Suburban Standards

While drilling holes into records, Colin Tappe talks about Standards, a record store he is preparing to open in Vista.

“I just wanna do something for North County. That’s where I am, and I like it here. I’m just a suburban kind of guy, you know?” he tells me as we chat in the half-prepared shop.

Tappe, who commuted to his job at Radiation Records in Anaheim for a year, plans to enrich the cultural landscape of Vista, instead of abandon it the way he’s seen so many do over the years.

“There’s a tendency for interesting people to get the fuck out of North County as soon as they possibly can.” In contrast, Tappe is investing in a spot that he sees as an interesting hub of sorts — near a restaurant called the Yellow Deli, where he’s seen “Ren-fair people, to tea-partiers, to band nerds. All kinds of folks.”

While a record by a metal band called Darkxom plays over the newly installed stereo system, Tappe explains his record store’s name.

“The idea is to stock the standards. If we’re talking punk music, then were talking Sex Pistols, Discharge... If we’re talking jazz music, we’re talking Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis... If we’re talking reggae, we’re talking, you know, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley — stuff you would expect to find.”

Among other acquisitions, Tappe purchased the record collection owned by Joe Denunzio, vocalist of the hardcore band Infest, which disbanded in the ’90s. Tappe says he isn’t taking pre-orders or listing the collection online, so if you want a good crack at those records, you have to physically come in opening day.

In addition to new and used records, the store will be selling new shirts of old bands, and as the recently painted sandwich-board reads, they are “Always buying records, CDs, video games, DVDs, turntables...”

Standards is located at 216 East Broadway in Vista. Opening day is February 4 at noon. Live performances by Waco Fuck and Adult Crash begin at 8 p.m. There is no cover.