In 2025, Bull City Records is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The shop was opened in 2005 by a fresh-to-town Chaz Martenstein. Martenstein grew up north of the Triangle in Richmond, Virginia and spent some time in Boulder, Colorado, working at Bart's CD Cellar, before settling down in Durham after his wife moved down to start a business with her sister.
"I had a record store job in Boulder and never thought I'd like Durham, but once I came to visit I thought there was something very magnetic about it. There was plenty of stuff going on, but it also felt like a blank canvas with lots of possibilities."
Since opening Bull City Records he has seen the record store landscape change quite a lot. He witnessed the decline of CD sales, the resurgence of vinyl sales, entered the age of streaming, and weathered both a recession and a lockdown. Through it all, he has kept the store going and turned it into a staple of the Triangle music community.
He's also spent that time defying the stereotype of the grumpy record store guy and established himself as one of the friendliest in the business.
"Take the stereotype of the snooty record store clerk, flip it completely on its head, and you have Chaz," said longtime customer Dave Schwentker. "I've shopped at a lot of record stores in a lot of cities over 40 or so years of music collecting, and I don't know that I've had a more memorable first-time-in-a-store experience than my first visit to the original Ninth Street location of Bull City Records."
"I creaked up the stairs and through a random door, wondering if I was in the right place, only to be greeted with a friendly smile and a, 'Welcome in, let me know if you're looking for anything in particular,'" Schwentker continued. "It's the kind of greeting I've now heard him give to many people over the years, every time I've been in the store, through three different locations now. It has never sounded anything but sincere. Listening to counter conversations while I shop, I often can't tell if Chaz is talking to someone he's known for a bit, or a relatively new customer."
Today, in its third location, Bull City Records is located at 124 E Main Street in downtown Durham. While the landscape has changed over the years, the store has learned to adapt but has remained largely the same.
I caught up with Martenstein as he was closing up shop recently to talk about the history of the Bull City Records and how Durham has changed since he first opened the shop.
Tell us more about the original location of Bull City Records.
It was on Perry Street, which is right off of Ninth Street. I was next door to Cosmic Cantina, so I ate a lot of burritos in those years. There was also Avid Video and a camera shop downstairs from us, so at the time it felt like your one-stop shop for dying media (laughs).
Do you know what that space was before you were there?
The owner of that space sadly isn't with us any more but he was this amazing old southern guy who used to love to come by and talk for hours. That space housed a printing press that his Dad ran.
Was he big into music?
No, not really, though he did love to tell me about all the shows he would sneak in to at The Armory when he was a kid. He had stories about seeing James Brown there and other people like that.
How long have you been at the current location?
Between the first location and the current one I spent about 10 years in a space off of Hillsborough Road. We've been in this location for about 3 years now and I like it a lot. It's nice being downtown. My wife used to have a bridal boutique in this space, and now she runs a flower business for weddings and events out of the basement here. She closed the boutique during COVID and was mulling over who to rent it to, and we both figured it would be a good move for the record store. It's pretty nice having a chandelier and an accent wall. Leftovers from the bridal boutique.
The current shop is right across the street from another established record store, Carolina Soul. How do you feel that affects business?
There's that thing they say about mattress stores and how they come in clusters, I feel like record stores can be the same way. Carolina Soul and I are different enough that I think we compliment each other. We have crossover on a few things, but generally they sell more used records and I sell more new records. You definitely see people going back and forth between the stores all day long. I even see people come in with a specific budget and they have to run across the street to Carolina Soul before they're ready to commit to what they're going to spend that day at my shop.
What genres would you say you specialize in?
Our biggest section is indie rock, but I also really love punk and garage so we have some of that, too. I love reggae and dub and try to keep that section small but well curated. Our hip hop section is small, too, and it's something I really want to grow because it does so well. I also love my jazz section. There are so many great re-issues out these days and we try to get in as many of those as we can.
You have an online shop in addition to the brick and mortar. Do you have regular online customers who aren't local?
Not really, but a lot of locals do like to shop online and pick up in the store. The webstore is just new stuff. I like that the used records aren't listed there because it incentivizes people to come and shop in person.
You've been in this world for over 20 years now. Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about starting their own store?
Oh man, I could write a book. I'll just say it's important to listen to your customers. Everybody that walks in the door is your friend, so listen to them and learn about what they want you to have in stock and they're going to support you. Those are the people paying your bills and your rent, so their opinions matter as much as yours do.
There's an old stereotype of record store employees being cranky, but you have the reputation of being one of the friendliest people around.
You know, I've dealt with that enough. I never wanted to be like that and then, again, starting a store in the era of MP3s and eventually streaming, the fact that someone is here and wants to spend money on music, it's such an honor. If you're not nice to people, then why would they ever come back?
Tell us about your Record of the Month club.
We're in our tenth year of that, which is crazy. Basically you pay a monthly subscription fee and I send you a record that I think you need to know. I started it as a way to bring the record store to friends who were too busy to go to the record stores. At the time, a lot of friends were starting to have kids and serious jobs, so they just couldn't make it by the store. So this kind of re-creates the experience of me turning them on to something cool if they were to come in. I also write a zine that goes with it every month with rants and quick reviews of other records that are brand new. It's nothing too brainy, but it's what I would be talking about at the store. This month I'm really excited to share the new record from one of my favorite local bands Personality Cult.
