Where It Started…
The owner, Aaron Powell, was born in Seattle in 1977, and some of his earliest memories are riding to and from Seattle SuperSonics games at the Kingdome, Pink Floyd playing in his dad's copper Dodge Tradesman. In the backseat (the “backseats” were five gallon buckets), he and his brother traded lines back and forth, trying to memorize every word of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," or trying to figure out the only lyrics on “One of These Days” off Meddle as it played from a worn out cassette, one drive at a time.
The first CD his brother bought back in ‘89 was Alphaville Forever Young. Their collections were combined and intertwined until he moved out since they shared a room. “That was hard. He took some stuff I bought. I kept a few that he bought.” The arduous task of needing to repurchase to fill the gaps of his collection took time.
He picked up a guitar for the first time in the early '90s and spent his high school years soaking in the Seattle music scene at exactly the moment it became the Seattle music scene. Rock n’ roll was in his blood. By the early 2000s, he was collecting records in earnest. Larger format - more art. And they were cheap at the time - you could find gems at second hand shops. Napster showed up around the same time, but you couldn’t say you were into a band that you owned no physical media of. Slowly but surely his vinyl collection grew…
Family, Coffee, and Columbia Falls
Before the algorithm decided what you'd hear next, you decided. You spent your money on the bands you believed in, and you didn't spend it on the ones you didn't. That decision — record by record, dollar by dollar — added up to something. Your collection was your song. Your concert. It said who you were before you said a word.
Walk into a friend's place for the first time and their shelf told you everything. Sometimes you were jealous of a record or two you wished you owned yourself. Sometimes you looked at what they had and wondered how you two ever became friends at all. And sometimes — the best times — there was an album on that shelf you'd never heard of, and hearing it for the first time, right there, became a memory that never left you.
It's time to own your music again. Your collection is a legacy — something you build, something you can hand down to whoever comes after you. “When my folks passed on, I kept on discovering my dad’s records, like Jesse Ed Davis. I wish I could spun it once or twice with him, but discovering it after he was gone was good. Though his book was written, his collection was an epilogue.”
It costs you something to get your music, and that's exactly the point. The endless playlist never costs you a thing, and it stops being a part of you the way those stacks of CDs, tapes, and vinyl were. Algorithm-free listening, for uninformed gormandizers and crate-diggers alike.
Why We Collect…
Heidi grew up in Columbia Falls and headed to the Seattle area for college, where she met Aaron. They started a family, and in 2020, they brought it all back home — moving to Columbia Falls to build something of their own.
Today, Bad Rock Music is that shop: new and used vinyl, a coffee counter worth slowing down for, and a space built by two people who believe a record collection still says more about a person than any playlist ever could.
Visit Us
638 Nucleus Ave - Right next to Gunsight Saloon
Come dig through the crates, grab a pour-over, and maybe find that one album you didn't know you were looking for.