Wah Wah Records is bringing an extra dose of classic rock’n’roll to Smith Street
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04.04.2019

Wah Wah Records is bringing an extra dose of classic rock’n’roll to Smith Street

Words by Augustus Welby

One week out from Record Store Day, Melbourne is set to gain a new vinyl-only retailer. 

Wah Wah Records is opening on Saturday April 6 on Smith St, Collingwood. Founder Ben Treyvaud has been contemplating opening a record store for most of his life.

“Probably ever since I bought a record,” he says. “I’ve been going to record stores since I was 13 and from a very early age I’ve wanted to be working in one.”

Smith St is prime location for vinyl-hunters and it was at the top of Treyvaud’s wish list.

“I knew where I wanted it to be,” he says. “If there was nothing available I wasn’t just going to take a side street location in Wonthaggi just because it was available. I live in Collingwood anyway so I know the area really well. We finally got the space sorted in early January this year and I’ve just been doing everything pretty intensely since then.”

There are already a number of record stores in the area: The Searchers and Plug Seven Records on Smith St, Northside Records on Gertrude St and Polyester, Poison City and Dixons on Brunswick St.

“You can look at it two ways. You can go, ‘Oh fuck why would I want to put one in and amongst heaps of others?’ or you can look at it like, well maybe that’s a good idea,” Treyvaud says. “I remember my mum told me, ‘Well if you ever want to buy a Persian rug, you can go to High St in Armadale and there’s heaps of Persian rug stores’. So I looked at it as a bit of positive. It means if you’re like me, a die-hard record collector, and you want to go and buy some records, at least you’ve got a hub to go to.”

The respective shops have different specialties. This makes it less a competitive dynamic and more about each store contributing something to Melbourne’s lively music culture.

“Northside’s really into funk and soul and a bit of techno and I’m not doing really any of that. The Searchers is catering a bit for everyone in a way. Plug Seven’s really into African beats and Ethiopian music, which I’m not doing any of. If we’re all just sort of the same, it’d probably be nightmarish,” Treyvaud says.

In Wah Wah Records the focus is on ‘60s-’70s rock’n’roll and R&B music as well as a sweeping embrace of Australian music, past and present.

“I don’t think you should be selling stuff that you don’t know what the fuck it is,”  Treyvaud says. “Obviously you don’t have to know every record intimately, but I think you should have a pretty good understanding of what you’re selling. You’re not working at Starbucks where you can maybe be like, ‘No I don’t know what sort of coffee this is’.”

‘60s and ‘70s rock and pop is Treyvaud’s bread and butter. “I was the kid at 13 that was making mixtapes of Creedence and stuff when all my mates were listening to Nirvana,” he says. “I also love all the local bands that have been coming up in the last ten years. I don’t think really enough people plug them in the record stores. So I want to support the local scene and when you’re playing a Cable Ties record in the store and people go, ‘What’s this?’, you can say it’s a local band.”

The new music section won’t be entirely reserved for Australian releases, however.

“I don’t want to totally alienate people so there is a bit of other contemporary stuff but there’s no Kylie Minogue, there’s no Madonna. But there’ll be an Interpol record in there, there’ll be Radiohead, I even got a Kings of Leon record – only the first one though because that’s the only good one in my book. But the main focus will be current Australian bands.”

Wah Wah Records is opening on Saturday April 6 at 196 Smith St, Collingwood just in time for Record Store Day a week later. Keep your eyes peeled for more info on what Wah Wah has in store.