This record shop owner strives to keep cassette, vinyl music alive

Ge Timbreza has lived and breathed music for as long as he can remember. In his younger years, he played in a band with his friends. Then, he started collecting CDs and cassette tapes just for the fun of it. TImbreza was just in high school when he bought his own cassette player . To this day, the nostalgia of listening to old records hits just as hard — and it’s a feeling he believes he can never replicate from streaming music online. Timbreza’s love for music didn’t just take him down memory lane. In 2017, it also led him to establish Spin The Reel Music Trade, which now operates daily in Pasig City. His wife, Charm, has always been supportive of him. His 16-year-old son is also one of the reasons why the business keeps running, since he also inspires him to pursue music.

In the dusty shelves of Spin The Reel Music Trade are decades of history representing the hard work of artists, ready to be reached for by collectors. For collectors like Timbreza, there is a certain type of magic in being able to feel physical records and play them through turntables, cassette players, and CD players. The process is more personal, where the listener builds their own taste brick by brick, rather than having online algorithms decide the next song they should tune into. At Spin The Reel Music Trade, unassuming customers turn into regulars, and eventually pass that hobby on to their peers. Clearly, word-of-mouth is a big weapon in the world of analog music. So long as it’s kept alive by collectors and collectors-in-the-making, Timbreza believes the industry will remain. Hobby of the youth You’d think that Baby Boomers, Gen X-ers, and millennials would make up a large chunk of a record shop’s customer base. Physical media was what they grew up with after all. But Timbreza would be in…