Wisconsin
Indie Record Store Profile: Strictly Discs in Madison, Wisconsin
While attending the University of Madison-Wisconsin as a journalism and marketing major from 2003-2006, Rick Stoner fondly remembers roaming the aisles of Strictly Discs — the Monroe Street record store he acquired from longtime owners Ron and Angie Roloff last fall — just as the world was on the cusp of the digital music explosion.
“Strictly Discs is where I bought CDs before I had an iPod,” Stoner says. “That’s another way of saying that I’m 40 years old.”
Buying the beloved local business, which Ron opened in 1988 as a single-level, 800-square-foot shop (he later expanded it by converting the store’s 1,700-square-foot basement level into a retail space) was a full circle moment for Stoner — albeit not one he actively sought out. “I was not looking for a record store,” he says. “I was looking for a business at a certain price point. And the fact that I saw this listing was a very happy coincidence.”
The relatively quick five-month acquisition process concluded exactly one year ago, on Halloween 2023. And in January, after serving in advisory roles for three months during the handoff, the Roloffs fully exited the business (which was a subject of Billboard‘s “In a Pandemic” series from 2020 to 2021) to officially embark on their retirement, leaving Stoner to pilot the future of a store that has been a part of Madison’s cultural heart for 36 years. It’s a legacy he doesn’t take lightly, and, to foster a sense of continuity, he felt it was important to keep as many of the store’s existing staffers on board as possible.
“Retaining the team has been really my number one priority,” Stoner says. “Maintaining the business, maintaining the customers — to me, all those things are achievable if you’re retaining the brain trust and knowledge and vibe that comes with the team that has been there for a long time.” The store’s entire staff stayed on after the acquisition, including longtime employees Evan Woodward — who now serves as GM and runs the shop on a day-to-day basis — and Mark Chaney, who fills the role of assistant GM. “Everyone’s worked together really well,” Stoner adds. “I think they appreciate maybe a different approach to things, a little more structure, and I certainly appreciate the knowledge of music that they bring.”
Stoner’s 18-year background as a high-level advertising executive focused on management and new business development at companies including Brado, Derse, BBN and Bader Rutter makes him well-equipped to expand into new areas and supercharge what the store was already doing well. One of the first changes under his purview was instituting a new inventory management system that would be capable of handling the shop’s roughly 500,000 used vinyl records in addition to new product (he chose a system that was originally designed for grocery stores).
Another major item on Stoner’s to-do list was already in motion prior to his acquisition of the business: the conversion of 1,000 square feet of the 5,000 square foot Strictly Discs warehouse in neighboring Cambridge, Wis., into a second retail location, which officially opened Oct. 19 on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule (a grand opening is slated for sometime in November after the store’s permanent exterior sign is installed). “We have plenty of customers that aren’t in downtown Madison, and it takes them a while to drive downtown through traffic, find parking,” he says of opening the new storefront. “Now those people will be able to come here. And I also think we’ll be serving a rural customer that maybe just isn’t exposed to the cultural curiosities that come with a record store.”
Stoner is currently looking at creative strategies to build interest and excitement in the new location, including giving customers access to the music lover’s paradise contained in the back 4,000 square feet of the building, which boasts the majority of the business’ used product. Though Stoner has yet to settle on what that would look like, some ideas include quarterly bin-picking days and a “buy a crate and fill the crate” promotion.
Strictly Discs’ mountain of used product is one of the business’ key strengths. Beginning in 2010, Ron Roloff focused his energies on acquiring large private music collections in Wisconsin and beyond, leading the store to become known as the home of a treasure trove of hard-to-find records in all different genres. “I think what sets us apart is the volume and quality of more niche genres: jazz, classical,” says Stoner. “We have an extensive soundtrack collection that, before buying the business, I never could have imagined or guessed how well that does for us.”
Those used records are key to another major initiative Stoner has in mind: creating a subscription model that would allow customers to choose a certain number of new or used records per month — which would require integrating the store’s website with the Shopify platform — and either pick up their chosen product in-store or have it delivered to their homes. The idea was partially inspired by similar plans offered by the likes of Vinyl Moon and Vinyl Me, Please — though, as Stoner points out, those companies don’t allow customers the kind of choice Strictly Discs can offer. “If you’re paying $50 or $100 a month, especially if you live in a rural area, the record store is coming to you,” he says. “And I don’t see a lot of shops doing that.”
