EXCLUSIVE: Utica Native Chris Brown – The Man Behind ‘Record Store Day’ [VIDEO]

This week in 'On The Record With Cindy' we talk with the founder of Record Store Day, Chris Brown who is from Utica? 

Chris Brown graduated from Utica Free Acadamy in 1990, then went to college in Maine where he still lives today. In the 90's he found himself on the ground floor of Bull Moose, a music store which now has 12 locations throughout Maine and New Hampshire. "I had applied at several when I was in high school in Utica, but I couldn't get a job."

The inspiration for Record Store Day came to Brown 9 years ago when a lot of chain stores were closing but smaller, local stores were still doing well. "I just thought we need to wave that flag and celebrate it but it's really more of a customer appreciation event and it would be more fun if every store did it on the same day."

The first Record Store Day involved 500 stores in 2007. Today more than 2,300 stores take part worldwide, an accomplishment Brown says he didn't anticipate.  "I thought it would be a couple hundred stores in the U.S."

Brown may call Maine home but he'll always be a Utican at heart, the place that inspired him. "Record stores I shopped in growing up in the Mohawk Valley and Syracuse really influenced my idea of what a music store ought to be, and my memories of those stores is what influenced or inspired Record Store Days."

Record Realm on Court Street in Utica still holds fond memories for Brown. "It was the first record store I went to in 10th grade," he says. "Through Record Store I've been able to reconnect with my youth, standing in record stores and trying to look at every record in the store."

Record Store Day this year is Friday, April 15th.

NEXT: What Is Record Store Day?