Steve Brown

Home … Worcester

Job … Owner of Jelly’s music store. I’ve been selling CDs, DVDs, vinyl and VHS since 2001.

Passion … Music, of course. My other passion is reading. I just finished The Trillion Dollar Meltdown about this whole economic disaster. Now I’m about half way through the autobiography of David Dellinger, an anti-war pacifist who was part of the Chicago Seven.

Pet Peeve … Warm coffee and soft apples.

If I could change one thing … It would for people to get more involved. I think it’s happing with this election. People vote for something, not just against it. But they’ve got to keep track of who they elected. Don’t just assume they’re going to do what they promised. I’m from the ’60s, I don’t trust any of them.

The most popular music moving off the shelves is … Classic rock, followed closely by punk, metal, hip hop and rap. We also sell lots of jazz, R&B and progressive music. A lot of people come here looking for blues.

Do you notice increased interest in used items when economic times are tough? There’s more interest in used items, but that was true when CDs went to $18.99 as the retail price. But yeah, people are more willing to wait for something to come into our store.

The magic of vinyl is … That it’s like a cultural musical history. If you go back and look at the artwork, it shows us what we went through in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. It’s a nostalgic thing for a lot of people, connecting with something that’s gone. Now music is more produced, so slick; it was much simpler when you’re talking about analog versus digital. Some grew up with it and don’t want to change, but other young kids like the idea of vinyl, too. It’s the difference between a tool person and a non-tool person: playing a record is much more involved than CD; you’ve got to take care of it, turn it over when one side is done. There’s some work to it. A CD, you pop it in and forget about it.

A store like Jelly’s is essential in a city like Worcester because … Music is our main business. We’re not like a best buy, which will have great prices that first week [of a release], but after that they’ll have no selection. We special order for people. We reach out and sponsor some music programs on WICN. And we carry a lot of local music. If you’ve got a CD, you come in, fill out a form about what you’re putting in the store, and we try to carry any and all music.

Is there still a market for VHS? Oh yeah. It’s because you can still get the machines. When they take away the machines, it will be done, like laser disc.

The best advice I’ve received recently is… You gotta know your limitations.

If I was shipwrecked with nothing but a working CD player, the handful of CDs I’d want to have with me … John Coltrane, A Love Supreme; Miles Davis, Kind of Blue; Soft Machine, Third; Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath; AC/DC, Back in Black; Pete Seeger, Greatest Hits; Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate; Patti Smith, Horses; Bruce Cockburn, The Trouble with Normal; Anti-Flag, Blood and Empire. o