by Joey Mejia
If there is anything consistent about the music industry, it's that it is completely unpredictable. Not only do the tides of trends and genres ebb and flow, but also laws, practices, resources, business, and even the entire industry itself. With the recent fall of lala.com, we have been forced to consider life without the beloved resource. However, in the middle of this unstable current, Todd Clifford navigates these uncharted waters with ease, seeing each new change in wind as an opportunity rather than a loss.
Todd Clifford’s journey into the world of music started where it did for a lot of us before the digital revolution: Columbia House. (You remember the club where you paid a penny and got 15 cassettes… and inextricably placed yourself on their mailing list for good or ill. The point is, it was a good way to find new music.) It was through Columbia House that Todd had his first exposure to music.
Todd recounts his album picks from elementary school and junior high, "I was really big into oldies like Bill Haley. And then I randomly got into hip-hop. In junior high there was no one else I knew who liked hip-hop. I looked back on it years later and realized that I was listening to some really good hip-hop. And I have no idea how, because I don’t know where I got it. I had Eric B. & Rakim and all the first Public Enemy tapes.”
Clifford continued collecting music all through college. Toward the end of college, he became the Music Director for UNLV's radio station. “That really turned the corner for me,” Todd says. “It opened me up to all sorts of other music that I wasn’t aware of. I started with 40 CDs and ended the semester with 300 CDs. Cut to a couple years later, and I had 8,000 CDs. Every band I heard would lead me to some other band, and it went ugly from there. Then I started collecting vinyl, and it got really out of hand."
After a job with Reprise Records and a record promotions company, Todd opened his own store, Sea Level Records. This was back in 2001, just a few days after the grand opening of Amoeba records. "We actually tried to open the same day [as Amoeba], but we were missing a permit.” They had to delay their official grand opening. But they held a party anyway on the same day Amoeba opened. “There was a newspaper article that had a picture of Amoeba opening with the line around the block, and then it had a picture of me and my business partner, in the store sitting in front of empty record racks." But having a behemoth rival in Amoeba ultimately didn't have much of an effect on the underdog. After officially opening, Todd’s Sea Level had so much press that the L.A. Times unofficially put a hold on any mention of the store and Todd.
Since the rise of the digital download, many questions have arisen about the future of the physical album. Is the end of the physical record in sight? "I don’t think so," Todd said. He then gave us an example of why he was so confident. "I had to pick up some headphones the other day at Best Buy. When I was there, the new LCD Sound System and the new Black Keys albums were both on sale for $8 bucks. I picked them up.” You can see his point. When you browse through websites for music—or any other item for that matter—you’re really only seeing a very small portion of the store. It’s like walking through a pitch-black store, with a spotlight on only select items. “I am a record collecting nerd. I have thousands of vinyl and CDs, but I like that physical part of it. I know that a passive music fan is not going to do that; you can’t argue with wanting to listen to something and then two clicks later you’re listening to it." We may not be as intense as Todd, but when it comes down to it, the convenience of the one-click album doesn’t always win.
Despite the overall decline of the record industry, Sea Level maintained a healthy increase in record sales every year since it opened in 2001. It was both the increased interest in vinyl as well as the store's notoriety that really defied the ubiquitous decline elsewhere.
Regardless of the store's strong sales, Todd closed Sea Level’s doors on May 30th, 2007. It was the call of the open road and the freedom from the confines of the store that did it: He had taken a vacation, accompanying Silversun Pickups on a short tour on the east coast, and when he returned to the store, Todd realized that it was time for a change. You might say he was tired of being stuck on the beaches of the industry, selling records. He needed to be out on the ocean, sailing the seas with a living crew. Only a short while after putting word out that he was looking for a tour management position, Todd landed a job managing Herman Dune, with whom he still manages.
Working six or seven days a week for five and a half years in one place certainly affected Todd’s love for owning a business, but it didn't deter his love for the music. Out on the road, with his crew, Todd’s appetite for music is as voracious as ever. "I'm still buying records; I just bought three records this week,” he says. “When I'm on a tour and we get to stop at a record store, I still get all excited to go buy records. That would have been awful if, after I had given up the store, I didn't like music anymore.”
Former Sea Level Records owner surveys the current music industry landscape and recounts his journey through the treacherous terrain therein. From early years in college radio management to owning one of the nations most notable independent record stores to living life on the road, Todd sheds light on the ever-evolving music industry.
