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Lust for Destruction: Throwback Weekend Playlist by Vinyl Conflict’s Bobby Egger

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Every Friday night, RVA Mag brings you an essential playlist curated by Virginia’s most influential artists, musicians, and institutions.

This week, we’re bringing you an encore presentation of a playlist put together for us a while back by Bobby Egger, the proprietor of Vinyl Conflict. As we discussed earlier this week here at RVA Mag, everyone’s favorite Oregon Hill-based purveyor of punk rock, hardcore, metal, and hip hop has been working hard to ensure that no pandemic stops the flow of great music. In the coming weeks, stay tuned to Vinyl Conflict’s website and social media presence to keep up with the fundraisers, interviews, and great deals they’ll be presenting to keep our spirits up throughout the quarantine.

Meanwhile, as some slightly delayed April showers today transition to spring warmth over the weekend, Egger’s playlist is just as sure to heat you up; when you listen to it, you definitely won’t want to sit still.

Start the pit, Virginia.

Open this playlist from mobile in your Spotify app HERE.

Conflict On The Web

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For Richmond record store Vinyl Conflict, surviving the COVID-19 outbreak has meant taking their business online.

When the coronavirus outbreak hit, Vinyl Conflict owners Bobby Egger and Melissa Mazula were out of the country. They’d had a buying trip to the UK scheduled for March 4 through 18, and as they traveled, things began to escalate.

“When the travel ban went into effect, we were watching the news very carefully each day, trying to make a decision about how we would be returning,” said Egger. “We were quite far away from our return flight date, and on the other side of the country.”

From another country, they had to make important decisions about what would happen with Vinyl Conflict’s retail store in Oregon Hill, which specializes in new and used punk, hardcore, and metal albums — on vinyl, of course — as well as related merchandise. And when they returned, they voluntarily put themselves into quarantine.

“Me and Melissa went on self quarantine for two full weeks, and my employees continued to up our online presence in social media,” Egger said. The shop switched to a curbside-pickup model, at first allowing browsing by appointment only and then ending even that out of concerns for the safety of customers and employees. And they immediately focused on online sales, working hard to ensure that their entire inventory was accessible on the store’s website and the record-sales site Discogs.com.

Photo courtesy Vinyl Conflict

This was a huge adjustment for Egger, who’d previously focused on the in-person shopping experience. “For the entirety of the shop’s existence, we have kept our newest and freshest stock only available for walk-in customers, so we could keep a unique and fresh experience which is worth making the venture into the physical store,” he said. “The biggest adjustment we had to make was turning our entire inventory to be available for web order.”

Making Vinyl Conflict an online-focused business has been a challenge, but with quarantine remaining the order of the day, Egger knew that the transition was essential for the store’s survival. It’s a big transition, though, one that has kept everyone at the store busy for weeks. “It took a few weeks to try to adjust to the new way of business,” he said. “At first we were only listing items which were in shop, but previously had not been available online. Now we are going through items which had previously not been for sale at all, and listing them directly for sale online.”

Local customers are still able to order from the store without having to worry about shipping; while placing and paying for orders is handled online, Vinyl Conflict still offers curbside pickup, as well as delivery for customers in the city. Meanwhile, they’re shipping out online orders six days a week, in an effort to ensure that nothing gets backed up.

As part of the adjustment, Egger has had to change some fundamental aspects of Vinyl Conflict’s business model. “We had to put a freeze on new ordering… which is unfortunate, as new titles are continuing to be released each week,” he said. “We’re focusing on moving the inventory we have already purchased.”

In order to keep the shop’s profile high even while customers can’t visit, Egger launched an Instagram Live interview series called “Now That I’ve Got Your Attention,” in which he’s interviewed a variety of people within the music industry. Guests have included well-known musical figures including Roger Miret of Agnostic Front, Brian Gorsenger from Night Birds, and Jeremy Bolm of Touche Amore, as well as locals like rapper Nickelus F, fellow Richmond record store owner Marty Key of Steady Sounds, and musician Julie Karr of the band Sensual World. “Keep an eye on Instagram for new episodes very soon,” said Egger, who is also currently editing the interviews for eventual upload to IGTV and YouTube.

Vinyl Conflict is also looking beyond questions of their own survival in order to help out other organizations that are working to help out with the coronavirus outbreak. They are currently in the process of creating two shirts for sale to benefit Richmond’s Studio Two Three and Mutual Aid Distribution RVA. The Studio Two Three donations will go towards their efforts in making durable and reusable masks for essential workers that will be additionally donated and distributed as they are funded. Mutual Aid Distribution RVA is a resource of redistribution for locals in need, collecting and distributing food, baby supplies, cleaning and sanitary goods, and more. Funds will go towards the purchase of essential items for distribution to low-income Richmonders. The shirts are currently available for pre-order from Vinyl Conflict’s Storenvy site.

Like many local businesses in Richmond and everywhere around the world, Vinyl Conflict is doing what they can to survive the outbreak and ensure that they’re still here when we’re all able to leave our homes and interact with the world once again. For now, they’re doing what they can to ensure that, while we’re all locked down, we can at least enjoy some new tunes.

