Setting The 'Record' Straight: An Interview With Happy Trails' Owner Doug DiCarolis

 CORVALLIS – Walking downtown Corvallis always has its charm, especially when stopping in on local businesses. Many stop to gaze at the historical Whiteside Theater, to buy a book in Grass Roots, or to try some decadent coffee at Coffee Culture. But searching for that “groovy” record store is always a struggle.

A couple of stores away, nestled at the corner of Monroe and 3rd Street, is Happy Trails Records; Corvallis’ grooviest record store. The moment you step through their door, you are struck with a serene—yet boisterous—energy, one that makes you feel like dancing. The store is small, yet lined strategically with a variety of records and CDs alike, new and used. Music plays from above…and varies; anything from hard rock to rhythmic funk. Memorabilia, posters, and action figures are also splayed around the perimeter for sale. A sign behind the counter reads: “Beware of Doug.” Who is Doug?

At the heart and soul of Happy Trails (specifically, on weekday mornings) is Doug DiCarolis, the record store’s semi-retired owner of 40 years. Doug sits at the counter on Monday morning, Feb. 23, jamming out to music whilst preparing for a busy week—full of ordering vinyl, processing purchases, and chatting about his business.

Q: Can you give a brief history of why you came into the music business?

Because I didn’t want a real job. I graduated in 1985 from San Jose State University and had opportunities to get a nine-to-five job. A friend of mine saw an advertisement for a record store for sale in Corvallis, Oregon, and — I’m down in San Jose at the time. I originally had a business partner, who I bought out a long time ago, but anyway, he said, “Hey, do you want to go buy a record store?” “What, what? OK.” And we came up and looked at it.

Of course, back in those days, there was really no student debt, because they taxed the rich people, and it was cheap to go to college. Neither of us had any debts. We were able to borrow a little bit of money and then purchase the store. He and I. That was in 1985, and we moved from there to here. I had never been to (Corvallis) before, but I thought it sounded better than anywhere else. And now I’m here.

Q: Do you prefer Oregon over California?

Oh, well, yes, by a long shot. I was in Silicon Valley, and it was awful because it was so crowded and overpriced. I mean, just driving anywhere — I had a part-time job in college that, under normal circumstances, would take about 10 minutes to get from my home to the job — typically took almost an hour of just sitting there.

Everything just started to get insanely expensive at the time, and I’m looking around, going, “Jesus, do I really want to do this?” “Is this what I want?” I had vacationed in Southern Oregon a few times, which is a little different from here. We thought, “Let’s get the hell out of California,” And we did. So now I’m here for 40 years. 

Q: What is your favorite thing about owning a record store?

Well, I mean, several things. Today, not much, because you get tired of everything after 40 years. Everything, no matter what you do. If you do it repeatedly every single day, you’ll just get burnt out. Trust me, when you’re 65, you’ll be kind of tired of doing that. 

I get to listen to whatever music I want all the time. I get to talk about music with people and get paid for it. You can get stoned on the job if you want. My employees have complete permission to just be as stoned as you want on the job. Can you do your job? Some people function well, some people don’t. And if you’re functional, go ahead and take a few bong hits and get to the register to help people. I don’t care. I just want the job done. Don’t steal from me. Be nice to the customers. Not complicated. 

This dates back to the early days, when I first got here, there were more jobs. Most people I knew that were getting jobs locally all had to take a piss test. And if you smoked weed within the last … I don’t know how many days — you couldn’t get the job. And, I’m like, “This is bullshit.” I mean, it’s horrible. So I have always been rebellious about that, saying, “Go ahead and smoke while you’re here,” Drinking, I would forbid, though. It’s a little different.

The other thing is that you don’t have a boss, and you can take whatever time off you want. Nobody tells me what to do at work — which makes me difficult in real life, because I don’t ever have to answer to myself, but I get to do whatever I want. Don’t tell me what to do. If I don’t want to do it, then I just don’t do it.

Q: What is the biggest challenge about owning a record store?

Gosh, well, over the years, it has just been the market. In 1985, CDs did not exist. We were a record store. We had cassettes and records. And then in about 1990, CDs started to come into the market, and it was amazing how quickly they took over. People were getting so excited about the CD as compared to vinyl, which is funny, because it is pretty much the opposite now. 

It took about two years before the entire floor of our store got flipped from records to all CDs. In about two years. It was a bit of a gold mine, because people had decided that they wanted to replace everything with a CD. So, all of a sudden, I had people rebuying all of their records on CD. I mean, we made good money, and all sorts of stores started opening up everywhere in Corvallis in about 1992. 

