The bright tambourines of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” can be heard from most corners of Devry and Sean Jones’ Manor Park apartment. The song plays from a tucked-away corner where the couple’s record player sits atop IKEA shelves holding more than 3,700 albums.

Putting on a record as the two prepare dinner is part of their postwork ritual. As “I’ll Be There” plays, the Joneses recall the summer of 1970 when the song was released. Despite the polarity in their musical tastes—Devry prefers folk and ’80s, Sean gravitates toward punk, emo, and hip-hop—they grew up listening to the Jackson 5. It’s why they selected the iconic pop group’s Greatest Hits as their May record of the month. 

“We grew up listening to these albums, but without each other,” Devry tells City Paper. “It gets us to talk about where we were in our lives being in different places.” 

The album was one of their three picks from Byrdland Records’ New Columbia Record Club. Now in its third year, the local record store’s vinyl subscription service offers members a single record from a curated selection of three every month. The selections, curated by Byrdland’s owners Joe Lapan and Alisha Edmonson and the store’s vinyl director and buyer Jonathan Druy, are broken into three categories: new releases, classics, and local. Members also receive free entry to various events at Byrdland, including early access appointments to Record Store Day and its sister venue Songbyrd Music House. 

There are no shortages of vinyl subscription services today—VYNL and Vinyl Me, Please are popular online options—but Lapan and Edmonson wanted their version to hone in on the local music scene to give members (and local acts) a deeper sense of community. Even the name, New Columbia Record Club, is a local reference playing off the New Columbia Statehood Commission that formed in 2014 to coordinate efforts for statehood and voting rights for D.C. residents. 

The store’s dedication to local acts is on display each month when Edmonson, Lapan, and Druy select an album from DMV artists. Previous artists have included local soul legends Skip Mahoaney & the Casuals, rapper Wale, and R&B-meets-rock band Oh He Dead, but Lapan says the decision is a balance of what the store can get its hands on and what the three of them are listening to. The team has also enlisted Electric Cowbell, a D.C.-based independent record label that specializes in small-batch vinyl releases, to help curate monthly selections. 

Byrdland’s idea for starting their own vinyl subscription service began back when Songbyrd was a one-stop shop in Adams Morgan, combining the record store, venue, and eatery in a cramped two-story building. The space constraints, however, kept their vinyl inventory too low. 

That changed in 2020, when the record shop spun off into its own dedicated space near Union Market. Byrdland gave Lapan and Edmonson the leg room to expand their inventory from 1,000 records to more than 7,000 in the store at any given time. It’s also created opportunities to offer more in-store events, such as concerts, album release parties, and listening parties. 

“We grew into a larger, more proper record store,” Lapan says. 

Since the club launched in 2021, membership has increased from 15 to more than 60, according to Lapan.

“There’s nothing like the sound of vinyl,” says Taunja Pegues, a fourth-generation Washingtonian and one of the club’s first members. For her, signing up for Byrdland’s Record Club brought back memories of joining mail-order music clubs when she was a teenager in the ’80s. Her physical collection began when she was 10 and she credits club services for helping her discover new genres.

“That was the first way that [I] really listened to music, so just seeing the whole full circle moment and being involved in it is great for me,” Pegues says. 

With the New Columbia Record Club, Lapan says Byrdland is able to build an avenue for members to discover local talent and expand their music taste. Record stores have historically played crucial roles in building and sustaining local music and art scenes, often serving as bridges between artists and listeners. 

This connection is increasingly important in the digital age, says Philip Basnight, singer and guitarist of D.C. indie-rock group Broke Royals. Although music streaming services can help independent artists build their platforms, they still have to compete with an oversaturated music market that might leave listeners too overwhelmed to seek out new music. Record stores are a good place to cut through the noise. 

D.C.’s vast and eclectic music history makes selecting the monthly local pick for club members no easy task. The team meets regularly to discuss selections for each month and together they might recommend albums based on conversations with local bands, new releases, or turn to classics (such as June’s pick, Fugazi’s 1993 album, In On the Kill Taker, and April’s First Take, the debut album from the Arlington-raised Howard University alum Roberta Flack). Sometimes they simply gauge how club members are feeling when they come to pick up their selection. 

Byrdland’s expanded inventory has also helped the store and fans solidify relationships with local artists and keeps the store up to date on new music, which they offer club members through special edition releases or other exclusive offerings. In 2023, for example, when DMV rapper Oddisee released his 10th studio album, To What End, members of the New Columbia Record Club were eligible to receive an exclusive vinyl.

When Broke Royals released their third album in 2022 (on Byrdland’s in-house record label), the store held an exclusive listening party where club members received free entry. Longtime members Devry and Sean Jones attended. The couple left with the Broke Royals record in tow. Two years later, it’s still displayed on their IKEA shelf, waiting to be replayed during dinner.