It's not how I thought my store would end: Bop Street Records in Ballard

Dave Vorhees has run Bop Street Records for 41 years. But the pandemic has kept his customers away. Now he’s closing the shop forever.

The Internet Archive bought all 500,000 of his vinyl records.

We caught up with Vorhees on the sidewalk in front of his old store as movers carted his records onto a truck bound for San Francisco.

Voices of the Pandemic features people in the Seattle area on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak, in their own words.

You know, this is really all I've done since I was 24, or with my store since I was 29. And there's a certain routine you have when you get up in the morning. You go down and unlock the door and turn off the alarm and turn on the sign and then, just start playing some music and waiting for people to come in, you know?

Any plans that I had earlier, pre-coronavirus, you know, next two or three years… and all these large scale plans… I mean, that's just a different universe. That's not even a pipe dream. It’s just that universe doesn't exist anymore.

When I first heard what the Internet Archive wanted to do with my records, which is to digitize them, not to sell them, and make all the recorded sounds, whether it's speeches or music or whatever -- make it available free online, it was, “Hey, this couldn't have gone to a better place.”

I sort of see life through rose colored glasses. But I also have to accept the reality of this, the reality of what's going on. But it's not really the way I thought my store would end.

The right song for this moment

There's a song by the Blue Sky Boys called “Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone,” and it's a pretty cool song. It's the right song just because I am leaving the place that I've been familiar with and very appreciative of it. I mean, I love Ballard. It’s changed a lot, but this is where I live.

You walk down the street, and people just say “Hey Dave, Hey Dave.” But I think maybe when I leave, I will probably have the feeling of how much my store kind of defined myself, or how much of my own ego or personality was connected to the store and having a store.

And now it's gonna be weird to come down here early July and see this empty building.

I don't know what it's gonna be like. It might be like, “All right, I’m free of this. Free at last!” or it might be just, “Oh man…”

One thing I learned is how many people care about me. I mean, I knew that they did. But it was amazing, the overwhelming amount of love and support, and people just saying that they really miss the store, miss talking with me and being able to come in and hang out and learn more about music and that sort of thing.

And so like I said, on the other hand, I don't want to be negative because this is like a blessing, to have somebody who wanted to save all the inventory, digitize it, and help me clean out my store, you know, because it's a kind of an overwhelming. It's a Herculean endeavor.

Alec Cowan contributed music for this story.