With the rise in vinyl record sales over the last few years, Funk ‘n Waffles instituted Bring Your Own Vinyl nights every Thursday to capitalize on the trend.

“We teach everyone how to do it themselves. I’ve done it, and it’s not that hard, but there’s definitely some skill involved,” said Pat Tierney, a Funk ‘n Waffles employee.

At some point this past February, Tierney decided to add new, free, weekly events to Funk ‘n Waffles’ already popular array of acts. After starting Comedy Nights every Tuesday, Tierney was once again searching for a weekly event, this time for Thursdays. That’s when Kinyon Brinson approached Tierney and inquired about the possibility of an open-turntable night.

The event is set up to be an informal sharing of knowledge and music. People can come and learn a thing or two about turntables, or, if they prefer, just listen and share music.

“I just recently found two big boxes of vinyl in the back of Funk ‘n Waffles, so last week I brought those out,” Tierney said. “There’s always a bunch of vinyl around, if you don’t have any of your own. You can come and learn how to be a DJ.”

With everything going digital in today’s world of music, queuing songs has never been easier. Vinyl, however, requires a subtler touch. In order to get the desired song, the needle must be placed on a certain part of the record.

Vinyl has seen a recent surge in the past few years, as members of the younger generation yearn for the nostalgia of playing vinyl tracks. Vinyl sales went into a steep decline during the 1980s, almost entirely due to the rise of the Compact Disks, or CDs. Vinyl sales have gone up consistently each year over the past three years with an 18 percent increase in 2012, followed by 32 percent and 51 percent rises in 2013 and 2014, respectively, according to Forbes.com.

This apparent Vinyl resurgence is somewhat deceptive, given that vinyl sales for the past two decades have been negligible. At the peak of vinyl sales in 1977, there were close to 500 million vinyl units sold, whereas in 2014, the current peak of the resurgence, that number was closer to around 5 million, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

“I had a bunch of what I would call hipster friends in college, and they had huge record collections. I would go with them to old thrift stores to see if we could find old vinyl, and things like that,” Tierney said. “When you think of vinyl record players, you think of something really old, or a wooden box. Something you would see on ‘That 70’s Show.’”

Despite the popularity of Funk ‘n Waffles staples such as Open Mic Night and Tierney’s own Comedy Night, Bring Your Own Vinyl has yet to reach a consistent student audience. The event was never able to catch on with students last semester when it was instituted, and with no one around campus in the summer, Funk ‘n Waffles is essentially a “ghost town,” Tierney said.

“We had pretty consistent attendance, because when the students were gone, it didn’t really affect vinyl night too much. It was more like the old people coming to it,” Tierney said. “I would love to get the students excited about it.”

The event offers a sharp contrast from the other free events that Funk ‘n Waffles offers. As Tierney tells it, Comedy and Open Mic Night are very wide-open settings, with patrons spread out around the restaurant listening to the acts. Vinyl night is a much more intimate scene, as people sit around the turntables sharing and discussing music.

Published on September 23, 2015 at 7:58 pm

Contact Joe: jpleonar@syr.edu