Ambience and Anecdotes at Looney Tunes Records

If you go into Allston, you might spot a sign, labeled in a spray-painted graphic, that directs you to enter a yard with abundant fairy lights and an arrow guiding you down to Looney Tunes Record Store.

If you are brave enough to roam down into the basement, you will be greeted by boxes full of records from any musical genre and decade — Hindustani, European, Jazz Classics — any corner of the world that your heart might desire. That is, if you are crafty enough to find a way to traverse the mountains of vinyl to get to them.

Walking around the store, several elements stand out: a skeleton dressed in a black cap and headphones, empty lava lamps as standing figures, a hanging Peppa Pig figurine. Still, the vastness of the musical selection or the strange artifacts on the wall are, by far, not the most interesting things about the store.

The most charming is the owner Pat McGrath, who is always ready to start a conversation. Walking into the shop, he comments on the presence of another student coming in to interview him about the shop.

McGrath started working at the original Looney Tunes store in 1982, four years after it opened.

“I really liked it because I have always been fascinated with sound etched on pieces of plastic replayed by dragging a rock through the plastic,” McGrath says.

But there’s more to the record job than the music. For McGrath, the job represents a certain kind of freedom.

“I thought I needed to do something sensible,” McGrath says. “I was going to be an English teacher, but instead, I decided to do something I wanted to do instead of what I thought I ought to do.”

As McGrath talks, he slowly begins to trail off into other topics, such as inequality in the education system and how places like record stores can offer their own kind of education, claiming that there is “much more to learn” there than in college.

“If you raise a child to shop in a used record store, all the books on children say that’s the hallmark of fine parenting,” McGrath says.

McGrath expands on anything from politics to the cost of college tuition to musical styles to exotica and more.

“First school I went to in Florida where you could actually study with a real composer of note was $176 a semester,” McGrath says.

He also touched on the worst record players on the market.

“The Crosley, the Victrola, the Audio-Technica, or Crosleys for boys — they all suck. And they sound terrible,” says McGrath. “They fall apart. They break your records. And people like them because they’re cutely packaged.”

After this, he somehow lands on former U.S. President Reagan before punctuating his tangent, saying, “What a rant, huh?”

Each item seems to have a story, and McGrath can usually recall it right away. Spotting an elephant-shaped watering can on the shelf, he mentions he’d picked it up at a nearby hardware store. For other items, there is a person tied to the story. Describing the lava lamps in the store, he talks about the junk dealer who visited the shop with items he had found.

Beyond the decor, the shop is also home to a host of characters. You might notice a cat, Jane, who helps the shop, through tireless service, get rid of the mice and pests that have popped up in the Boston basement.

If you look for the cat’s original owner, you will undoubtedly notice another part of the store’s community: employee Jules Pelarski, who became involved with the shop after years of being a patron. Referencing McGrath’s wide array of knowledge, she says her job is priceless.

“The information that you can tell me is more valuable than anything you could ever pay me,” Pilarski says.

She says the shop has a lot of history within its packed physical space, noting that McGrath has built a unique environment for all kinds of music lovers. For example, one patron, a violinist for the Boston Symphony, likes to talk with McGrath about classical music.

Pilarski calls the locals who collect records a “crazy community.”

“If you’re fanatical, you’ll meet the other fanatics,” McGrath adds.

The one thing that unites all these “fanatics” is the love of physical media. In a world filled with more media than necessary at the touch of a button, stores like Looney Tunes might appear to be a remnant of the past. However, customers within the store find this to be a major benefit of Looney Tunes. One such customer, Chris A. Partridge ’24, reflects on the value of records.

“I was born in the year that had access to Spotify, so I can listen to a ridiculous amount of the music at a crazy rate. Information media is so accessible, it actually lowers the value of it just a little bit because I can listen to new music very, very, very easily,” Partridge says. “I place more value to walk to a record store, purchase in my hands, bring home, and buy a record player.”

“Spotify?!” McGrath immediately mocks from the other side of the store, as he puts on a new record and lets the music fill the room.