BrightestYoungThings: Crate Diggers DC: Som Records

Join us in this weekly series as we trek around the city, searching out the best of D.C.'s local record shops and owners.
This week: Som Records.
Sentences & questions by Nina Slesinger. Photos by Gan Uyeda.

I visited Neal Becton at Som Records on a sweltering day in July. Descending the stairs into the shop, I was greeted by warm orange walls decorated with clusters of records stretching onto the ceiling. A few shoppers perused the crates of albums while Neal sat hunched over a white laptop by the register. We chatted about the origins of his shop, his personal music taste, and how sick he is of all those darn High Fidelity jokes.

So first of all, could we get a brief history of the shop?
As Som Records I've been here about five years. Before that I was co-running Crooked Beat with Bill Daly. We split up and had a friendly divorce, and I came down here and he stayed up there.

What did you want to do differently here at Som after leaving Crooked Beat?
It wasn't that I wanted to do things differently, I just wanted to be my own boss, not have a partner, and concentrate on used vinyl. Bill was doing a lot of CDs at the time, and I didn't really want to do CDs.

What sets your shop apart from others in the area?
I work really hard at finding good records for the store. I pretty much spend four or five days a week out actively looking for collections and records. I think I work harder than anyone else around here as far as finding good, hard-to-find records.

What are some of the rarest records you have in both your personal collection and the shop?
I've got a few records that are worth a thousand dollars in my house. I've got a record by a band called Majick Ship, that's pretty darn rare. I've got some South African jazz records that are pretty rare and some Brazilian records that are really rare.
What are some of your favorite records that you keep in stock and some of your favorite finds over the years?
Too many to list! Just right now, looking around the store, there's Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, which is one of my favorite records ever. That Captain Beefheart record [Guaranteed] is really good.
While he says this, a customer walks over to the rack. "Since when have you had this one?" he asks, pointing to Maggot Brain. "Since three or four days ago," replies Becton. "Dope," says the smiling shopper, pulling it off the wall.

What were some of your personal favorite records growing up?
I grew up in the seventies so I listened to classic rock, or what goes by classic rock now. My two favorite groups in high school were Yes and The Who. I'd listen to stuff like Live at Leeds and Who's Next and Fragile.

What do you listen to now? Has your taste changed at all?
I listen to everything now. I have a huge collection of Brazilian music and I do a Brazilian DJ night right here at St. Ex once a month. I've got hundreds of reggae records…just everything.

Now, I'm assuming you've read and/or seen High Fidelity…
More than once.

Any similarities or differences to the clerks in that book and movie?
Completely different. I used to work at the Washington Post and when I left my job there, I sent out an email to the newsroom saying I was leaving to open a record store and I added, "No High Fidelity jokes, please!" in parenthesis. I still got a few High Fidelity jokes. I guess me and John Cusack both have brown hair….

So did you help start Crooked Beat or were you brought in later?
Basically, Bill had Crooked Beat in North Carolina for a long time. He was from the D.C. area and looking to move back to D.C., but he hadn't lived in D.C. for along time. So he wanted to move to D.C., I wanted to open my own record store but hadn't even worked in a record store despite collecting records for years. I knew the area and I knew people in the area, and Bill knew record stores, so it was a really nice partnership. It was a little trading for both of us.

What are some of your favorite record stores, both in the area and otherwise?
I like a lot of the ones here, like Smash!, Crooked Beat and Red Onion. Plan 9 in Richmond I really like, Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton is a great store, Good Records in New York I really like, Groove Merchant in San Fransisco is great, and Amoeba in Los Angeles…pretty much any record store where I find something I like.

Do you get most of your records from other stores of from peoples' collections?
I rarely find records for the store in other record stores. I get them in thrift stores, estate sales, flea markets, collections. The longer I'm here, the more people call me up. I got three calls today from people asking me to come look at some records.