RSD at Vertical House Records was done right
I have done eight Record Store Days in Seattle, one in Nashville and then this year it was a brand-new experience in Huntsville, Alabama. Since I was spending Thanksgiving with the family in Huntsville it only made sense to stay there overnight and get up bright and early for those RSD picks. There was just one spot to visit in the area where I was and that was Vertical House Records. So, why the name “Vertical House”? Originally, the owners planned to open their record shop in their house—and on the second floor. Hence, the name Vertical House. That exact plan didn’t quite come to fruition, though. I love this spot already as I had visited last year as a journeyed through that part of the country looking for my spot to start anew.
The experience this day was near perfection, with just about all the titles I was looking to add to my collection. Vertical House did a wonderful job of advertising on their social to let the public know what was going to be available. They also posted a map of parking and how we should set the line as to enter the store most effectively. This is why I love independent record stores. It’s the time and the care that these shop owners take to curate and communicate with their patrons. This is a small business tending to a niche audience and that group is looking to spend their hard-earned money with this seller and a symbiosis must be met to create harmony. Vertical House records knew the assignment.
Here is a little about them from their website:
“Vertical House Records is a husband/wife owned and operated record shop in the beautiful Rocket City, USA (Huntsville, Alabama). Our doors opened in 2007 at Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment. After several “upgrades” in spaces, we have settled down outside in Railroad Room #9 (located off the south side of the dock at Lowe Mill).
Currently we have over 25,000 new and pre-loved records awaiting for your fingers to flip through them. Our inventory includes LP’s, 45’s, 78’s, cassettes, CD’s, turntables, stereo equipment and more! We also buy, sell and trade, so get in touch if interested!
Along with slinging wax, we also host shows! We are lucky enough to have some of our favorite bands, including: Greg Cartwright, Wreckless Eric, Ty Segall, Pujol, Dent May, Strange Boys, Natural Child, Bad Sports, Kepi Ghoulie, Peach Kelli Pop, Sugar Stems, Jaill, Shannon & The Clams, Davila 666, Juiceboxxx, and more. Keep an eye out for upcoming show announcements here and on our Facebook page!”
Andy and Ashley Vaughn are those owners of Vertical House Records. However, they were not in that location for this year’s event. They had moved around the corner to Studio #150 (temporarily), but still located in the Lowe Mills Art & Entertainment complex. There is so much fascinating and rich history about the massive brick structure that Vertical House sits in, that I will include a link here, but I’ll cut it down for this article.
Here is “some” info from the LMAE page:
Lowe Mill was built in 1900 by New England native Arthur Lowe, who wanted to bring the cotton mills to the cotton. Until then, cotton was picked in the South and shipped to the North where the giant mills made textile products into everyday products. Lowe sought investors to build a textile mill just outside of Huntsville, Alabama.
City leaders decided in the 1880s that Huntsville should have its own textile mills. That way, instead of sending Madison County’s cotton to other cities, local textile mills with local workers could turn Madison County’s cotton into woven cloth. City leaders visited mill owners and investors in the North and asked them to open factories in Huntsville.
The Huntsville Cotton Mill Company, the first cotton mill Huntsville, opened in 1880 financed by Northern investors. Between 1892 and 1900, Huntsville gained three more cotton mills; Dallas Manufacturing Company, West Huntsville Cotton Mills Company and Merrimack Manufacturing Company.
1900 – 1945 The Textile Era, From Cotton To Cloth
At the turn of the century, in 1900, Arthur H. Lowe, president of the New England Manufactures’ Association, arrived in Huntsville. Lowe planned arrangements for the incorporation of Lowe Manufacturing Company and the construction of Huntsville’s fifth mill but left abruptly. It was Pratt, in 1900, who incorporated Lowe Manufacturing Company. Soon after Pratt and O’Shaughnessy agreed to terms for the construction of Lowe Mill – the fifth cotton mill in Huntsville. On August 14, 1900, T.W. Pratt telegraphed to a local mill investor J.R. Boyd, “Have closed Lowe Matter. Will deed at once. Work to commence at once T.W. Pratt.” On Sept 8, 1900 The Lowe Manufacturing Company papers were filed in Madison County, Ala. probate court.
Lowe Mill opened for textile production in 1901. D.C. Finney was put in charge acting as agent for Arthur Lowe. The company provided housing for mill workers, whose job was to spin local cotton into fibers and yarn for the textile industry. The following year, Eastern Manufacturing Company completed a weaving mill on the adjacent property. This new enterprise utilized the output from Lowe Mill to produce high-grade clothes and linens. Its 25,000 spindles help turn locally grown cotton into high-grade gingham and cloth for shirts. At the same time, Tracy Pratt, a Minnesota-born banker turned mill investor, started building a village for the factory workers. Supervisors and skilled laborers get the nicest houses.
