The vinyl collector bug bit Isaac Smith hard after he asked his parents for a turntable on his 13th birthday. After acquiring a few thousand records since that pivotal moment in 2015, the Bettendorf native recently opened a record store of his own in North Liberty. Zig Zog’s Records is the realization of a pipe dream he’s had since high school.
I first met Smith at a record fair in the summer of 2022. While making small talk at his booth, I learned that he was selling records to cover the cost of attending the University of Iowa — a self-made Vinyl Revival Scholarship, if you will.
Coincidentally, it turned out that he had already enrolled in my Music & Social Change class that fall semester (for which he wrote a final paper titled “The Beach Boys Encounter Counter Culture”). I kept buying LPs from this tall young man over the years, and by this point, I have shelled out about as much as he paid in tuition to take my class, a fair trade in my opinion…