Record Store Day is a little different at 11th Street Records this year

Even before it began doing business downtown at 1023 Fremont St., the story of 11th Street Records has been immersed in several instances of intriguing irony.

Take, for instance, the day that the store opened, April 18, 2015, Record Store Day. A biannual event, Record Store Day was invented nearly a decade ago by the Department of Record Stores as an innovative, inclusive event for independent retailers across the country, essentially celebrating their existence.

So, yeah, Record Store Day: What better day is there for a new record store to open its doors? That was Ronald Corso’s thinking anyhow when he first began fashioning plans to launch his retail outlet and earmarked that day to host his grand opening.

When that third Saturday in April rolled around, however, 11th Street Records wasn’t officially allowed to participate, the store’s owner remembers. “The thing was, they’re so strict on their certification that we weren’t a participating store,” Corso explains. “We didn’t have any of the special releases or any of that kind of stuff.

“I was going back and forth with them,” Corso continues. “I was like, ‘Listen, we’re everything Record Store Day was founded to promote. We’re an independent vinyl record store. We’re having our grand opening on Record Store Day.’ And they were like, ‘Sorry, in order to have been certified in time to open on Record Store Day, you would’ve had to have been open by February.’ I’m like, well, it’s like ‘Catch-22,’ right? Like you can only see Major Major when he’s not in.”

Things are dramatically different this year. Not only is 11th Street part of the proceedings this time around — the store received its official blessing back in November in time for Black Friday — but it has its name on an official commemorative release that will be in stores across the country Saturday, a nine-song release from Anti-Flag called “Live Acoustic at Eleventh Street Records.”

The album, released on Record Store Day this past November and available only digitally until now, was recorded at National Southwestern Recordings, the studio set up in the back of the record store, during Punk Rock Bowling last May. The studio — which, as Corso points out, is made possible by the record store — has become a big part of the local scene, from hosting all-ages shows to giving bands a place to record at an affordable rate.

Before his wife convinced him to pursue his passion and open a record store, Corso was sitting behind a mixing desk at his home studio, recording local bands and releasing music on his own digital label. He was making money otherwise on various side jobs with the studio, he says, like pitching in on radio production and helping folks digitize their music collections, making MP3s from their vinyl.

“I had done the recording thing for a long time, and I took a step back from the music scene at a certain point — I think it was around 2011 or something like that — and I was kind of at a ‘What’s next?’ moment in my life,” recalls Corso, who moved to Las Vegas from Michigan in the mid-’90s. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I was buying records all the time, and my wife just piped up one day and said, ‘Maybe what you should do is open a vinyl shop. You’re passionate about it. It’s what you like.’ So really, it was her suggestion.”

Energized by her encouragement, Corso bought “Business Plans for Dummies” at Borders and started building up his inventory organically, buying other people’s record collections in bulk. “I used it and I wrote a business plan up and just started buying records,” he recalls. “Back then, you could get them for a lot less than you can get them now. I bought collections. I’d go to garage sales, answer Craigslist ads for people selling records, I’d place Craigslist ads for people selling records. I’d buy them from family.”

By the time he was ready to open a store, Corso had two storage sheds full of records and he had already started scouting potential places to set up shop. Right around that time, he recalls, Ashton Allen from the Downtown Project reached out, and “ironically,” Corso notes, “that happened because of the recording stuff.” Allen, tasked with overseeing music for the local organization, was looking to learn more about the Las Vegas scene, and his initiative led him to Corso.

At that point, the studio owner had helped a list of local acts including Twin Brother, A Crowd of Small Adventures, Hungry Cloud and Holding Onto Sound release their music digitally. Those efforts led Allen to Corso, at which point he asked him out for a drink. That’s when Allen first proposed the prospect of starting a studio.

“He said, ‘Hey, do you want to build a studio?” Corso recalls. “I’m like, ‘No, I just quit doing that, but I’m in the process of opening up a record store.’ And he was like, ‘A record store? Really?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, vinyl’s coming back.’ So basically, I was like, ‘I’m interested in doing that.’

“And he pushed me into thinking about the concept of putting the recording studio behind the record store,” Corso goes on. “The more I started to think about it, the more I realized that that’s kind of the only way that a recording studio could work, because it’s difficult to make a living doing that.”

You could say the same of making it in the retail business. But combined, and with the help of seed money from the Downtown Project, the two fraternal facilities have managed to make their own way and are going strong some 12 months later. It took about half that time to start turning a profit, Corso says, but that’s what he expected when he launched 11th Street Records.

“You kind of just have to know that you’re going to be losing some money for a period,” he says. “It’s never a good feeling, spending more money than you’re taking in, but it’s just like a courage thing: You have to believe enough in what you’re doing to make the investment, and hopefully some things work out. I think the first month I realized things were going to work out was probably the greatest moment, and it’s been consistently that way ever since.

“But there’s so many moments,” he adds, when asked what the biggest highlights of the past year have been. “I say that’s the best moment, only because it makes all of the other stuff possible. I just want to do this stuff. I mean, where I get to go to work everyday is amazing and the kind of stuff that I get to do. That’s really what it’s about. It’s about doing that stuff; it’s about putting on those shows and making those records and meeting people.”

And that’s the same sentiments that will send 11th Street Records forward into the foreseeable future, Corso says.

“Our first year shows so much potential that I just kind of want to build on it,” he says. “I want to do more of what we did. Really, the overarching thing of the studio is always the same — and I think this is true of anybody in that business: I just want to be a part of some great records being made. That’s really the key. I want to be a part of something great getting made.”

Releases, no doubt, like the Anti-Flag album, which can be bought on vinyl for the first time Saturday at 11th Street and Zia Records, locally, in addition to all the other official Record Store Day outlets across the country.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at dherrera@reviewjournal.com and follow @rjmusicdh on Twitter.