As it turned out, Blabaum, in classic Blabaum fashion, was sending some not so subtle messages to his legion of local vinyl junkies that the store at 18 W. Main St. would be no more, and after hosting a Customer Appreciation Day on Saturday, Sept. 7, he announced its permanent closure the following Wednesday in a heartfelt 26-minute video posted to Facebook. It marked the conclusion of a nearly decade-long adventure that began when he partnered with Warren Wolken at Odds and Ends before eventually breaking off on his own and launching the Wax Xtatic moniker, which included, for a time, the House of Wax music venue.

It wasn’t an easy decision for Blabaum to make, with several factors leading up to it, but as the song says, he did it his way, and he had a lot of fun in the process.

“It was probably all the people I met — all the customers, all the friends — and I made a lot of friends. Turning kids onto new music, turning adults onto music,” he said when asked what he’ll remember most. “That was probably the coolest part.”

A lifelong dream

A sign on Wax Xtatic’s front door informs customers of the closure and directs them to the business’s Facebook page for more details.

For Blabaum, a native of the small southwestern Wisconsin town of Highland and a veteran, owning a record store was a lifelong dream, and before it happened, he sold vinyl out of the basement of his home near Liscomb while working at the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo.

Exact dates and time are sometimes hard for Blabaum to recall as it’s become a bit of a blur — and as he noted, he’s always been selling something — but his knowledge of music and vinyl records specifically always guided him.

“I’ve always devoured music. I’ve always liked it. That was my escape as a kid, listening to music, and I listened to everything. My parents had s*** taste in music. It was garbage, so I had to go find them stuff,” he said.

A cousin introduced him to Black Oak Arkansas — “devil music” — when he was 11 years old, and Blabaum was also drawn to the cover art on the album. As a teen, he and his friends would drive all the way from Highland to Madison to eat gyros and haunt the record stores on State Street.

“I would buy records based on covers or reviews I read in Rolling Stone, and radio was great back then because they played a lot of cool stuff,” he said.

In the 21st century and the age of iTunes and Spotify with the golden age of vinyl far in the rearview mirror, starting a store of his own may have seemed archaic — Murph and Andy, whose KXNO radio show Blabaum frequently emailed, joked that he might venture into VCRs next.

Wolken had been a coworker of Blabaum’s at the Juvenile Home, and he had some records at his Odds and Ends store at 108 W. Main St.. His true passions, however, were video games and DVDs.

“He’d taken it over from somebody else, and it morphed from Beanie Babies into games. And he had all these records that he picked up, and I just told him I’ll come in and curate your stuff and sell that. And we’ll do a deal, and we worked out a deal (that) he’d do video games and I’d do albums, and it worked out well,” Blabaum said.

Eventually, he decided to rent his own space and develop his own business identity with Wax Xtatic around 2015 or 2016. He can still recall his first Record Store Day and the excitement of seeing a line of 15 people out the door.

It only grew from there, introducing Blabaum to countless “vinyl junkies” from near and far and employees who would become some of his best friends. Carl Giannetto, who now travels the country as a full-time standup comedian, worked with Blabaum for about five years between Odds and Ends and Wax Xtatic. He started out as a customer and learned factoids about records, pressings and artists from his eventual boss, who possesses an almost encyclopedic knowledge of all things music related.

“I think that’s why he’s bald is because he’s got so much music information pushing out his hair,” Giannetto said.

As they got to know each other, Giannetto came in to interview for a job after discussing the idea with Blabaum. They made each other laugh the entire time, and they knew it was a natural fit.

“We just kept laughing through the interview, and then he hired me and we laughed pretty much every day. We were just goofing off, laughing, having a good time, and I think that’s one of the reasons why he hired me,” he said. “We had a connection. Comedically, we clicked.”

Because of his long-running interest in stand-up, Giannetto, a 2015 MHS graduate and lifelong Marshalltown resident, gravitated toward vinyl searching for hard to find recordings of performances by legends like George Carlin, and Blabaum had them, along with Weird Al, the famed parody artist who blurred the line between music and comedy.

“It just drew me to that, and I was like ‘Let’s venture past this.’ I started looking at Dean Martin records and Alice Cooper records, and it slowly built from there. And then I started collecting them,” he said.

The two once spent an entire day talking like Jerry Seinfeld “for no reason” and would often laugh until they nearly puked, in Giannetto’s words.

“There’s all kinds of other bits, just jokes and thousands of things that we’ve laughed about that I’ve forgotten about. I mean, we just laughed til our sides hurt, man,” he said. “That’s what we did. It was always fun hanging (with him). Like I said, the best part was the hang.”

Savannah Frohwein, better known by her nickname “Bug,” raved about the experience she gained slinging vinyl at Wax over the last few years.

“Working at Wax was one of the best experiences for me. It was one of my first jobs. Working there has helped me grow as a person. I can say I am more confident than I ever was and it definitely improved my people skills,” she said. “Wax was definitely just a cool place to hang out and talk about music. It was such a positive vibe. Everyone got along and just shared their interests in music. Wax had something for everyone for any music taste, and if we didn’t have something, we would find it.”

