Hi Everyone,

This week I am thrilled to announce that we have a new addition to the Coalition of Independent Record Stores. We are proud to add Rust & Wax in West Palm Beach, Florida to our CIMS roster!

One thing that really stands out to me about our organization is that despite our stores being their own independent establishments, there is definitely a common thread that runs throughout our group. It is one of the reasons we don’t add stores very quickly. We like to really take the time to get to know the individuals behind the business and make sure that not only are they a good fit for CIMS, but that CIMS is also a good fit for their shop.

I have enjoyed getting to know Melanie and Jesse Feldman, owners of Rust & Wax, as we have gone through this process, and one of my favorite things is learning about how all of these amazing record stores got their start. I guess I am a sucker for a good origin story, and I have heard some great ones over the years.

As our newest member of CIMS, I thought it would be nice to share one of those exciting origin stories with you, in the words of Melanie and Jesse themselves.

So please read on and without further ado, please meet Rust and Wax!

Rust & Wax Record Shop in its current form was born in November of 2020, but our shop has been around in some capacity since 2014.

We started this as a weekend side hustle while both of us worked our full-time careers (Melanie in social media marketing, Jesse as an attorney). With this new venture, we found ourselves popping up at local indie markets across the state of Florida each weekend selling records and an assortment of vintage goods (hence the “Rust”). This path eventually led to us getting recruited to open a small record shop inside a local collective of makers called Elizabeth Ave Station (“The Station”) in West Palm Beach, FL.

Over a period of 2 1/2 years, our small record shop inside The Station kept growing in size, starting with only two bins of records and eventually growing to close to twenty bins. We held in-stores with Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, The Jacuzzi Boys, and more. And most importantly, we built an awesome community of fellow local music-lovers. Things were looking up. Then Covid hit, The Station (and our shop) closed, and we were forced to move all of our inventory into our house. We thought our record shop dream was dead.

In order to stay connected to our customers, we started hosting weekly live-stream sales over Instagram, all while continuing to work our full-time jobs from home during lockdown. It was during this time we both realized the world could end, or we could be gone in an instant, and we knew we didn’t want to go out as anything but record shop owners. So we made the decision to quit the careers that we hated and go all in on the record shop.

We leased a new standalone space in the same neighborhood as our old home at The Station and, in November of 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, we opened our doors for the first time.

This November will mark three years of our shop being open. In those three years, we’ve held an in-store with the Scone Cash Players, several incredible Record Store Day events, many amazing listening parties, and thankfully have watched as our local vinyl community has continued to grow and flourish.

We are grateful to be West Palm Beach’s friendly neighborhood record shop. We are also grateful, and consider ourselves very lucky, to be joining CIMS and the incredible group of stores in the coalition.

Here are the charts for the week.
Andrea

Andrea Paschal
Executive Director
Coalition of Independent Music Stores
ThinkIndie Distribution
3738 4th Terrace North
Birmingham, AL 35222
Phone: 205.595.1932 x.208
Fax: 205.595.1938
Email : andrea@cimsmusic.com
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