Vinyl Records, CDs, and more make worldwide comeback, including in new Port Jervis record store!
- sharonsiegel1954
- Oct 14, 2025
- 4 min read
By Sharon E. Siegel
PORT JERVIS, NY – Port Jervis has a new business with a vintage focus and roaring comeback return-- a popular, growing trend and resurgence in the music industry -- and enjoyable music store vibe.
Jesse Traynor, owner and operator of the newly opened Ironhead Records in Port Jervis, NY, is a lifelong music collector and a diehard fan of extreme metal and hardcore punk. His love for heavy, fast, dark music runs deep. It is that love, along with its vibe, that fostered a decades-long desire and achievement in opening his own local music store this past weekend.
By the time he was 12, Traynor recalls knowing that he wanted to own a record store someday. As of an official Grand Opening and Ribbon-Cutting on October 11, 2025, that lifelong dream came true with the launch of Ironhead Records in Port Jervis, NY. The official grand opening ceremony, attended by city and county officials, friends, and family, drew dozens to the opening day event.
Why Port Jervis, and a record store?
“I researched dozens of possible locations for Ironhead Records, but kept coming back to Port Jervis because of its proximity to home, pro-business attitude, and affordability,” Traynor shared.
The new record store owner views the opening of his store as a way to give back to “scenes that helped to shape him” as he grew up in Bloomingdale, NJ, settled in Vernon Township, but always visited Port Jervis. In recent years, especially, Traynor has visited The Shop Tattoo, a custom tattoo shop on Jersey Avenue. He says he fell in love with the counterculture vibe in The Shop Tattoo, and has always enjoyed visiting the shop and Port Jervis.
Ironhead Records is an independent record store, and was fashioned for fans of loud, heavy, underground music. It currently offers vinyl, CDs, and cassette tapes, as well as band shirts, patches, hats, and other gear for punk or metalhead fans. Traynor’s mission is to offer much more than just a wide selection of record shop items, however.
“Ironhead Records offers a community hub for people who live for the loud, the fast, and the heavy – a place to discover new bands, connect with other fans, and get lost in what I call ‘uneasy listening’. We specialize in highly curated music, including a little bit of hip hop that fits just right,” Traynor said.
"Beyond the music, and music-related items," Traynor noted, "visitors to the record store will also find a carefully chosen collection of witchy books and items and fun counterculture gifts.”
Traynor’s pre-record store career was in a different field -- law enforcement, including serving as chief of a countywide animal cruelty investigation unit. He found this position to be challenging, but meaningful. It has always been music, however, that is Traynor’s true calling. T
Traynor’s music experienced have also included his performances as a musician in multiple bands over the years, including with The Procedure and Helcaraxe. As a band member, he toured all over the United States and continues to run Sunshine Ward Recordings, a label dedicated to metal music.
At a time when records, CDs, cassettes, and the devices they are played on may have seemed like they were becoming a thing of the past, what do current trends show about for physical music media and independent record store interest?
Many music industry sources, such as ‘Now Spinning Magazine', say the resurgence and comeback of vinyl and CDs mark an exciting chapter in music industry trends. An article in its July, 2024 issue states that physical music sales have been on the rise for the first time in two decades, a movement that many music industry sources say has continued through 2025 and is predicted to follow into the future.
“With upcoming releases from major artists and continued enthusiasm from fans, the physical music market is set for continued growth,” the above-mentioned issue states.
With the physical music market continuing to surge, collectors, music-lovers, independent record shops (like Traynor’s) -- and this industry overall --seems bright for months ahead.
This does not surprise Port’s new record shop owner at all. He praised his wife during Grand Opening remarks for encouraging him to leave his job to pursue his lifelong record store dream during this time.
“Alternative music culture has been tied to physical media for as long as it has existed. While other genres moved away from wide releases of CDs, vinyl, and tapes, metal fans have continued to embrace it. In the last few years, we’ve witnessed a resurgence of physical media because artists realized that their fans crave the physical experience of interacting with their music,” Traynor said. “There is nothing more powerful that the ability to hold records, reading along to the lyrics in the booklet, or collecting every version of a pivotal release.”
Ironhead Records, located at 169 Pike Street, Port Jervis, NY, is open five-days-a-week:
Wednesdays & Thursdays: Noon to 7 p.m.
Fridays: Noon to 9 p.m.
Saturdays: Noon to 8 p.m.
Sundays: Noon to 5 p.m.
For updates about the store, including a website launch, follow @IronheadRecords on Instagram. To contact the store, email ironheadrex@gmail.com or call 414-666-IRON (4766).
