Austin's Waterloo Records celebrates 40th anniversary

Waterloo Records rang in its anniversary with performances from Ray Wylie Hubbard and Heartless Bastards. Such events were halted since March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A symbol of Austin celebrated 40 years in business on Friday with its first in-store show in more than two years.

Waterloo Records rang in its anniversary with performances from Ray Wylie Hubbard and Heartless Bastards. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the store to halt such events since March 2020. Both performances had a limited capacity, and masks were required.

John T. Kunz, owner and president of Waterloo Records, said he started at the business three months into its initial opening in 1982. Back then, the record store was actually housed two-thirds of a mile further south on Lamar Boulevard from the location where it stands today, according to the store's website.

"It's so good to be able to be taking baby steps back to normalcy, and being able to have a couple of live audience, in-store performances in the store after over two years of not doing that when we normally would do it one or two times a week. It feels really great," Kunz said.

He said Austin's "incredibly vibrant" music community is reflected on store shelves, and that's what makes Waterloo special.

"All of the CDs and LPs and videos and everything else that we sell is a great documentation of that. From the greatest music from around to corner, to all the great music from around the world," he said.

Waterloo has seen the rise of online music streaming platforms, and Kunz said it was tough for a while. But since then, he said there's been a vinyl resurgence, and now it represents 85 to 90% of all of their business.

"The fact that the younger generation has decided that they actually wanted to own physical music has been a game changer as far as all that goes," he said.

Nathan Tape, a longtime Waterloo Records customer, said he first visited the store about 20 years ago when he was in town for South by Southwest. Now, he visits Waterloo every time he comes to Austin.

He said the store's curated selections have kept him coming back and added they've done a good job at keeping up with the times over the years.

"They have really quality stuff ... a lot of hard-to-find, esoteric kind of stuff," Tape said.

Kunz had a message for customers like Tape, who've stuck with them all this time.

"For 40 years we've been saying 'thanks' [to our customers], and I hope we get to say 'thanks' for many more decades to come," Kunz said. "Keep letting music be an important part of your life."

The store is having a sale on 40 different titles from the past and present selected by staff to celebrate 40 years. Kunz said they hope to get back to regular in-store performances soon.

"There's something obviously about music that is in a part of our brain and in a part of our body that I don't think most people really realize how important it is," Kunz said. "The people that do realize it, they're coming here."