Temporary store: Matthias Westerweller wants to run the Hoppigaloppi record store until the end of the year. He wants to see what happens next.
Image: Michael Braunschädel
The vinyl hype continues, used records are selling well. It could soon be worthwhile for collectors to look for them in stores more often than online. This also has to do with new prices at the post office.
Dhe shop is called Hoppigaloppi, and there is a rocking horse in front of the door. Matthias Westerweller “borrowed” the name from a horse ranch without any ulterior motive, simply because he finds it funny and beautiful. In general, he didn’t think long about whether he should do it: open a record shop. For Westerweller, the store, just 25 square meters in size, on Berger Strasse in Frankfurt’s north end, is an experiment. He wants to find out whether a business with used records can be profitable. And whether he still enjoys the whole thing, selling music.
Matthias Westerweller is known as a DJ in the region, and the freelancer earns his money by spinning records. He created the party series “Lazy”, moderates his own program on the internet radio Byte FM, but also appears at company parties, weddings and other private parties. Few people know that he worked as a record dealer before he became known as a DJ, from 1991 to 2001. Back then, too, Westerweller worked on the Berger Strasse shopping mile: in the record department of the Saturn Hansa electronics store. But after ten years, he no longer wanted the job.
