On the corner of Willow and Franklin Streets in Torrington, Revolution Records doesn’t announce itself with fanfare. But inside, you’ll find a library of music from a bygone era.
The store bins overflow with records of every genre, while the walls are blanketed with posters from the 1980s —U2, Rush, and other bands that defined a generation. A community board invites local musicians to find bandmates.
“When I opened this store, I wanted it to feel like my bedroom when I was a teenager,” said John Dibella, who founded the shop six years ago before handing it over to his lifelong friend, Ted Pirro. Pirro, a music lover with shoulder-length silver hair, has spent most of his life working in record stores.
More than a retail shop, Revolution Records has become something of a community center. Pirro calls his most devoted customers “hall of famers” — regulars who arrive without fail every week and chat for hours.
“There’s one gentleman here who’s a huge Beach Boys fan,” said Pirro. “He comes in every Saturday at six like clockwork and we’ll talk about the Beach Boys, how he discovered Brian Wilson.” Another regular, “Magic Phil,” comes in Fridays to discuss the Mets.
The store has also become a meeting ground across generations. Parents and grandparents bring in college-age kids getting their first turntables, bonding over their shared love of music.
“A lot of them are basically rebuying their youth,” Dibella said. “They want to hear it the way they remember hearing it.”
Dibella and Pirro remember when vinyl ruled in the mid-80s, with bustling stores on every block of the West Village. But starting in the 1980s, CDs and cassettes upended the industry. By 2006, album sales had plummeted, and famous record stores shuttered.
“We bought albums from those days marked down to $2.99 that are now worth $35, $40,” explained Dibella. “That’s how much people had no interest in vinyl.”
Ted Pirro has spent most of his life working in record stores and now runs Revolution Records in Torrington.Theo Maniatis
Now, from the brink of extinction, vinyl has been revived. Album sales reached 43.6 million last year for the first time since the 1980s.
Part of old-time records’ appeal lies in the treasure hunt. Dibella’s greatest find came from a box someone rescued from the town dump. Most of it was junk. But, he says, “Second to last record in the box is a King Crimson white label promo of their first album.”
Only 300 were ever made, with maybe ten surviving in good condition. Dibella bought it for a dollar. The actual value? Over a thousand dollars.
Vinyl’s other appeal is the warm, dynamic sound that can’t be captured in digital format. “If you’re listening on YouTube or Spotify, the sound is very compressed,” Pirro said. “You’re not getting the full, rich experience.”
Maybe the greatest appeal of records is the tangible, physical experience: admiring the cover, gently placing the stylus, and those few seconds of static before the music plays.
Running an independent record store is not easy, however. Pirro works six days a week, and the worries of the job linger with him on the seventh day too. There are slow periods after holidays when people travel, and the challenge of finding quality collections to buy.
But for Pirro, it is more than worth it. “I put all my energy into this thing because I don’t want to work for anyone else again,” he said. “The fact that I get to discuss my number one love in life every day is just awesome.”
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.