Ellensburg, Wash. might be the last place that comes to mind when thinking of where to find that specific album on vinyl you’ve been looking for. You might go online, you might take a trip to a big city, maybe even give up entirely. But thanks to local entrepreneur, Mark Pickerel, you might not have to look very far at all.
“I started working record stores when I was a senior in high school,” Pickerel said. “I got hired at one of Ellensburg’s most infamous indie retailers, ACE Records, owned by Tim Nelson.” Nelson served as a mentor for Pickerel for many years, “He was an interesting guy with a really eclectic taste in music and an encyclopedic knowledge of music history,” Pickerel said. “He was a teacher to thousands of us but mentored a couple dozen of us who were lucky enough to work in his store.”
During this time, Pickerel was part of the local band “Screaming Trees.” With this band, Pickerel got to tour Europe during the “eve of the big explosion,” for what we now call Grunge. This era took place in the late 1980s, where they would share stages with household names such as Nirvana, Soundgarden and many others.
Before the explosion of grunge fully set-in with fans all around the world, Pickerel left “Screaming Trees” to pursue his own business endeavors by starting his own record store right here in Ellensburg. The record store he opened went by the name “Rodeo Records,” and used the space that is now “Dirk’s Pizza.”
“I needed a change in lifestyle,” Pickerel said, “and it was a really exciting time to do business in this county.” Rodeo Records offered a wide selection of the newest hits for the time and was “the first store to fully recognize or predict the success” of the “Hip Hop crossover to mainstream.” Pickerel’s knowledge of the music industry lent itself well to the Ellensburg music consumer. He even found a way to be the first record store in town to sell new releases by having a “midnight sale on the eve of the official release date.” Pickerel said “So we’d have lines, like, hundred kids deep. All these kids would come down from CWU and get in line at 10 p.m.”
Unfortunately, the digital age had made its way to Ellensburg, and in 2005, Rodeo Records closed their doors for good. “You could not have convinced me that I’d ever return to retail, because at that point, the writing was on the wall,” Pickerel said. Rodeo Records was certainly not the only record store to close its doors; vinyl was no longer cool. “It was, you know, astronomical, and even iconic stores like Tower Records were starting to close.”
“A few years later, I got a job as a buyer at Easy Street Records in Seattle, and I started noticing that more and more young people were starting to gravitate back to vinyl,” Pickerel said. “The other great thing about their enthusiasm and interest in records was that the whole snobby collector contingent of collectors seemed to disappear. Kids were just getting really turned on to the format and the ability to hold a 12 inch record in their hands and study the liner notes and graphics and all the cool extra information that came with that format.”
With the newfound love for vinyl with younger people, Pickerel decided to open shop back home in Ellensburg again with “Road Trip Records.” You can find Road Trip Records right here in town at Jerroll’s or in Yakima at the Bearded Monkey Cycling shop. “It’s really important to me to present a really diverse array of artists and genres. I challenge myself continually to find out about artists that might not normally cross my radar,” Pickerel said.
The Road Trip Records catalog at Jerroll’s has finds anywhere from The Cure to Doechii or anywhere outside or in between. This makes it an easy one-stop shop for all your vinyl needs or desires. Road Trip Records don’t just focus on vinyl either, if you’re looking for vintage clothing, they’ve got you covered with a wide array of Levi’s jeans and vintage tops. Pickerel has truly created a spot for any and all walks of life here in Ellensburg.
