Wisconsin Life

[mechanical buzzing, needle plays static] - Dave Eck: Music's been following me around most of my life.

– Angela Fitzgerald: Dave Eck is a music man.

- One of these records has got Mick Jagger on it.

- He has an ear for that nostalgic sound.

– Dave: This one's pretty cool.

King Khan, it's an indie band.

There's a Neon Leon.

These guys do vinyl still.

They're part of my culture, at least.

- It is a music culture Dave grew up with as a vinyl junkie.

- This is one of the earliest records I ever bought.

The Cure "Boys Don't Cry."

It is such a great record.

I used to spend like $100 a week at B-Side Records down on State Street.

I just started using a lot of that money to fuel my addiction.

I've bought so much stuff.

- Collecting vinyl and a love of music led to a career in the record industry.

- I've done mixing, mastering, vinyl pre-production, a lot of restoration.

I've had the privilege to cut and vinyl master artists as big as Maroon 5 and the Jackson 5.

Yeah, I was really happy with how that came out.

I didn't keep everything.

I kept the essentials.

[laughs] Tom Tom Club.

- At a time when vinyl was in a death spiral, Dave decided to ride the wave.

- These machines and the pressing machines became ignored and just got put in garages and dumps.

- His basement in Middleton is home to this high-tech German lathe that cuts the grooves.

– Dave: The magic's prepping it.

We can clean up every little imperfection.

[fast-paced singing] I find it a challenge to create that perfectly juicy pre-master that is very vinyl-friendly.

It's fun to cut it and play it back 'cause it always sounds better after you play it back on vinyl.

And I enjoy that part of it.

- As a sound engineer, he has fine-tuned and remastered tens of thousands of classic hits.

Dave recreated the soundtrack of his life.

- I grew up with Depeche Mode.

A lot of stuff I grew up with, the Dead Milkmen.

Of course, the Jacksons, the Buzzcocks.

I've really enjoyed the challenge of creating what I used to listen to when I was a kid.

- Dave saw the resurgence of vinyl records coming and took a gamble, [rock music] opening Waxy Poodle in Cross Plains.

– Dave: We're a record-pressing company.

We've done well over 200 titles our first year.

- The first Wisconsin record-pressing company to open in nearly 100 years.

- We have to load it with PVC.

We have to load it with center labels.

A side goes on top, B side goes on bottom.

- With the demand for vinyl records surging, this machine is always spinning.

– Dave: This thing just, it just shoots records out.

- Waxy Poodle can press a record every 25 seconds, 3,500 each day.

- We'll get country people to come in here just to do 100 records.

It's not just the indie scene kids; the cool kids doing it.

'Cause people need merch to sell, you know, and it's snazzy.

It's transparent.

There's something about that product, at the end, the record and the art and everything.

- Mass-producing albums is an art and a science in an industry where vinyl has now eclipsed CD sales.

– Dave: I think people are just realizing it's better, and, you know, they made a mistake.

It's kind of what happened.

I hate to say it, but [laughs] I've been here watching.

We've been riding, you know, the rollercoaster of the vinyl boom ever since.

- Dave helped vinyl make a comeback, and now, there's no turning back.

– Dave: It's here to stay.

Yeah, I got really lucky and it just kind of snowballed from there.