Vintage Vinyl owner Steve Kay

Steve Kay, owner of Vintage Vinyl from Andrew Scoggin on Vimeo.

For some, collecting vinyl records is a hobby. For Steve Kay, it’s been a 30-year career. His record store, Vintage Vinyl, even helped inspire the movie High Fidelity.

In August 1979, Kay, a native New Yorker, opened up the store in Evanston.

“It was an outgrowth of a hobby, and I was going to art school [in Chicago] at the time,” Kay says. “It was a way to be involved in two of my great hobbies, music and art.”

The store has survived the tumultuous format changes in music, from vinyl to 8-track to cassette to CD to digital. Kay says business has always been good, and younger generations have even frequented the store lately. He credits this longevity to the fact that the shop is “conscious of quality.”

“There was never a point at which we were selling just records to sell records.” Kay says. “We only sell records of mint condition.”

Kay’s store has even influenced Hollywood, as it was a source of inspiration behind 2000’s “High Fidelity” from John Cusack, an Evanston native. Kay says Cusack and his friends would hang out in the shop after school.

“It was one of those things where you don’t even know what kind of effect you have on people,” Kay says. “When something like that happened, you realize that the things you may feel are second nature really have a very positive effect on people.”

Kay says famous artists and musicians stop by the store, including Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins. But Kay wouldn’t name anyone else, and says “we’re not name droppers.”

“There are a million fun stories. That’s going to be High Fidelity 2.” he jokes.