Revival of L.A. record store Licorice Pizza serves a slice of vinyl nostalgia
- Founded in Long Beach, Licorice Pizza grew into a chain of 34 stores before the name went away.
- The revived business includes a vinyl pressing operation, Licorice Pizza Records.
As a teen growing up in Orange County in the early ‘80s, Kerry Brown’s immediate career goal was simple. He wanted to work at his favorite record store, Licorice Pizza.
Years later, Brown would embark on life as a musician and busy producer-engineer, working on records by the Smashing Pumpkins, Afghan Whigs, Miley Cyrus and his own indie rock band Catherine, but a stint behind the counter always eluded him. As he says now with a shrug, “I was never cool enough to work at a record store.”
Even so, he spent many days at his local Licorice Pizza, strolling the aisles, hanging out with friends, and settling into the couch to listen to whatever disc was spinning on the turntable. Brown once spent a night sleeping outside the store waiting for the 1983 release of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”
“When I was in high school, that’s where I lived,” he says. “I met my first girlfriend, my first band mates, learned about imports, and learned about music at Licorice Pizza.”
Brown, now 60, has taken those early memories and turned them back into modern reality by reviving the long-defunct Licorice Pizza name, first with a boutique record shop on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, but also with a vinyl record pressing business, a Licorice Pizza Records label, an internet radio station, online video content and plans for much more.
Record stores almost never come back from the dead. The once-dominant California-based music mecca Tower Records still exists in Tokyo and online, and is attempting a wider return in the U.S., but that’s an exception. Now comes the unexpected rebirth of Licorice Pizza after decades of inaction.
Brown’s inspiration is not just from memories of his youth at the chain store, but contemporary efforts like Jack White’s Third Man Records. His label’s first vinyl release in 2022 was a 30th anniversary remastered version of L7’s growling third album, “Bricks Are Heavy,” while the mission now is mostly focused on discovering new acts.
On a recent weekday afternoon, Brown was in the store, wearing a new Licorice Pizza T-shirt with the classic logo and the words: “You get it nicer.” Bearded with long blond hair to his shoulders, he still sounds like an excited fan talking about his musical obsession of the moment.
His efforts are not simply an exercise in personal nostalgia, but rooted in Brown’s conviction that certain aspects of the traditional record store experience can appeal to a new generation of fans. There are several great record stores still in Southern California, from Amoeba in Hollywood to Fingerprints in Long Beach, though it’s a small fraction of what once existed.
“I’m not inventing anything. I kind of like things that are familiar and that I remember being exciting that have gone away,” he adds, noting the young fans who are drawn to the in-store listening events for new releases from Charlie XCX, Glass Animals and Sabrina Carpenter. The gatherings are also shared via video reports on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
“They’re standing and they’re waiting in line for hours to come in and listen to a record two days before other people get a chance to hear it. They’re the hardcore fans. They buy the record, they buy the poster. And that feeling of ownership, it really sparks me because that’s what I had.”
It’s a once-familiar sight to some longtime music listeners.
“I remember looking around being like, well, this is really adorable,” says music journalist Lyndsey Parker, who now hosts various video programs under the Licorice Pizza name (a.k.a. LPTV), and frequently interviews young fans on camera at the listening events. “People showed up to a physical brick-and-mortar record store to listen to a record and hang out with each other, make friends and dance.”
While the retail area is not large, it is lovingly curated by Brown and his young staff members, mixing records from hitmakers with essential cult artists. There are T-shirts and turntables for sale, and the walls are covered with music posters and platinum record awards.
Like the old Licorice Pizza store he remembers from Orange County, Brown’s shop has a couch. It was relocated from his former recording studio, including a cigarette burn left by Courtney Love. It rests beside a table piled up with music magazines.
Just behind the retail space is the office for the Licorice Pizza Records label, a comfortable work area with a jukebox, a couch and a large painting of Nina Simone. Sitting at a laptop is singer Frankie Clarke, who works at the label and is the daughter of former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke.
Flipping through the bins is new customer Justin Levine, 22, in black jacket and khakis, already holding two records in his hands: Mac Demarco’s “This Old Dog” and the Velvet Underground classic “Loaded.” A recent transplant from New York City, Levine is an assistant to a Hollywood talent manager, and now likes falling asleep at night to a record on his new turntable.
“I got hooked and now my wallet is suffering,” Levine says, “but I never regret buying records. Something about it makes me really happy.”
Last week the record store hosted a concert at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip, headlined by the Licorice Pizza All-Star Band, with current and former members of the Eagles of Death Metal, Stray Cats, Guns N’ Roses and more. Midnight Cowgirls, Ferry Townes and other acts on the Licorice Pizza label also graced the stage.
