MMHF volunteer John Kass on the record
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NEW ULM -- Anyone who has dropped into the Minnesota Music Hall (MMHF) of Fame over the last few years should be familiar with John Kass.
For the last five years, he has volunteered at the front desk as visitor host. Kass is there to answer any questions visitors might have about Minnesota music history.
Kass said it is a great volunteer position and it reminds him a lot of his first job working at a record store.
Kass grew up on the east side of St. Paul in the 1970s. He said at that time, East St. Paul it was the land of Hamm's Beer instead of Schell's. It was also home of Scotch tape and Post-it notes thanks to the 3M headquarters.
Kass' father worked for 3M as an engineer and he originally intended to follow in his father's footsteps. He attended the University of Minnesota to study engineering, but he got a part-time job as a record store called "Music 2."
The year was 1982 and music was about to take a major shift, especially in the Twin Cities.
Kass explained that 1982 was the year of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, which is still the best-selling album of all time. It was also the year Prince's "1999" album dropped.
"When I first started working in a record store, this was the era I was starting in," Kass said.
It was a great time and place to be working in a record store. He quickly gave up on school and began working full-time at the record store and dedicated his life to music.
Through his work at the record store, Kass became good friends with several customers. One ambitious customer wanted to start a record label and recording studio. Kass joined him in the endeavor. Their record label was called "Susstones". It was Kass' first record label, but he would have other labels over the years.
Kass estimates that in his lifetime he has helped put out over 200 albums and singles by bands all over the world. Throughout this time, he continued to work at the record store. However, Kass admitted he was not overly interested in the live recording aspect of the music world.
He would eventually jump from running the sales and distribution portion of the recording business. Kass said distribution might be the least glamorous part of the record business, but it is the most lucrative.
"The vast majority of the money made in the record business is in the distribution end," he said. "It's not the artist, it's not the label, it's not the retailer, it is the chunk in the middle. That's where the money is made."
Kass would work for the Warner Music Group for 12 years (1996-2008). He was responsible for getting many popular bands into independent record stores from Duluth to El Paso.
"I was the sales rep for "Modest Mouse," "Death Cab for Cutie," "Arcade Fire," "Sunny Day Real Estate and countless other bands," he said. "I got to be that guy selling records to record stores."
In his time working as a sales representative for the Midwest, Kass quickly realized his customer base still wanted vinyl. The music industry as a whole had turned to CD and online downloads, but Kass realized there was a market for physical records still and he worked hard to convince the executives at Warner Music to continue pressing records.
He said many newly released albums at that time were skipping vinyl for CD or digital downloads. Kass had to pester his bosses to get the record labels to continue pressing vinyl and maybe re-issue older vinyl albums for collectors.
He said the executives thought he was crazy to focus on an old form of media, but he argued the hardcore music collectors wanted vinyl. In addition, the company already owned the rights to several classic bands and had record presses sitting unused. They might as well produce new copies for the collectors.
It worked.
Kass remembered he was able to sell re-issued "Doors" records by the semi-load. It was a surprise to the record executives on the coast, but they soon realized there was a market.
Kass said there were always a couple of labels that insisted on releasing vinyl. This was usually on the independent rock 'n ' roll market, but other genres like hip-hop and electronica preferred vinyl albums. That's how Kass knew there was a market for it.
By the time Kass retired in 2008, the vinyl record was making a strong comeback and he had a large part to play in making that happen.
During his time at Warner Music Group, Kass had another side business where he would sell records online to other collectors. Kass always had a large record collection of his own and through his distribution work, he was able to get access to a wide variety of albums that it could sell to individual collectors.
This started as a hobby, but after a while, Kass found out he was making more money selling online over the holiday season than he was making for Warner Music Group. He decided to move into selling online full-time at GoJohhnyGo.com.
"At one point, around 2016, we had the fourth largest vinyl music mail-order business on the internet," he said. "I had 70,000 titles available on eight different websites. We were shipping records 24/7 around the clock, all over the world."
In 2018, Kass moved to New Ulm. He grew to love the community and decided it was the place for him to retire.
He said New Ulm is close to the Twin Cities where his family lives. He can get up there to see his family and they can come down to New Ulm anytime.
"I really like it here. I like the old-time music and the beer culture," he said. "It was meant to be."
In 2019, Kass' realized he needed to take a step back from work. He had long struggled with multiple sclerosis, but it had gotten worse and running a large online record sales business became difficult.
He decided to sell off all his record inventory to other businesses and run a small record store in New Ulm. The name of the store was Go Johnny Go and it was located under the old Marktplatz Mall for a few months. It opened during Bavarian Blast in July and closed during Oktoberfest.
Kass said with his disability, he did not want to sign any long-term lease for even a single store. He decided it was best to fully retire.
However, quickly realized that he was retired in the city that was home to the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame.
"I go into the [MMHF] and it is exactly the kind of place I want to hang out in," Kass said. "It's like a record store, but it's all based on the historic part of music."
Kass wanted to volunteer at the MMHF from the beginning, but the COVID pandemic hit in 2020 and needed to wait for the grand reopening, but on the day he was first in line to volunteer.
"Now I am the host to the visitors at the front door," he said. "I love it, it's great."
Some of the best parts of volunteering at MMHF are meeting people from all over the world. Kass said most people visiting are from the Twin Cities, but they come from all over. Earlier this year, two New Zealand visitors dropped into the hall.
Kass said the vibe of working at the MMHF front desk is very similar to working in a record store.
"I love hanging out at the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame because I get the same feeling," he said.
Recently, MMHF has begun hosting more special events and speaker series.
Kass said one of the goals in recent years is to increase membership at the hall of fame and it is working.
"Overall, new membership is up," he said. "It's working very well."