Record store owners from Toledo, Salem, Chicago and Pittsburgh are packing up their crates this week and heading to Cleveland, where a free outdoor festival at The Vinyl Groove Records will turn a stretch of Old Brooklyn into a regional vinyl swap meet. Wax & Tracks Fest returns Saturday, September 19, running from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 5100 Pearl Road, with live bands, DJ sets and a full-album tribute performance anchoring the day.
Now in its second year, the festival was founded by David and Cecilia Wolfe of The Vinyl Groove Records along with Jessie Kelkenberg of Great Life's Work, according to Signal Cleveland. What began as a sidewalk sale grew into a full-blown music festival in just two months, according to the event's own website. Organizers describe the 2026 edition as bigger than the first, with more record stores and artists joining the lineup, per Great Life's Work.
A Love Letter to the Neighborhood
Cecilia Wolfe has called Wax & Tracks Fest a love letter to Cleveland, saying it gives back to the community and keeps music alive. She's also framed the gathering as a rebuttal to the idea that record shops are rivals, saying independent stores support one another rather than compete, per the same account from Signal Cleveland.
The Vinyl Groove Records itself sits in a plaza at Pearl and Brookpark roads that formerly housed Coconuts and Peaches record stores, the report notes. The shop first opened on November 14, 2014, and moved to its larger Old Brooklyn location on November 16, 2024, marking a decade in business, according to the festival's about page.
Crates Rolling In From Three States
Independent record stores from around the Midwest are bringing crates of rare vinyl, new releases and other offerings to fill out the festival floor, Signal Cleveland reports. Confirmed participants include State Street Records, a shop out of Salem, Ohio, that specializes in metal, hardcore and punk vinyl, and Out of the Past Records, a Chicago shop that has operated since 1966. The Government Center, described as a record shop and social gathering space in Pittsburgh, rounds out the out-of-town lineup.
Last year's fest drew Culture Clash Records from Toledo, Mistake By The Lake from Cleveland and Vinyl Underground from Kent under one roof, according to the festival's website. Beyond vinyl, this year's event has expanded to include vintage clothing, plants, handmade goods and food, the site notes — a sign of how far the gathering has grown past its sidewalk-sale roots.
Maggot Brain Gets the Full Treatment
The day's centerpiece is a live performance of Funkadelic's 1971 album Maggot Brain, played in full. Signal Cleveland reports that members of Apostle Jones will handle the performance, while Great Life's Work identifies the band as Apostadelic, a Cleveland psych-soul-funk-rock group led by Mikey Silas, set to take the stage at noon. Longtime Cleveland DJ Mike Filly is also on the bill, performing a DJ set alongside the day's live acts, according to Signal Cleveland.
Tied to the performance is a limited Midwest-exclusive vinyl pressing of Maggot Brain, with just 600 copies produced and a release date of September 11, per Great Life's Work. The pressing is being distributed through 25 independent record stores spread across Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, according to the same report.
Free to Attend, Built to Support Local Music
Wax & Tracks Fest costs nothing to attend, and organizers describe it as a way to support independent record stores and local music fans alike, Signal Cleveland reports. For a neighborhood that's watched record shops open, close and relocate over the decades, the festival offers a single day where competitors become collaborators, crates spill out onto the plaza, and the whole scene gets to celebrate itself in public.
