is a mate of mine down in Melbourne," Glenn says.
"He asked if I'd take a few and just sell them at Vinnies, which gave me the idea of the store!"
Still somewhat flying by the seat of his pants, Glenn has no concrete plans for the record store other than to allow the indie, DIY spirit to flourish and see what comes.
"Now with the borders opening up, we can start getting touring bands through Vinnies again, so we thought it'd be cool if bands left a bit of their stock here and have the record store grow organically.
"It also gives local bands another avenue to sell their recordings. We don't really know what we're doing, but it's going to be fun learning how to operate a record store properly on top of having live music most days of the week."
Vinnies Record Store's (Southport) opening hours will be announced soon.
