The Ravenna Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the grand opening of the vintage vinyl record store, Record Arsenal, last Friday afternoon at 133 East Main Street in Ravenna.
“I am incredibly grateful for the Ravenna Area Chamber of Commerce,” owner Rod Flauhaus told The Weekly Villager. “They helped facilitate this and it is a lot of fun. It is a dream of mine and a fun way to spend some time.”
The new vintage vinyl record store not only offers records of popular music from the 1970s to the 1990s, but also offers DVDs, tapes and t-shirts. Arsenal Records has a variety of options, as the inventory consists of the most popular music tracks and songs that dominated an era of music that Flauhaus grew up with.
For Flauhaus, his new store celebrates the memories he had when records were the most popular music tracks available.
“That is what we grew up with,’ he added. “There is something about records, taking them out, holding them, looking at them, spinning them. The physical part of it is great. I have about 8,000 in my own collection.”
Flauhaus, who has worked in the music industry in communications and public relations including a four-year stint in the Nashville country music scene, said that as he was getting older, he wanted his last stint in the workforce to be memorable before he officially retired.
He originally developed Arsenal Records in the Ravenna Business Launchpad, an incubator at the Ravenna Area Chamber of Commerce that helped businesses start from square one, and operated the business out of the RACC’s headquarters beginning in January but has now taken the next step.
I think it awesome,” RACC Executive Director Ryann Cline said. “We used to have one (record store) and it is great. I think Rod has a different spin on things and he has got a background for marketing and promoting. I think he is going to continue to flourish and continue to grow and get the word out there as far as the vinyl records.”
Flauhaus’ passion for music began when he was trained by his father as a classical pianist at a young age and played in the school band all the way through school. He can play six different instruments and has even been a member of a modern country band that has performed around Northeast Ohio for several years.
As versatile a musician as Flauhaus is, it has also translated to his taste in music, as he enjoys all genres.
“I think you just learn to love music,” he said. “I love classical music, I listen to rock, punk, metal, pretty much anything. Good music is good music.
He said that being a musician provided a gateway for him to express himself as he became comfortable entertaining a crowd.
“When you get on stage and play in clubs, you learn how to engage with people and interact with the audience. You build up confidence and you learn how to do that well,” he said.
While in Nashville, he worked with blossoming country music stars such as Amy Grant, Lady Antebellum, Luke Bryan, Marty Stuart and Phil Vassar.
He added that he started collecting records when he was in junior high, finding vintage records from garage sales, yard sales and flea markets. His collection really began to grow when he searched high and low for records during the COVID-19 shutdown.
“When there is nothing to do, you can just find collections when people were clearing out their houses and getting rid of stuff. A lot of times people have collections of records they want to sell,” he said. “You network, you find them and that is how you get them.”
Originally from Dover, Flauhaus moved to Streetsboro in 2012 so he could be closer to his family. He became familiar with Ravenna, as his family frequently visited the area; he became inspired to pursue a new business idea when he read the notice about the RACC’s Ravenna Business Launchpad incubator.
After a lifetime of work in the corporate sector specializing in marketing and public relations, Flauhaus said that he could not ask for a better final job than spending his days selling and discussing music with any and everyone who is interested in taking a trip down memory lane.