In 1903, Lowe Mill absorbed Eastern Manufacturing Company and in 1904 the North building was constructed and connected to the earlier portion which is currently called ‘The Connector’. In 1909, Arthur Lowe sold his interest in the plant to Columbia University astronomy professor Charles Poor, the first of many New Yorkers who would figure in the factory’s future.
In October 1929. the U.S. stock market collapsed triggering the Great Depression. Three years later, on Dec. 1, 1932, Lowe Manufacturing Co. declared bankruptcy at the height of the depression.
The sounds of the textile mill started up again on January 13, 1933 with a new name, Lowe Mills Inc., and new leadership. Donald Comer, head of Birmingham’s Avondale Mills, was majority owner, holding 285 of the 300 available stock shares.
1978 – 1999: Dark Days for Local Textile Mills
The following years were dark days for Huntsville’s old mill buildings.
In February 1980, Lincoln Mills oldest two mills built in 1924, along Oakwood Avenue, were destroyed by fire. One of Huntsville’s largest fires destroyed most of the Huntsville Industrial Center (formerly The Lincoln Mill Complex).
On July 24, 1991 Dallas Mill was destroyed by a fire. Law enforcement sources told The Huntsville Times that a state prison parolee charged with setting fire to two Huntsville homes in 1990 claimed to have set the mill fire with gasoline. The fire burned for three days.
Merrimack Mill (Huntsville Mfg. Co.) shut down in1989 and the two mills were demolished in 1992, and the land today is Brahan Spring Park.
And finally, in 1995 J.C. Brown General Merchandise, a general store which had been the heartbeat of the mill village and a part of the everyday lives of the Lintheads, closes. The neighborhood store was founded by Jesse Charles Brown, a native of Falls Mill, Tennessee. The general store, opened in 1898 as J.C. Brown General Merchandise was a hub for economic and social activity on west Huntsville where business was thriving with the development of the textile mills, including Lowe Mill.
The Huntsville textile industry, much like the southern textile industry as a whole, began slowly, accelerated suddenly, and reached its peak almost as quickly. After the climax, local and southern textile industries, if not on the decline, maintained the status quo. Cotton mills did not pay high salaries, end monocrop agriculture, or diversify industry. They perpetuated poor wages, dependence on cotton, and reliance on one industry–textile manufacturing. Yet mills remained a fixture in the city, fueling the local economy, employment, and population for decades. They were also a part of the southern textile industry, which, despite an array of problems, managed to dominate the national market.
Moreover, the mills, while not stellar employers, did in many ways better the lives of their workers. Providing houses, churches, and schools, mills gave villagers “town life,” an alternative to sharecropping and tenant farming.
By the time the last mill shut its doors, the Redstone Arsenal and the Marshall Space Flight Center, not textiles, had long since become Huntsville’s major economic forces. The age of textile mills had ended decades before, but its rich legacy of enterprise and endurance remained. Had the chemical and ordnance plants and von Braun’s rocket team not arrived, Huntsville, without its many textile mills, would probably have reverted to its preindustrial roots.In 1999, Huntsville commercial real estate agent Gene McLain buys the decaying mill.
2001 – Present: A New Life, A New Look
In 2001, Jim Hudson, the founder of HudsonAlpha and Research Genetics, purchased Lowe Mill at the corner of Seminole Drive and 9th Avenue and had a dream for what had been Huntsville’s first suburb.
Hudson’s dream was an arts center where photographers, sculptors, painters and potters can live and work. If he gets his way, the project will also include shops, music, a culinary school and space for quirky exhibits – even homemade robots. Hudson worked with Huntsville’s artists and creative communities to build a space where the public could interact with visual artists.
In 2006 Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment is founded and began transitioning from the organic, homemade look of the second floor to the more finished look you see today on the other floors. The transition took time and happened floor by floor as more artists and makers joined Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment. But what inspired entrepreneur Jim Hudson to create Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment, an artist’s collective in a century-old textile mill?
It was a chance visit to the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia.
Jim Hudson was in Arlington, Virginia for a medical exam. “There was a beautiful piece of fabric art in the in the lobby of the hospital. The art piece was ten-foot square and it was quite striking 3D sort of a fabric sculpture and I asked the lady there do you know who made it? They said that they had bought it from this place called the Torpedo Factory.” And so the next time Jim got a day pass he checked out of the hospital and went to the Torpedo Factory.
Soon after Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment began to open it’s studios, Concert on the Docks Series began on June 9, 2007. The first concert on the Dock, organized by Matt Crunk, was the Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza. The concert featured Huntsville’s own Microwave Dave as well as others including Ben Prestridge, Johnny Lowebow, Gerry Thompson, Shane Speal, Timothy Renner, David Williams, Bluebook Jag, Leaving Miss Blue, Low Country Messiahs, Doctor Oakroot, and Buckeye. The bands played until 3:00 a.m.
