Rock 'n' roll with me: Five questions with Record Farm's Aaron Click

Aug. 19—There's a popular music meme that floats around Twitter every so often and maybe that's the best way to introduce Aaron Click, manager at The Record Farm.

His first concert: Bruce Springsteen during the "Born in the USA" tour.

His last concert: The Deftones.

His favorite concert: The Cure during their tour in support of their 1992 album "Wish."

Once you start asking questions like this it's difficult to stop.

His all-time favorite band: The Cure. There are a lot of close seconds, however. Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Ours, The Chameleons.

"A lot of bands vie for number two and depending on my mood they might feel like my number one band at the time but The Cure is my all-time favorite," he said.

His all-time favorite album? The 1989 Cure classic "Disintegration."

And just for the record, his favorite film director: David Lynch.

Click was born in Peru, Indiana, and grew up in Denver, Indiana, before finding his way to Logansport in 1996. In 2019 he took on the role of manager at The Record Farm, located at 430 E. Broadway St. in the Bonus Pints building.

There may not be anyone better suited to run a music store in Logansport.

Click took a break from stocking new records to talk to the Pharos-Tribune about his love of music, all while a playlist of 1970s punk blared through the building.

What was the song or album that made you a music lover and why did it impact you?

The song that really made me a music lover is "Hungry like the Wolf" by Duran Duran. I thought it was very different and unique compared to what was typically heard on the radio. I guess they call it the second wave of British music. But it was really something different. You could hear rock. You could hear pop. You could hear the synth-based music in it. You could hear a little bit of punk attitude. That's just kind of 'wow! This is different.' It made me want to explore and discover new bands.

We have unlimited access to music today. When you got into music how did you discover new bands that weren't being played on the radio or MTV?

A lot of it was magazines like "Rolling Stone" and "Spin." I paid a lot of attention to entertainment news when it would come on TV. This dates me but I used to watch "Friday Night Videos" on NBC and that kind of informed me a little bit on new bands. There was a magazine that probably ran late '80s and early '90s called "Revolver" and that one had a lot of alternative music. That was a little later on in my life but it really opened up a lot of doors for me.

Why is vinyl back and so popular today?

It's a few things. It's people wanting to re-experience their childhood or they are experiencing nostalgia. They want the experience of sitting down and listening to a record. The whole ritual of dropping the needle. It kind of forces you to listen—to a certain extent—whereas if you just download something or hit play on Spotify or Pandora, you can do that and then almost filter it all out. The music can be an afterthought.

I think it's also something kind of new for the younger generations. 'Wow! This is different. I'm doing what they used to do back in the '60s and '70s. It's a sort of nostalgia but for a time they never even experienced themselves.

Indiana has a rich variety of little music scenes from college towns like Muncie and Bloomington to Indianapolis. Does Cass County have a music scene and if so how would you describe it?

I'd say there is definitely a music scene in Cass County. It's pretty diverse. I would say it might not be so obvious to the average citizen of Cass County but I would say it's probably just as big as it was 10 years ago. I think it's so spread out into different genres that maybe it's not as obvious because of that. But I think it's thriving and I think it's stronger than it ever has been.

Brad Long has a long history of being a musician here in Cass County. He used to own a music store himself called The Music Stand. He's a really good all-around musician. Adam Gundrum is another one. I really admire his musicianship. He's really strong in a lot of areas. There's so many good ones. Astoria Distilling Co. They are really good. Those are just some that come to mind. But there are a lot of really good bands around here.

What is a recent album that you really enjoyed?

I really like the new Idles album, "Crawler." It's really good. There's just a truthfulness with that band, and the way they inject sincerity and insight into their songs while maintaining a unique, creative, well-crafted sound is pretty incredible.