By Stephanie Samsel
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
“Organized chaos.” That is what his friends call him, and it is what his store embodies.
Celebrated Summer Records owner Tony Pence leans over his laptop behind a counter lit by a three-foot tall soft-serve cone. The only common thread between the store’s glossy holiday pins, cotton T-shirts, and vintage action figures is the store’s mascot: an orange cat head with no backstory. When customers ask to take Pence’s picture, a smiling mascot head leaves its spot on a Dunkin’ Donuts case to serve as the owner’s designated “shield” against facing the world as his “normal self.”
Aug. 4 will mark Celebrated Summer’s 17th anniversary, a day Pence cryptically says will be commemorated with a performance. Pence often celebrates his store’s milestones by releasing different merchandise items. When he does not design new merch launches, he honors anniversaries by performing as a vocalist in hardcore punk shows.
“Graphic design, performing, that is my favorite thing,” Pence said. “I like having a life outside of a dry record-store life.”
Celebrated Summer shares what Benn Ray, President of the Hampden Village Merchants Association, calls “Baltimore’s Best Block” with Atomic Books, Vu Skateshop and Nepenthe Beer Hall.
“You see so many folks walking around the neighborhood carrying records,” Ray said. “Whenever I see that, I think, ‘That’s Tony.’ ”
Owning Celebrated Summer is not just a job to Pence, Ray said, it is a lifechoice.
Born across the street from Morgan State University, Pence has ventured away from the Motown and easy-listening styles of his childhood to embrace his all-time favorite genres: punk, hardcore and jazz.
Still, his store offers much more than what its striped “soul jazz funk” and “60s 70s 80s Rock” signs indicate. Case in point: nestled in a cubby with one of his wedding photos is a signed “folklore” CD, a testament to Pence’s respect for Taylor Swift.
Nick Vance, Pence’s former bandmate, said the owner’s universal kindness makes his store one of the best in the country.
Pence can “sell Taylor Swift and then turn around and sell like a Discharge or…some like crazy punk thing that to most people sounds unlistenable,” Vance said. “[It’s] his ability to welcome both crowds into the store with the same open arms and overall friendliness. When you walk in other stores, it’s never as welcoming.”
Since working at Fells Point’s Reptilian Records in the ‘90s, Pence’s knowledge on movies and music has left a strong impression on customers who have eventually found themselves performing alongside him. Vance developed a friendship with Pence at Reptilian Records and joined his punk band Never Enough. The band eventually broke up after touring the country, but that did not stop them from rekindling the friendship in 2005 and starting a new hardcore band called Deep Sleep.
“We were all just hard-headed 20-year-olds,” Vance said. “Touring the U.S. whatever isn’t easy when you’re doing it for 30 days at a time. And yeah, friendships fall apart. But we’re all still friends, you know, to this day.”
Deep Sleep has held fewer performances since 2011, when Vance moved to Los Angeles and other members played in other bands on the East Coast. Out of the five punk bands Pence has performed in, Glue Traps is his latest.
Celebrated Summer used to be in Towson, where Pence held two-to-three shows every month. He shared space with Legends Games and Comics until 2009, when the owner added a Thai restaurant called Spice and Dice. Thai food and records would not have made sense together, Pence said.
Since moving the store to Hampden 14 years ago, Pence has missed being able to perform more often.
While the record-store owner bemoans being 50 years old and compares his achiness to “blowing away Marvel-style,” his latest employee and friend of 16-years Matt Casey praises his stage presence.
“Tony’s for sure young at heart,” Casey said, shaking his head. “He can jump up and like do acrobatics on stage.”
On a busy Friday afternoon, Pence gracefully tends to simultaneous requests. He answers his frequently-ringing cell with a neighborly “Celebrated Summer” that flies in the face of any impulsively-slewn expletives he just issued.
When he is not behind his laptop, Pence sits in an armchair inspecting stacks of creased covers. Dozens of records find themselves in and out of Pence’s hands within moments, settling in a stack that will soon be organized in the alphabetized and plastic-wrapped “chaos” that is Celebrated Summer.
“If I can turn this place into looking like a ‘60s Hardees, I know I did something right,” Pence said.