For Jennie Vee, bassist for the Eagles of Death Metal, the Licorice Pizza label is now the home of her other band, the Midnight Cowgirls. The all-female group plays country-influenced rock ’n’ roll and is barely a year old. Their debut album was released in July.
“Kerry Brown has his own pressing plant, and that’s really something that sets Licorice Pizza Records apart,” Vee says. “The music landscape has changed so much, and he’s been there through all of those changes and back to a point where it’s almost back to a DIY ethic. If he wants to do it, he gets it done.”
The reborn Licorice Pizza, Brown says, owes much to the support of his wife, Stacey Sher, the successful movie producer with credits like “Pulp Fiction,” “Erin Brockovich” and “Reality Bites.” Her production office is upstairs, and filmmakers will sometimes pass through the store on their way to a meeting.
One of them recently was Cameron Crowe, the former Rolling Stone writer and acclaimed director of the film “Almost Famous,” which Brown found especially fitting. Like the message of that film, he sees his store as more than a business, a place where music brings people together.
“I think it’s all things: music, entertainment and community,” Brown says. “I really built this place to have people of all ages and beliefs be able to hang out and talk art and music. I don’t know what I’d be if there wasn’t a Licorice Pizza when I was a kid.
“I just knew there’d be other people going through similar stuff that I could talk to. And that’s really the main reason to have this place.”
In other parts of the building, he has a recording studio and video facilities, with dreams of re-creating MTV News-like video content. Parked in the small lot in back is a 1973 RV he calls “the pizza wagon,” with a small mobile studio inside.
The store on Ventura Boulevard was originally called We Are Hear, part of a larger business partnership with singer-songwriter-producer Linda Perry that also included music management, publishing, public events and a record label. During the COVID-19 pandemic, their partnership ended and Brown got the crazy idea of reviving a beloved brand name from his youth.
The original Licorice Pizza chain was founded in Long Beach by James Greenwood in 1969 and grew to 34 locations across Southern California. The chain was characterized by a logo that included a smiling Depression-era woman in an apron presenting a fresh platter of steaming vinyl. In 1985, Greenwood sold the company, which was ultimately absorbed into the massive record store chain Musicland, and the Licorice Pizza name disappeared.
The brand was largely dormant for decades, though rights to use the name on apparel had been secured by another company. Brown bought those rights, then worked through the complicated process of taking ownership of the trademark not just for a store, but for the record pressing business, and various categories of merchandise.
“I’ve learned a lot about trademarks in a very short period of time, that’s for sure,” says Brown. “We were able to get it all and pop the name Licorice Pizza on my store, which just brought me right back to the reason I started in the first place.”
By coincidence, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, a family friend to Brown and Sher, titled his new film “Licorice Pizza.” The period coming-of-age story was mostly set in the San Fernando Valley, where Anderson grew up, and he took the name from the defunct record store chain he remembered from his childhood.
“It instantly takes me back to that time,” Anderson told The Times in 2021, comparing the words to evocative film titles like “American Graffiti” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
The movie and the store’s name change landed at about the same time in 2021. “A lot of people thought it was the most brilliant marketing pop-up ever,” Brown says with a laugh.
After growing up in Southern California, Brown relocated to Chicago in the late 1980s in part because he saw no place for himself in the hair metal scene then dominating the Sunset Strip. Within a few years there, he met Billy Corgan, who was in a new band called Smashing Pumpkins. They soon became friends and colleagues.
“I was the best man at his wedding. He was the best man in my wedding,” recalls Brown, who was married for six years to Pumpkins bassist D’Arcy Wretzky.
In 1999, he moved back to Los Angeles, and started a family with Sher. With the end of Catherine, he turned fully to studio work in various roles. Before opening his Licorice Pizza store, he’d never worked in retail. Now he hopes to eventually open more stores.
Across town in a downtown warehouse, the Licorice Pizza vinyl pressing factory is humming with the loud industrial sounds of a single SMT machine. Nearby are framed posters from the movies “Pulp Fiction” and “A Clockwork Orange,” and on a small carpeted area are amplifiers, a couch and Brown’s drum kit, ready for impromptu jam sessions.
Working the machine is Ryan Foster, 33, in a Licorice Pizza T-shirt and a tattoo of Bart Simpson with a broken leg on his right bicep, making test-pressings of a new record on 140-gram vinyl platters.
Watching him make one disc at a time is Brown, who wants to expand with additional machines, both in L.A. and the East Coast. The company produces vinyl for Licorice Pizza Records and other indie labels in need.
“The whole ecosystem of Licorice Pizza is right here,” Brown says happily, spinning a disc of translucent vinyl in his hands. “I didn’t get into this to make money. It would be nice if I do one day. But right now I’m here to keep the torch lit.”
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