After buying his own building at 110 W. Main St. in early 2018, dealing with the tornado, insurance disputes and its eventual demolition and court-ordered sale back to the city, Blabaum found a new home a block to the east inside the former Apgar Photography Studio, purchasing the space in 2020 and opening there in 2021. One area he was immediately drawn to was the back room, which he envisioned as a small listening room type venue.

As music fans most likely know, it became the House of Wax and hosted a wide range of eclectic artists over the years, from upstart local acts to regional bands and singer-songwriters — the Old Scratch Revival Singers and Ben Driscoll, to name a few — looking for a unique venue between larger stops.

“I thought it was so cool to have local bands come and play at our store. It brought people together and gave people something to do downtown. I loved the community we were building,” Frohwein said. “Our customers were amazing. I loved talking to them and getting to know them and their music tastes. Wax definitely gave me a sense of belonging. I felt like I was part of a family.”

The final straws

A non-conformist by nature, Blabaum faced his share of conflicts and litigation with local officials over the years culminating in a fire code “violation” related to extension cords at the House of Wax — the city of Marshalltown outsources its inspections to a private third party vendor. The offense, which the inspector found last winter, resulted in a $2,500 expense Blabaum still doesn’t feel he should’ve had to pay and led to the eventual decision to shut down the venue for good.

It was around the same time that Blabaum, 61, began to seriously consider closing Wax Xtatic’s doors.

“I’m not doing this to please the city. I don’t need their validation. I don’t care so much that they don’t know what we do, but they should. And they should care equally for every business that’s in this town. And they just don’t, and it’s frustrating,” he said. “It may not be your thing, but it is other people’s thing. And if you keep telling people that we have a great downtown, then support your downtown. And that’s what’s frustrating the most… I watched how much I’ve battled and lost money, and I’m not looking forward to battle again.”

Also looming is the Main Street reconstruction project, which has many business owners on edge as they’ve watched what’s happened a block to the north on State Street. One eatery there, Adelina’s Grill, nearly shut down for good due to a lack of business before a social media call to action helped to drive an at least temporary surge in traffic.

Retail and restaurant owners should be especially concerned about the effects the project will have on their bottom lines, Blabaum said, and he hopes city leaders will develop a more detailed and effective plan to support them and provide access through the reconstruction.

“Little orange signs pointing people down the alley are not gonna get you to people’s businesses. They will say they’ve done something — ‘Well, we put signs up’ — but that doesn’t do it,” he said.

His ultimate fear, he said, is that the project will “kill” business downtown, especially if the plans and phases aren’t clearly laid out with detailed instructions on where to park and how to access the establishments on Main Street. He’s heard that patrons will be run up and down the street in golf carts and that front door access may not be available.

“This is all rumor and conjecture because we don’t know. They’ve told us nothing, and I’m afraid that it’s just going to land upon us and we’ve gotta figure out how to get people here,” Blabaum said.

Pulling a Blabaum

The owner, who sold t-shirts and other merchandise showcasing his well-known bald head, goatee and glasses, isn’t sure what he’ll do in retirement or even if he is retiring. He plans to sell off what he can of the remaining inventory — and he still has plenty — while considering his next moves.

“I’ve been buying and selling and trading for a long, long time, so it’s kind of a retirement from that, although I never will fully,” he said. “I’ve had people offer that I come to their store and work, but I just don’t wanna do that because it’s not mine. And I’m not a control freak, but I just kind of do s*** my own way.”

He’s open to the possibility of the store being purchased, but the name and brand would have to change. Overall, Blabaum admitted feeling relieved with his decision, especially in a challenging retail environment as the costs of vinyl records continue to skyrocket — new ones from high profile artists often run $45 to $50.

But he’ll always be glad he did what he did while he could and hired some great employees like Frohwein and Giannetto who he’s still lucky to call his friends. Frohwein is going to school to become a veterinarian tech, which warms Blabaum’s heart as an avid supporter of the Animal Rescue League and lover of cats and dogs.

“Having John as my boss was amazing. He probably hands down will be the best boss I’ve ever had. John is someone I really admire and look up to,” Frohwein said. “He’s taught me so much and supported me all the way through my experience at Wax, which I’m thankful for. He’s gotten to be a really good friend of mine. I will miss working with him.”

Although Giannetto took a job at a radio station a few years back, he and Blabaum can still pick up right where they left off anytime they get together, and they still love to sing each other’s praises.

“I don’t know if there will ever be another place like (Wax) here in Marshalltown, and I mean, there’s no other guys like John out there either,” Giannetto said.

As readers might expect, Blabaum referenced a few of his favorite artists while reflecting on what “the end” means to him — Zevon, the famously sardonic singer-songwriter best known for “Werewolves of London” who wrote “Keep Me In Your Heart” as he was dying of cancer, and legendary comedian and actor Norm MacDonald, who succumbed to leukemia in 2021.

“I wanted to end it on my own terms. When I was growing up and I’d hang out at parties or whatever, I found out years later that my close friends had a name for leaving a party or a function. And it was pulling a Blabaum,” he said. “Because I would. I would just (be) like ‘Hey, I feel like leaving,’ so I’d go. And I wouldn’t tell anybody goodbye… I may be defined by this now, by closing, but I didn’t want to be defined by closing over the month or two months and saying ‘I’m ending on this date, everybody come in and see me.’ I just didn’t want to do that.”

Once again, he did it his way.

——

Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.