I think there were five record stores in Corvallis at the time. Of course, there’s no internet. You couldn’t get anything for free, back then — to emphasize, you had to buy a copy if you wanted to listen to it. So, we opened a second store in Eugene. We had a store down there for about six years, and then, unfortunately, a thing called file-sharing and Napster came.

File sharing. You could buy a CD, and then you could put it up on the internet and just share it with everybody. They could just take it. Instead of buying a CD, you could just download it from any person, like yourself, that wanted to publish it. And there was this site called Napster, which enabled you to do it. They got sued by Metallica and some other bands for distributing their music for free. It made people stop buying CDs. 

Not entirely, but business slowed by, oh, 75%. I should have gone out of business, and from what I can tell, about 80% of all record stores went under, and just that handful hung on. I hung on because I sold my home — which was a very nice purchase — but I had ended up with debt, and I still didn’t want a real job. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I was very depressed, because it was my whole identity. My entire life. It is what I did with my life; I didn’t do anything else. 

So, 2008 was the bottom. We’re just hanging on. There were still people that bought CDS, but hardly anybody bought records. That was very rare. We had relegated records to this tiny little section into the corner, and hardly anybody bought any records. That went on for 20 years now. 

And then, come 2009, 2010 — all of a sudden people were interested in records again. Six months later, we had to put another section out because people started buying more and more, and business started to grow very slowly. Business is better this month than last month. So, I said, “Maybe I should ride this out and see what happens,” And it turned out it was the right thing to do. 

Little by little, every year, records started to come back. We still have CDs all around the perimeter, but we got records all over the place, and it just grew, grew, grew, from 2009 up until today. The growth has been pretty steady, every year. It’s just a little stair step, but now it’s been 17 years. To the point where business is good, it’s solidly good. I’m not becoming a millionaire at any moment, but I can make a living, so that’s the most important thing: making a living and doing something well.

Q: Does your business collaborate with any other local shops, or even bands?

No, not really. I mean, we’re dating way back. We have always had a relationship with bands. Because the one guy that has worked here for 38 years, he’s in, like, five bands. We have had musicians work here that are in local bands. I mean, you own a record store: you know the musicians in town.

Q: What makes your record shop different from nearby competitors? 

There is one difference — one clear difference that has always irritated me. In terms of running a register: When we buy used records, let’s say you bring in a crate. You can sell them to me. Yes, once I’ve paid you, they belong to me. I’m going to process them. I’m going to evaluate them, put prices on them, and put them out for sale. As soon as I have the opportunity to. 

What the other stores do is, when they buy records off of several people, they’ll save them all up, and then they do a drop. I think typically on a Saturday morning. They put out advertisements on social media. “We’ve got all these records that are going to be put out for sale at 11 a.m.” To me, that’s rude. You’re making it hard on your customers. Everybody shows up at once, and there’s a line. Do you like waiting in line? I don’t either. 

So what we do is first-come, first-served. We have new arrivals, and people come in — whatever we get, whenever we get it, you can buy it. We’re not going to play games about it. You don’t have to wait in line. You don’t have to elbow anybody. Come in frequently and check our new arrivals. Sometimes we won’t have anything for a week. Nobody will sell us anything. And then some weeks, we’ll get 10 crates that are brand-new, but we put them out right away. That is a big difference. We do not want people to wait in line.

Q: What is your favorite album, or albums, and why?

Well, there really isn’t any one favorite album. I mean, it all depends on the mood you’re in. If I’m washing the dishes, there’s something I really like. If I’m drinking bourbon on the back porch, there’s a different (song) I’d like. King Crimson has a couple of favorites. One called “Red.” Parliament-Funkadelic. Oh, yeah, “Mothership Connection,” definitely one of my favorites. “Funkadelic: Standing on the Verge (Of Getting It On).” John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Actually one of my favorite jazz albums. Think about it. I really do not think in these terms. 

Oliver Nelson, and it’s an album called “The Blues and the Abstract Truth.” Might be—if people really push me—the best jazz album ever made, you know that? Or Charles Mingus. Like I say, you don’t really know, it just depends on the mood. There are a lot of different things that I like. Everyone is into one type of music. It’s boring.

Q: What are your hopes for the future of your business?

The hopes are just—it keeps going. Long after I’m dead. I’m told by people that we’re an icon. “I guess, okay, is that what I did?” It just seems like a normal, regular day for me to own a record store and to do what I’ve done for so long—since I was a kid. I’m just obsessed with records. In the 60s and 70s, I was buying records. All my spare time was at record stores, whether I was buying (records) or not, I was just hanging out. There was always a happy place to go. I love music so much, and music is such great therapy. I just hope that people can keep it going after I’m not here, that people will still want records. It’s the best way to listen to music.

