A Q&A about Wax Trax’s Q&A with James Acaster and Kalyn Heffernan
By Delaney Schoenfeldt
At Wax Trax in Denver, Colorado on the 8th of February, at half past one, hundreds of people stood outside our shop because a British comedian wouldn’t stop talking about us on national television. Three days earlier, James Acaster had repeatedly plugged our tiny in-store event on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
I admit it. A week before that, I wasn’t even sure 20 people would show up. My initial social media post, advertising an interview and Q&A with Kalyn from Wheelchair Sports Camp and James Acaster, was getting atrociously poor engagement.
For the next few days, our small Wax Trax team diverted to planning for massive crowds. What started as an out-of-the-box idea to talk about music with my favorite comedian turned into a nationally spotlit event.
In the spirit of the day, here’s a self-inflicted Q&A about the Q&A.
How did Wax Trax get involved with a famous British comedian in the first place?
On a Friday in mid-January, right before clocking out for the weekend, and expecting no response, I sent a cold in-store request email to a U.K. talent agent. It was a shot in the dark, and unconventional from the start. Although his affinity for music is well known, James Acaster is a comedian, not a touring musician. But having bit the bullet of in-store rejections many, many times, I had nothing to lose.
On Monday morning, I was shocked to see a reply. James Acaster was interested, and would be with Wheelchair Sports Camp’s Kalyn Heffernan that day, who had worked on Temps, the 40-strong music collective behind James’ produced album “Party Gator Purgatory.” They’d both join for a live music discussion.
I was elated. Not only did my shot in the dark land, but it also secured the attendance of Denver music royalty, Kalyn Heffernan. Although Wheelchair Sports Camp has performed at Wax Trax before, it was before my time here, and the chance to interview both James and Kalyn was pinch-worthy.
James’ agent and I went back and forth discussing logistics. I proposed a simple arrangement, just some mics and chairs, a thoughtfully prepared interview on the intersection between music and comedy, and maybe a brief Q&A after.
After working out the details and confirming times, I realized our event fell on Superbowl Sunday. It can be a slow day, maybe for everyone except liquor and potato chip retailers. So I asked if James, due to his (admirable) social media boycott, could maybe mention our event during his show at Denver’s Paramount Theatre the night before. Not wanting to come off as pushy, I even added, “no worries if not.”
The response I received was simply “I’ve passed on your ask to James.”
I was absolutely not, in a thousand years, expecting what happened next.
How did you get James Acaster to talk about your independent record shop event nonstop on Late Night with Seth Meyers?
There’s no way I’d have the gall to ask him to hijack Seth Meyers like that. All due respect to the hilarious Seth Meyers, it’s not even a show I’ve ever watched a full episode of. Sorry, I’m more of a music gal than a TV gal.
I had people asking how much we paid for it, as if a small business like ours has budget for national coverage! Happy to confirm it was completely organic. Sometimes it isn’t the money you spend, but the annoying emails you send along the way.
If you weren’t expecting it, when did you learn it happened?
I found out about it like every other adult who deteriorates with less than 8 hours of sleep – the next morning. Our shop’s co-owner Pete texted a video link, and added: “Hey James Acaster did Seth Meyers last night. I think your bugging him about promotion may have paid off.”
When I first brought up this event, Pete had no idea who James Acaster was but was stoked about Kalyn Heffernan’s involvement. That morning, he had done a cursory google search on James to get a sense of him, and clicked on the first video.
I was already shaking before I hit play. I could barely hold my phone at the halfway point, and handed it off to my girlfriend. We stared at each other in disbelief. I texted Pete back, “holy shit.”
What happened after the event’s Late Night mention?
It was a blur. Countless emails and texts from seemingly every music industry corner. We posted it on our social media, which immediately went viral with over a million views and hundreds of comments to the tune of “we’ll be there” and even a “buying a flight to Denver for this.” Sent a gushy thank you email to James’ agent. Resisted the urge to anxiously vomit.
We had three days to replan the event. We had originally anticipated a modest turnout with our standard in-store set-up. I hastily sourced a stage, drove 45 minutes to pick it up when they assured it would fit in my Subaru, then 45 minutes back when the stage did not, in fact, fit in my Subaru. I arranged for its delivery.
Other steps included hiring a video team to film the event, asking (begging) more staff to come in, meetings on crowd control strategy and event walkthrough, Pete wandering the aisles of Microcenter to figure out how to broadcast to the sidewalk, resulting in calling in IT support to accommodate streaming for overflow attendees, and, oh yeah, figuring out how to get a custom Wax Trax adult onesie made (huge cred to Pete’s mom for pulling that one off). Thanks, James.
The night before our event, I went to the James Acaster Paramount show. It was my first time seeing him in person, and getting to laugh alongside a sold-out theater helped ease my frazzled nerves.
At the end of the show, he jumped back on the mic, and I gritted as he announced “Oh, and I’ll be doing a Q&A at Wax Trax Records tomorrow on Sunday, February 8 at 1:30. They’re worried it’s underpublicised.” The crowd laughed and I cursed him under my breath, imagining a Viking-style horde of comedy fans smashing our windows when we reached event capacity.
After the show, I sat down to revisit my interview questions for the next day. I had originally planned an in-depth interview, but my heart sank as I read my prep work. We were about to have hundreds show up for what was mostly advertised as an audience Q&A. Nobody would be there for me or my questions. So like almost everything else about the event, plans changed. I scratched most of my interview questions and refocused on an open Q&A.
How did the event go?
On Sunday, February 8, I showed up about 15 minutes before we opened at 11am. At that time, we only had a couple folks in line, and I was relieved. Maybe it wouldn’t be pure chaos after all.
We prepared the stage and in-house sound logistics. Around noon, James and Kalyn showed up together, having enjoyed a City O’ City breakfast just prior. The first thing I said to James was an abundant thank you for all of the Late Night mentions, and asked why he did it. “I thought it’d be funny,” he said.
I walked them through the event plan and I filmed James shopping around for a new video series we’re making (look out for that this weekend). They hung out in our trashed back room while we finished event prep.
At this point, I looked outside again and had to pick my jaw off the sidewalk. There were hundreds of people in line, disappearing around the two block stretch I could see. It rivaled, and probably surpassed, all past Record Store Day lines.
Cars drove past with people leaning out the windows, shouting: “Wax Trax! Sunday, February 8th, 1:30!”
We started feeding people in, kindly asking attendees to squeeze into any available space between record racks. This took longer than we expected (we needed those guys that slam commuters into trains in Tokyo), so the event started late.
“People said it couldn’t be done, but here we are. Wax Trax. I said 1:30pm a lot on TV, and it’s not…” James said at the start, trailing off with a joking teeth grit. Everyone laughed.
I’ll save you the event transcription. You can watch it for yourself.
After the event, James kindly stuck around after to meet every single person who wanted to meet him. Wheelchair Sports Camp signed records, and gave us plenty extra (we still have a few).
Any post-event lessons learned?
Stick to in-store performances with local or touring musicians. But in all seriousness, the next time a famous British comedian won’t shut up about our event on national Late Night TV, we’ll be ready.
James Acaster is incredibly cool and hilarious and despite my grumblings, I will never stop being thankful for what he did for our shop. Having the legendary Kalyn Heffernan join the event and connect a random British comedian to the Denver music scene also evokes deep gratitude and admiration.
It’s happenings like this that makes Wax Trax a truly special place. Sure, it’s where people buy records and attend music events, but it’s also where a random email can spiral into a Late Night shoutout, a two-block line, and a comedian in a custom Wax Trax onesie. If that’s not a perfect snapshot of our weird and wonderful music community, I don’t know what is.
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