WAX N FACTS: Fifty years and counting...

Wax 'N' Facts, the venerable Atlanta record store on Moreland Avenue that could very well be credited with spearheading Little Five Points as the cultural center of this city’s alternative lifestyle scene, celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. Festivities culminate Sunday, July 19, with a concert at the Variety Playhouse around the corner on Euclid Avenue.

Founded by Danny Beard and the late Harry DeMille, with 48 years of huffing and puffing by store manager Sean Bourne, the initial focus of the store was on records and books, but it soon became clear that the buying and selling of used records was the mainstay of the store, decades before “vinyl” became the record collector’s focus, when when albums and 45 r.p.m. records were bought for the music embedded deep in the grooves, rather than strictly for collectibility, novelty, or bragging rights.

Starting out as a thin slice of a store front at 432 Moreland Avenue, across the street from the Sevananda “health food” co-op and Abba Dabba’s shoe store, Wax N Facts quickly became the meeting place for music aficionados of all types of music. It was certainly a more intimate place to shop than across town at the larger-than-a-grocery-store Peaches Records and Tapes chain out of Los Angeles. At Wax you could peruse the records and be entertained with wisecracks and bits of knowledge doled out as off-handed remarks by Beard and DeMille, as they second-guessed your selections and told you what you should be buying instead. It was one of Beard’s such laconic suggestions that prompted me to buy Gordon Haskell’s It Is and It Isn’t the first time I made my pilgrimage to the store in the summer of ‘76. I still own the record. I may not listen to it as much anymore, but how could I not keep the souvenir of my first visit to the now iconic store?

As Little Five Points transformed from Atlanta’s Bowery to the hip destination it has become, Wax N Facts has remained the neighborhood’s anchor, having expanded to increase it’s sales floor and selection for the varying tastes of its wide-range of customers, whether used records, new releases, compact discs, or cassettes. Wax also continues to be a main source for DIY releases by Atlanta bands and musicians. The store hasn’t branched out as a purveyor of pop culture, but continues to buy, sell, and trade music, remaining true to what garnered it a foothold in Atlanta’s culture five decades ago. — Tony Paris

CRITIC’S PICK July 19

The Wax'n'Facts celebratory 50th Anniversary Show at Variety Playhouse is a momentous community event. The 'ne plus ultra' independent record store founded on June 6, 1976 by Danny Beard and Harry DeMille (RIP), Wax'n'Facts represents the bohemian soul of Little Five Points and serves as a cornerstone of Atlanta's status as safe harbor for alternative arts.

Stocked to the rafters with musical fare from all over the world, staffed by knowledgeable, friendly, helpful aficionados, Wax ‘n’ Facts is a place where music lovers can deep dive into their favorite genre and always come up with a gem or three.

The Variety Playhouse bill features a lineup of artists whose careers are associated with Wax‘n’Facts, DB Recs (the record label started by Beard in 1978, which released The B-52's first single, “Rock Lobster”), and the Athens/Atlanta music scene: Pylon Reenactment Society, All the Saints, Anne Richmond Boston, The Swimming Pool Q's, Uncle Green, Helionaut featuring Paul Melançon, and Kevin Dunn's Unresponsive in Malibu.

A golden anniversary all-ages show for the ages if there’s ever been one. — Doug DeLoach

Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Avenue, Atlanta, 30307. Doors at 5:30 PM, show at 6:30 PM. Tickets available here.