I mean, just because of the artwork, you don’t just pick one song here, one song there. Albums were generally made to play in order—a band will make an album with the songs in a particular order. I can remember in 1969 I bought The Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I was a kid. When I was 7, my parents gave me a little stereo system and then a little allowance to go buy records. I can remember sitting in my room there, 8 or 9 years old, putting that album on—and that album is very organized. Beginning to the end of the song, if you’ve heard it. They’re in order for a reason. And then the album cover, which was huge, and I’m opening it, and it’s got all the lyrics and then all of the liner notes saying who played, who assisted with this, etc. Then it had these cardboard cutout things that were inside of it. A lot of albums back then came with posters and stuff inside. I would just sit there and go by listening to the music, at 8 or 9 years old, looking at all of that. It’s a different experience, a much more enriching experience than picking out a cut on my phone. When you have an album, you’re kind of committed to hearing the whole thing. You put it on, you sit down, and that’s really the way music should be listened to, and that’s one thing I really love—is that I didn’t know that would ever be the case again.

If you go back to 2008, I’m like, “It’s all collapsing,” Nobody gives a shit about listening to albums. And I know from talking to college-age kids that they’re actually doing what I did. They buy a physical album, they listen to it, and they look at the liner notes and the artwork. The artwork will really shape the way the music sounds. Artists always took that seriously. It makes a difference, especially when it’s a big piece of artwork. So I find that, as an old man now, it is very satisfying. You get both the physical media, you get the lyrics—so you get poetry—and you get music. I think it is fantastic. That is what is so great about music and records is that it combines all of these things into one thing, and it will enrich your life. I don’t know how I would have gotten through high school without listening to King Crimson and The Who’s “Quadrophenia.” I think that is the album I listened to most in high school. I had to buy two or three copies because I wore them out. All of the lyrics and everything really fit a high school kid, and really spoke to me. I mean, it was therapy. It just helped so much. And that is why I think music is so important. Like I said, I’m so happy to see people doing it the same way I was doing it…and then bands can approach it that way. I love that, if you’re in a band, what is the order of these songs? What are we trying to say? What is the album cover going to look like? 

That was the most surprisingly satisfying thing, as I roll towards the end of life, that that did not disappear. Who knows what will happen in 10 years. Who knows?

Q: Is there anything you would like readers to know?

Gosh, I never thought about that. Music is great therapy. Try to listen to full albums all the way through, beginning to end. Don’t just say, “I don’t really like that first song,” and then throw the album away. This is an absolute fact: my favorite albums of all time are albums that I didn’t like that much the first time I heard them. The second time, I was kind of getting what they’re on to. The third time, it’s, like, “Oh, Christ, this is brilliant,” Those tend to be the best albums. A lot of the time it’s somewhat complex music—I mean, a punk album is pretty straightforward, it’s not too complicated to get into. But things like jazz or progressive rock—which is what King Crimson would be. Certain albums just remind you of a point in your life. That’s when you get old. When I hear “Quadrophenia” by The Who, I think of when I was 16. So, when you get old, and you hear songs from long ago, you’ll almost feel this weird mood that comes over you. 

That’s a great thing, but when you’re in the moment, though, you know it’s very important to enjoy them on those three levels that I talked about. It will help you in life. It is absolutely therapy. If I’m feeling down or not happy that day—or I’ve watched the news and had to hear more Trump bullshit (“do you like my hat?”)—the thing that immediately snaps me out is funk music. Put on some Parliament-Funkadelic or James Brown. There is something about the funk beat that makes you happy and it tells you how to dance, too, if you listen to each song. The horn section, it will tell you how to move. I’m a ginger. I’m gray now, but I was a ginger, and gingers can’t dance. They shouldn’t, but I did anyway.

At a glance:

• Doug DiCarolis, 65, is the owner of the record store, Happy Trails Records, is located on 100 S.W. 3rd St. in Corvallis.

• Originally from San Jose, California, Doug has lived in Oregon and has owned his business for 40 years and counting.

• Doug’s favorite artists are Parliament-Funkadelic, The Who, King Crimson, John Coltrane, and more.

• You can find Happy Trails on Facebook or you can visit their Google Page.

• Happy Trails Records is open from Monday to Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sundays, noon to 6 p.m.

• “Music is therapy,” said Doug, “It will help you in life.”

Photo credit - Audrey Linder

Photo credit - Audrey Linder

Photo credit - Audrey Linder

Photo credit - Audrey Linder

Doug DiCarolis
Photo credit - Audrey Linder