Starting in 2008, the expansion of studios in the century-old textile mill began in earnest with more floors opening almost every year. First, the studios on the second-floor connector (the building joining the South facility to the North) opened for business. Then in 2009, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment opened its 17,000 square feet of third-floor studios, adding 27 new art studios.
Visitors will find every area of visual art from drawing and painting to textiles to jewelry, pottery, and more. While here, guests can indulge in the culinary arts with options like crepes, specialty sandwiches, vegetarian fare, macaroons and pizza, as well as coffee, tea, and whiskey. Lowe Mill A&E is host to a variety of entertainment options from kid friendly events, Concerts on the Dock, cult films and date night options like swing dance, couples workshops, and comedy shows.
We invite the public to enter studios by following our open door policy— if the door is open just walk in to explore Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment studio by studio.”
Yeah, that’s a lot, but also necessary to paint a picture. The bottom line is that this repurposed building is so breathtakingly brilliant and lovely it’s a standing tribute to those early U.S. laborers and acts as a museum of Americana, yet has transitioned to a modern space where creatives come to share their talents. Sorry, to get sidetracked, but I felt a backdrop needed to be placed. Back to the vinyl part.
Never visiting this particular spot for Record Store Day I was unsure of how early to get to the location. Vertical House was opening at noon, but how early would the wax pickers be lined up at their door? I have seen lines in both Seattle and Nashville go for hundreds of people -and hours upon hours of waiting time being created across lots, streets and around buildings. The function of letting people in is also usually a mystery. I have found myself slammed into a shop before as they just open the doors, and we all try to find space. Nothing too violent but the occasional shove, elbow and lack of spatial awareness was evident a few times.
However, in the last 5 years I have seen a pattern which is much more agreeable. That is, just letting a few people in at a time. VHR was adhering to that format which I absolutely love. I read this on their Instagram and knew that we were going to be the right fit for each other:
“Upon opening we will be letting in the first 5-10 people in line and that will continue as long as necessary. This is a great day to do some holiday shopping and support local! Lowe Mill is home to so many talented and fabulous folks – there’s something for everyone! Please be nice to your fellow shoppers! This is a fun event for music lovers and is all about celebrating music and indie record shops! Thank you for the continued support over all of the years! We “heart” you #Huntsville!”
So, I arrived at 8am, 4 hours before opening, and found myself locked out of the parking lot. What I failed to realize was that the building is gated. I was the fifth car to pulled up to the gate and I was okay with all of it because the temperature outside was 32 degrees and the car was a music better place to be. I cranked up the heat and the Black Sabbath and awaited the gatekeeper who appeared around an hour later. The metallic slotted door rolled to its right and the race was on. What I failed to realize was that one on the cars was packed with about 6 teenagers who all knew the route to the particular door better that I. They were younger, faster and more organized. I ended up being 13th in line (my mom’s favorite number) which isn’t bad. Three hours to now brave the elements.
As I unfolded my chair and cracked open a Monster Energy Drink, I realized that one of the teenagers was wearing a Billie Eilish sweatshirt. Billie had a release dropping for RSD and the store only had 3-5 copies, so I knew quickly to scratch this one of my list. The sun appeared brightly in the sky but we were covered by shadows which did not allow for any warmth to be had. Time ticked away as we engaged in some conversation, looked at our devices and bobbed our noggins to our favorite tracks. We watched as more and more people entered the line and we were happy that we were not them.
Maybe 75-100 people stood at my back when that faithful door opened, and we were greeted with a smile from the wife of the team. Ashley allowed 5 in at a time as promised, so I was in the 3rd grouping to enter. She also politely explained where all the RSD releases were located in the store so that we wouldn’t get lost in the thousands of other wax copies before us. Vertical House Records did a fantastic job of laying out the sought after records on three endcaps which faced the registers allowing the Andy, the husband of the duo, to answer any questions yet also ring up the patrons as they were ready. They worked as a highly effective couple and you could tell they were living their dream.
So nice and so friendly is such an understatement for these two phenomenal people. Also, the shoppers themselves were courteous and kind. Even if they reached across you to grab something that caught their eye they apologized. I am okay with that, especially if I am slow. Billie Eilish was indeed gone, as well as Kasey Musgraves, but I did find everything else that I knew was there. I got the U2 record, The Doors “Live in Detroit” from 1970, Garbage “Copy and Paste”, Cypress Hill “Live from Nuremberg 1999”, Pearl Jam’s new live singles and a release of Helmet’s “Betty” that features some new tracks that previously hit the cutting room floor. You can read a breakdown of some of these drops in my former article.
If you’re ever in the Huntsville area stop by Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment and help support all things local and if you are into vinyl you MUST stop by Vertical House Records. My experience was an impeccable five-star one and I highly recommend.
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