With a goal of launching some iteration of the subscription model during this year’s holiday shopping season, Stoner and his employees are currently focused on what he calls “the Herculean effort” of cataloging the store’s warehouse inventory. Stoner aims to initially target customers within Wisconsin but outside of Dane County (where Madison is located), drawing interest through targeted ads online and via the store’s email newsletter. “I think my main concern about it is that it doesn’t cannibalize our store,” he says. “So my hope is someone could subscribe to that, pick up things in store, they would get a discount in store for being a member, and it would allow us some growth and customer loyalty.”
The focus on getting the subscription plans off the ground ties in with Stoner’s overarching goal of beefing up Strictly Disc’s e-commerce efforts. On that front, the Roloffs were already ahead of the game, with a sales mix of 70% in-store and 30% online (within that, the mix is 90% vinyl and 10% CDs; while 65% of vinyl sales are new product.) “I’ve learned that that’s pretty atypical,” he says. I think [we have] the highest online [sales percentage], at least of record stores in our coalition [the Coalition of Independent Music Stores].” And in the long term, he’s looking to flip those stats on their head: “I want that 70-30 to look like 20-80 without hampering the growth of the store,” adds Stoner, who’s hoping to triple the store’s business through online sales.
The plans don’t end there. In addition to supersizing the store’s Record Store Day activities — this year, the store closed down part of Monroe Street with the city’s permission and threw a block party for the event — he’s looking to launch pop-up record shops at music festivals and other events outside of Madison to extend the physical store’s geographic reach.
For all of his ambitious plans, the store’s longtime customers probably won’t notice much of a difference. Like Ron, Stoner is currently intent on keeping Strictly Discs a pure music shop, steering clear of merch sales and other non-music items — which would be difficult to institute in any event, he says, given the shop’s relatively small footprint — and keeping intact what people loved about it in the first place.
“[In] our main record shop in Madison … almost nothing has changed, and that’s been intentional,” Stoner says. “It’ll be a staple of the community for the next 36 years, just like it has been the last 36 years.”
More in this series:
Twist & Shout in Denver, Colo.
Grimey’s in Nashville, Tenn.
Home Rule in Washington, D.C.
Sweat Records in Miami, Fla.
Wisconsin
Community remembers teacher killed in Wisconsin school shooting as Christian with Southern roots
Family and friends said their final farewells Monday to a substitute teacher killed in a shooting at a private religious school in Wisconsin last week, describing her as a devout Christian with Southern roots who made copious notes in her personal Bible and planned to take her children to Disney World next year.
Erin Michelle West, 42, was killed on Dec. 16 when 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow opened fire with a handgun at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. A 14-year-old student, Rubi Vergara, also was killed and six others were wounded before Rupnow turned the gun on herself. Rupnow was a first-semester student at the school. Investigators are still trying to piece together her motive.
Scores of people attended West’s midday funeral at Doxa Church in Fitchburg, a Madison suburb. West’s casket was set up before a stage decorated with Christmas trees adorned with golden lights. A giant photograph of her was displayed on a screen above the stage throughout the hourlong service.
Rob Warren, the church’s pastor, fought back tears as he welcomed people.
“In a sense, no one wants to be here,” he said. “But in another sense I believe we’re all supposed to be here right now, to hurt and heal together. As painful as it is, I believe we really all do need this moment.”
According to West’s obituary, she was born in St. Charles, Missouri, and graduated from Kennesaw State University in 2005. She married her husband, Jack, in 2005, in Powder Springs, Georgia. The couple has three daughters.
Warren read several verses from West’s personal Bible, remarking on all the handwritten notes and underlined sections throughout. He said that after Jack West gave him the Bible, the first page he turned to had the phrase “the Gospel is for everyone” written in blue ink.
“This is what Erin West was about,” the pastor said, adding later: “Erin is in heaven right now with Jesus and she’s more alive than she ever has been and that’s the truth.”
Nate Kaloupek, Doxa Church’s director of leadership development and equipping, gave a short elegy, describing how Erin met Jack in an online Christian chatroom and how Jack’s company, Cardinal Glass, moved the couple around the country, first to Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest before they settled in Wisconsin about six years ago.
Struggling at times to find his voice, Kaloupek said Erin loved the fast food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A and she showed her Georgia roots often by quipping “love y’all” or “hey, y’all.”
