OKOTOKS - Jaica Tipper is an old soul.
At just 18 years old, Tipper is immersed in a world largely populated by people many decades her senior, but their common bond — a love of vinyl — has a way of transcending those significant age gaps.
After graduating from high school a semester early, the then 17-year-old combined her love of business and ’80s music to open Tipper Records last May adjacent to her parents’ shop, The Hidden Gem, on Fisher Crescent in Okotoks.
“When I moved here there was nothing (in terms of record stores) here and that sucked, so I made my own and ever since then I've gained such a big following,” she says.
Being the proprietor of her own business fulfilled a long-held goal, but a confluence of circumstances earlier this year put her, quite literally, on a different road, although one that kept her firmly ensconced in vinyl culture.
With her parents closing up shop to focus on their Kensington location, Tipper shut the doors to her operation as well while simultaneously acquiring the Beatnik Bus, a mobile record store that has been a fixture in Calgary’s music scene since 2015.
She was reluctant to shutter the storefront she had opened nine months earlier, primarily because she knew she’d be pulling the rug out from under so many loyal customers she had developed in a short time.
“I feel terrible because they had this awesome thing going where they could go to the record store every week and then it just closed down,” she says.
But not all is lost as Tipper can still feed their vinyl appetites through the bus and a pop-up store in Kensington. In fact, going mobile has allowed her to reach even more of her people; in other words, those from her parents’ and grandparents’ generations.
She says customers are a little leery at first about a teenager working in a record store where the inventory is largely made up of albums that were pressed decades before she was born, but Tipper soon puts them at ease with her vast knowledge of the industry.
“When I tell them I own the store, they’re always pretty blown away by that but never in a bad way. The one that always sticks with me, and he’s now a good friend of mine, but the first time he came in, he said, ‘Aren't you a little bit young to work in a record store?’ and I said, ‘I think I'm a little bit young to own a record store.’
“I always joke that my best friends are 65-year-old men that have come into my life in the last year and they’re my best friends because they call me every week to find out what new records I’ve got. They're super into it, I'm super into it, so we kind of bond over that.”
It’s got to the point that Tipper says she feels more comfortable talking to older people than those her own age.
“My friends my age, I still love them, I still hang out with them, but they’re not into records.”
The Beatnik Bus, which boasts a turntable and seven speakers so something vintage is always spinning, came with about 15,000 records, although only a fraction of that inventory — about 1,000 albums — can be displayed at a time.
Tipper, who has plans to increase cabinet space to double the number of albums she can take on the road, says she has to be picky about what she puts on the bus each week, and tailors the offerings depending on where she's headed.
She’s been taking the bus all over the Calgary region but is operating it a little differently from the previous owners by allowing market organizers to book it for a day or more, which has been the driving force in setting a schedule. She visits music-centric venues as well as summertime favourites like the Inglewood Night Market and the Saskatoon Farm Night Market.
Where she’s likely to encounter serious collectors, she’ll stock the bus with hard-to-get, and often pricier, items, but a visit to a garden variety market will see it filled with $5 and $10 records.
“It's a lot of fun to drive the bus around and I’ve got a much broader reach than before (with Tipper Records),” she says. “I’m meeting new people, getting a bigger following and buying collections that I might not have gotten if I didn’t have the bus.”
She’s always looking to turn inventory over in order to bring in new stock, often offering deals like $2 albums or filling a box for a set price.
Using an industry-standard app to determine prices, Tipper buys collections, some that are 50 or 60 years old, but admits it’s been a learning curve to get where she is today. Unsure of the value of certain albums, she had hits and misses with purchases early on, but is now at the point where she knows the price of most albums off the top of her head without needing to consult the app.
And what is she looking for when buying collections? Well, nothing can compete with classic rock, which forms the bulk of her collection.
“When you think of records, you think of classic rock so it kind of goes hand in hand,” she says, adding she also buys country, pop and more to ensure a diverse inventory.
Tipper developed a love for older music courtesy of her dad Vic, who had tunes playing in the car and at home during her childhood, to the point that she was familiar with most of the songs of that era when she launched Tipper Records with a 400-album collection last spring.
The elder Tipper admits his taste in music has rubbed off.
“It’s so strange, I think she was meant to be born in the ’80s,” he says. “She knows more than me about ’80s stuff.”
Tipper wasn’t around during vinyl’s heyday and its subsequent demise with the advent of CDs, but she likes where it’s at today, saying although the fraternity got a lot smaller, it’s also become more loyal and close-knit. She points to record communities where people with shared interests meet socially and to trade albums, and says she encourages customers to make those connections.
“Obviously I wasn’t alive when all of this was going down, but it (vinyl) was very niche for a while there,” she says. “It’s still a niche thing, but it’s getting a lot bigger over the last few years specifically. Some people come into the bus and see it’s all records and they just turn around, so it’s still a niche thing.”
Although nostalgia might be fueling many who are embracing vinyl these days, the act of listening to a record, and the sound only a stereo system is able to produce, can prove intoxicating.
“It makes you have to really listen to the music. Really experiencing the music, that’s why a lot of people like it, because they experience it rather than just listening on your phone. It brings back such a good feeling, to sit down and listen to the music.”
So, what would Tipper put on her turntable? First choice would be The Stranger, Billy Joel’s 1977 breakout album that won two Grammy Awards and propelled the New Yorker to stardom.
“I really like the song Vienna,” she says. “There are a few lines in there I really love about a young person growing up.”
The lyrics are certainly apropos: Slow down, you crazy child, you're so ambitious for a juvenile...
Tipper hopes to open a brick-and-mortar store again, preferably in Okotoks, but in the meantime plans to keep the bus rolling.
“I don't know what’s going to come next,” she says. “I had no idea I'd have a bus a year ago.”