Brad Collins moved into a small storefront on this community’s main street in late 2009 to relaunch Raunch Records, just as the attractive area began its transition into a densely populated downtown.

His hole-in-the-wall shop at 1119 East 2100 South also feels densely populated — packed with vintage vinyl records, skateboards, stickers, magazines, books, shirts and anything else related to punk rock, free thought, and Salt Lake City’s subculture. 

Now in his mid-60s, Collins has been key to that subculture for more than four decades. 

But the longtime musician and former radio host of “Behind the Zion Curtain” said he pursued his passions out of sheer interest rather than rebellion against Utah’s dominant culture.

“Really, I’m not that combative,” Collins said. “It’s just like sometimes you want to do something different. It’s really not any more than that.”

Humble beginnings

Around 1980 Collins began hosting a midweek radio show that featured music “that wasn’t getting touched on the radio.”

“The records weren’t available and I was really getting into the anarchy bands, all the punk rock stuff, tons of foreign stuff. That’s why the store’s here,” Collins said, tracing the origin of Raunch Records back to his apartment in 1983. 

“It wasn’t really an opening,” Collins said, referencing his home business. “It was more like a box of records we had in the apartment and we let some people come up and take a look once in a while. That’s about it.”

That simple box of rare vinyl mushroomed into a lifelong adventure for Collins. Raunch Records moved into its first storefront location at the corner of 4th South and 4th West in mid-1984. 

The building it occupied — Positively Fourth Street — thrived as an alternative music hub until shutting down around 1990.

Collins then relocated briefly to 800 South and Main Street, and in late 1992, Raunch Records landed in Sugar House on Wilmington Avenue, immediately attracting a slew of customers.

But by 1996, conditions had changed and Collins moved Raunch Records to Holladay’s east bench. But business declined and Collins closed up shop in 1997 to take a regular job in the sports and recreation industry.

Collins credits a listener-supported Salt Lake City radio station for cultivating an appetite for music and culture outside the mainstream.

“(It) was a catalyst … without KRCL, a lot of stuff wouldn’t have happened on the ground level that ended up happening,” Collins said. “A lot of guys who were doing radio shows ended up creating stores or coffee shops, art galleries — whatever you might have like that.”

In 2009, after more than a decade-long hiatus, Raunch Records reappeared at its current Sugar House location, one now hemmed in by road construction and dense development.

Hanging out and hanging on

Interviewed in his shop in mid-July, Collins mused about his motivation to keep Raunch Records alive.

“It was more like just a greed to get the damn records. That’s all it was. A greedy ass getting records,” Collins said. “I didn’t care where they came from as long as they were ripping hard and there was some merit to them.”

Fellow musician Conrad Callirgos has known and played in bands with Collins since the current storefront opened almost 15 years ago. 

“Conrad is trying to create the (music) legacy of Utah right now, all the stuff that has happened and is happening,” Collins said of archival work Callirgos and a few others have under way.

Callirgos credited Collins with being an integral part of that legacy. 

“A lot of things I read in interviews or even things nowadays, a lot of it always comes back to Brad. He’s always mentioned,” Callirgos said.

No worries

Collins is surprisingly laid back about the construction, corporate storefronts, high-rise apartments and traffic congestion outside his store.

“It’s fine,” Collins said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

He also acknowledged limited impact to his business.

“I’m sure we’ve been hit a little bit. (But) our guys are pretty hardy, they’re going to find their way here,” Collins said, describing the shop’s clientele as surprisingly varied — high schoolers, metal heads, skaters, urban professionals from the neighborhood and out-of-towners seeking something different than what the mall has to offer.

But he’s not sure what the future holds for Sugar House. 

“They just keep building and probably not putting enough parking in,” Collins said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.”

If Collins could choose, he said he’d love to see a large pedestrian plaza from 21st South to Wilmington Avenue. 

“No cars at all, just street vendors and food trucks,” Collins said, “like some European thing with cobblestone down the street.”

Feature Image: Inside Raunch Records. All photos by John Taylor.