He joked that Erin was “really bad” at hiding her emotions and felt God had called her to work at ALCS. She led prayers for people in their church group and tracked what prayers were answered, he said.
She loved camping trips with her family, wine-tasting trips with her husband and was looking forward to taking their daughters to Disney World this spring, he added, before concluding the elegy with: “She’d want me to say ‘love y’all.’ Thank you.”
Wisconsin
Wisconsin top freshman edge rusher transfers to a Big Ten rival
Wisconsin transfer outside linebacker Anelu Lafaele committed to Michigan State on Sunday.
The former four-star recruit joins a growing list of former Badgers to find new transfer destinations, joining OLB Leon Lowery (Illinois), CB Amare Snowden and S Braedyn Moore (Toledo), CB Jonas Duclona (South Florida), S Justin Taylor (Wyoming) and TE Riley Nowakowski (Indiana).
Wisconsin football 2024 transfer portal departure tracker
Lafaele entered the portal last week after one year with the Badgers. He was one of the highest-rated commits in the program’s top-ranked class of 2024, ranked as the No. 601 overall player in the class and the No. 27 edge rusher.
The Hawaii native did not see the field as a true freshman and transferred out with four years of eligibility remaining. Along with CB Xavier Lucas, DL Hank Weber, and QB Mabrey Mettauer, he is one of four members of Wisconsin’s class of 2024 to depart.
Lafaele joins a Michigan State program that went 5-7 in year one under new head coach Jonathan Smith in 2024. Smith is working to return the Spartans to the level of success they sustained during the 2010s — just as Luke Fickell is trying to do at Wisconsin.
https://twitter.com/LafaeleAnelu/status/1871019969112330256
The Badgers will face Lafaele when they host the Spartans in 2026. Wisconsin is likely to have new faces at edge rusher by that date, with seniors Darryl Peterson, Aaron Witt and Mason Reiger (transfer) set to lead the room in 2025. Rising junior Sebastian Cheeks and class of 2024 signees Thomas Heiberger and Ernest Willor Jr. appear to be next in line at the position. Lafaele would have competed for snaps with that second group. Now, he’ll be on the opposing sideline looking to rush the Badgers’ quarterback.
For more on where former Badgers are headed, including several to Big Ten destinations, bookmark our 2024 transfer portal departure tracker.
Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes, and opinion.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Lottery Pick 3, Pick 4 results for Dec. 22, 2024
Manuel Franco claims his $768 million Powerball jackpot
Manuel Franco, 24, of West Allis was revealed Tuesday as the winner of the $768.4 million Powerball jackpot.
Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Wisconsin Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Dec. 22, 2024, results for each game:
Winning Pick 3 numbers from Dec. 22 drawing
Midday: 9-3-4
Evening: 3-6-9
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from Dec. 22 drawing
Midday: 7-7-1-9
Evening: 5-1-7-0
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning All or Nothing numbers from Dec. 22 drawing
Midday: 01-03-04-07-10-12-14-15-16-18-19
Evening: 02-03-06-09-10-12-15-16-19-20-21
Check All or Nothing payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Badger 5 numbers from Dec. 22 drawing
06-12-19-30-31
Check Badger 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning SuperCash numbers from Dec. 22 drawing
05-06-08-27-29-34, Doubler: Y
Check SuperCash payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
- Prizes up to $599: Can be claimed at any Wisconsin Lottery retailer.
- Prizes from $600 to $199,999: Can be claimed in person at a Lottery Office. By mail, send the signed ticket and a completed claim form available on the Wisconsin Lottery claim page to: Prizes, PO Box 777 Madison, WI 53774.
- Prizes of $200,000 or more: Must be claimed in person at the Madison Lottery office. Call the Lottery office prior to your visit: 608-261-4916.
Can Wisconsin lottery winners remain anonymous?
No, according to the Wisconsin Lottery. Due to the state’s open records laws, the lottery must, upon request, release the name and city of the winner. Other information about the winner is released only with the winner’s consent.
When are the Wisconsin Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10:00 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Super Cash: 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
- Pick 3 (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
- Pick 3 (Evening): 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
- Pick 4 (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
- Pick 4 (Evening): 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
- All or Nothing (Day): 1:30 p.m. CT daily.
- All or Nothing (Evening): 9 p.m. CT daily.
- Megabucks: 9:00 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Badger 5: 9:00 p.m. CT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Wisconsin editor. You can send feedback using this form.
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