To check out Vinyl Conflict’s full online inventory of over 4000 items, go to their Discogs page. To place a local order, give them a call at (804)644-2555, or email [email protected] For updates and to keep up with the “Now That I’ve Got Your Attention” interview series, follow them on Instagram @vinylconflict.

Written by Aviance Hawkes and Marilyn Drew Necci. Top Image by Sommer (@diewithyourhoopson), via Vinyl Conflict/Facebook

Lust For Destruction: Weekend Playlist by Vinyl Conflict’s Bobby Egger

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Every Friday night, RVA Mag drops one scorcher of a playlist curated by influential artists, musicians, and institutions. This time around, our playlist comes from a man who should need no introduction for the record-buying faithful of Central Virginia: Bobby Egger, the proprietor of Vinyl Conflict. Located in Oregon Hill, Richmond’s leading punk rock emporium also releases vinyl and cassettes by top local artists, from metallic hardcore scorchers Left Cross to hip hop legend Nickelus F.

This might be a cold and dreary weekend, but Egger’s playlist is guaranteed to heat you up; when you listen to it, you definitely won’t want to sit still.

Start the pit, Virginia.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

Rage and Rhythm: Richmond’s Hardcore Scene Meets Hip-Hop

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As a hip-hop artist growing up on Richmond’s Southside listening to hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and jazz, I was not a fan of hardcore music. I would get exposed to alternative rock, punk, and hardcore mostly from my white friends and MTV. I couldn’t understand the ear-splitting instrumentation and random screaming for three to four minutes per song.  

Which is ironic, since that’s the same thing my grandmother would say about rap music. I didn’t understand the headbanging and fisty mosh pits — or the black eyes, cuts and bruises, broken bones, the sweat and bloody t-shirts. What I did understand was that there were millions of people who loved this music, and it meant a whole lot to them, just as hip-hop meant for us.

Earlier this year, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to learn more about hardcore music. So I started listening to a few bands like Show Me The Body, The Acacia Strain, and Division of Mind, and attending shows at Strange Matter. I needed to get a feel for what I was missing out on in Richmond’s legendary hardcore scene.

Months later after finishing my brother Nickelus F’s album Stuck, I was invited with Nick and NameBrand to meet Bobby Egger at Vinyl Conflict, a record store well-known in the hardcore community.

To our surprise, Egger and a few of his friends felt the same way about hip-hop and wanted to explore the idea of working together. When this eventually happened, we found ourselves touring alongside hardcore and noise acts. Headed to Baltimore on the first leg of the tour with Nickelus F and Lil Ugly Mane, we didn’t know what to expect or how things with a mixed crowd would go in a city we’ve never played.

PHOTO: Michael Millions

Sitting in the green room before the show started, energy filled the room. And when the moshing started and the crowd got pumped, I got nervous. How would they react when Nick and I hit the stage? Would they give us the same energy? Does this crowd love hip-hop?

When we took the stage, the crowd went stupid, and it was obvious that they loved the rap sets just as much as the hardcore sets. Hitting me all at once, I realized the crowd wasn’t there for one genre over the other, they were there because they were feeding both sides of their souls; the intersection of rage and rhythm. Seeing this from the stage put me at the edge of this new world, which we were literally jumping into.

Unwinding from the performance, I realized that mixing hardcore and hip-hop was absolutely perfect. I started to see this at shows in Philly, VA Beach, and Raleigh — all sold-out shows. But as I watched opening bands from Richmond, like Division of Mind and other legends like Tarpit, Dry Spell, and Victim, I paid more attention to the lyrics; their content was parked on the same lane as hip-hop’s. They spoke about similar environments, social issues, government, peace, equality, and of course a little death. What’s a hardcore show or hip-hop show without that? 

As both genres represent versions of the same thing, the next question then became: Why hasn’t this fusion already happened in Richmond? Historically we’ve seen this before with RUN DMC, Beastie Boys, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, and even Aerosmith. Even now, we can all run a few Rage Against The Machine albums back.

With everything going on in Richmond — monuments, evictions, and gentrification splitting the fabric of our city — this thread of hip-hop and hardcore is one thing actually bringing us closer together. Vinyl Conflict’s annual show in August proved this. The union of hip-hop and hardcore was on full display with acts like Nickelus F, Nosebleed, Slump, Deviant, and Sinister Purpose playing for a fully engaged crowd. “Holy shit,” I thought to myself, never imagining that this would actually work in a city divided like Richmond. There was a time when hip-hop artists fought to find any stage in the city to perform.  

Thankfully, those days are over as we multiply these experiences with more shows, tours, and cross-promotionals. Yet we still have our divides.  

Anyone who grew up in this city knows things are slow to change. Even now as “Richmond” tries to rebrand itself “RVA,” we still have to fight to continue the conversation over things like removing racist monuments from our field of dreams. We still have to fight eviction rates that are at a national high, displacing and dividing families. We still have to fight for police reform, so a black man like Marcus Peters can receive help for his mental illness instead of a few fatal bullets. With all of these challenges and divisions in the city, at least Richmond’s hip-hop and hardcore scenes are intersecting and bringing people and cultures together in new and powerful ways. 

*Cover photo by Landon Shroder