Meet Karen Comer the co-owner of Bop City Records in Courtenay, BC, Canada. Bop City is a shop for 'great tunes, from great people, featuring new and used CDs, cassettes and records'! Karen's role is everything from appraising, purchasing, and bookkeeping to social media and customer service.

When not working she's walking her dog Kalypso, or hanging out in the backyard with her cat Kwela, she can be found making soap – from Faith No Mocha and Hall & Oatmeal to Mintnight Oil and Cinnamen At Work. "In fact, one Record Store Day, the first person to run into the shop didn’t even know it was RSD and was looking for some of my Brian Neemo soap!"

How did you get into your industry / What motivated you?

My partner has been a vinyl collector for years so when we decided to move to Courtenay in 2016 and found the local record store for sale we jumped at it.

What is a day in the life like?

I wake up early and fight the urge to blast high energy 80’s pop music out of respect for my sleeping partner and put on some quiet UK folk music on Topic Records instead. After breakfast, I walk my dog and my partner down to the shop where we wash and appraise some collections while helping customers who inquire about albums such as “smuggling Sandra down the boulevard” (turns out we did have Robert Palmer’s Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley in stock), the B two fifties’ Cosmic Thing, and De-pet-chee Mode’s Violator.

Then it’s lunch so I walk my dog home for a break. In the afternoon I come back to more inquiries and just when I think I know it all a customer comes in and says something like “Do you have Leaf-Cutter Bees?”. I scramble trying to find what they’re looking for but come up with nothing: “No, but I could likely order them for you”. She points at a bee coming in the door, lol. I retreat to the backroom to do some bookkeeping and before you know it the work day is over!

Favorite sale / relationship made from behind the counter?

I love the Canadian 80’s pop singer Luba and my partner can’t understand why so when a professional fado singer and teacher came in looking for one of her favourite singers, Luba, I couldn’t contain my excitement!

In your opinion what has been the coolest thing to come through your shop / thing you had to keep / almost couldn't put out for sale:

Some of my all-time favourite finds at Bop City Records have been: Dennis Sindrey’s The Pill (an old Calypso record), Kwela with Lenny (and other penny whistlers), Soweto Never Sleeps (classic female Zulu jive), Zimbabwe Frontline (I love the Earthworks label), King Caribe and his Steel Bandits’ Calypso (likely the first Canadian Calypso record ever released).

What has been / is the most difficult part of your job?

The most difficult part of my job is probably staying on top of the amount of vinyl that comes in the shop and keeping it organized (and I love it).

What has been the craziest experience that has happened at the shop?*

It might not be the craziest experience but it was pretty funny when we had a customer sheepishly return a new vinyl pressing of Deep Purples’ Machine Head because “the right channel should be 2 dB louder”.

What advice do you have for someone wanting to get into pursuing what you're doing?  

Haunt your local record store!

If you love vinyl and are interested in pursuing a career in the industry: start small by doing things like volunteering at your local community radio station or music festival. Get a table at your local record fair! Haunt your local record store! I volunteered at my local record store while in university. There are lots of things you can do to get started.

What types of things are happening in your industry / with vinyl that you're excited or worried about?  i.e. innovation, or trends you're seeing.

I am very excited about injection molded PET plastic records and vinyl records made out of bioplastics. Traditional vinyl records are made of polyvinyl chloride which is not environmentally friendly in the least. PET plastic and bioplastic vinyl in contrast is more sustainable and less energy intensive.

Are you a vinyl collector yourself?  What drew you to it?

I collect all kinds of formats of music but especially love all of the old calypso records that have only been pressed on vinyl. One day I hope to start a label to rerelease some of my favourite calypso records. If anyone has any pointers on how to get started, feel free to pass them along!

Who has been influential to you and your growth as a professional in this industry?

My partner, Kip, has been my biggest influence because he’s been dealing with vinyl since he was a teenager.

Anything else you’d like to add: 

The coolest part of my job is the re-using, re-purposing, re-homing, recycling aspect. I love saving things from the landfill and seeing their lifespan extended. We are even making our own stain for our shelving units out of old shellac 78s. It has been really cool to see the change in our customer demographic. Eight years ago, the vast majority of our customers were older, white men and now our demographic more closely resembles the general population in both gender and ethnicity.