“Mom was the heart and soul of the retail store. She set the
pace and the tone, and we became legendary, even with one
store, because customer service was unreal. We had really good
customer service, because you had the actual owner there, and
the other employees would see (her behavior) and mimic her.”
Andrew Radakovitz, son of Dimple Records owners
John and Dilyn Radakovitz
yssey, and John and Ed wanted something more interesting
than The Record Shoppe.
“Back in the day, you could have wet T-shirt contests, and
we had this big contest to name the store,” Dilyn says. Con-
testants submitted a lot of different names. John and Dilyn
thought most of them were bad, so Dilyn decided to come up
with one of her own: Dimple, because she figured guys ob-
serving a wet T-shirt contest “should be looking for dimples
or something.”
Dilyn thought the name sounded good; John and Ed did
not. But they left the decision up to Ed’s wife, Dolores. “I
don’t even know why they gave it to her, because they hat-
ed it. But she said, ‘Well, Dimple, of course. That’s what you
should name it.’ And they were so pissed!”
Dilyn had more inf luence on Dimple than just coming up
with the name. Andrew attributes much of Dimple’s success
to her presence in the store. “Mom was the heart and soul of
the retail store,” Andrew says. “She set the pace and the tone,
and we became legendary, even with one store, because cus-
tomer service was unreal. We had really good customer ser-
vice, because you had the actual owner there, and the other
employees would see (her behavior) and mimic her.”
But customers loved Dimple for more than the customer
service. Early on, at a time when disco, dance and soft rock
dominated the charts, John and Dilyn made the decision
to sell music other stores didn’t: metal, punk and a rising
genre called rap. That put the couple in direct contact with
the record labels and the musicians they represented. Dilyn
recounts a time when Tom Araya, the lead singer of metal
band Slayer, sat in the middle of the store with a group of
kids and teenagers, teaching them the ins and outs of the
music industry.
Another time, Vacaville rock band Papa Roach agreed to
perform in the parking lot of Dimple’s Arden Way store. That
show, and others, forged a deep connection between the
store, its customers and the musicians who came from all
over to visit. At one point, the label representing Papa Roach
told John and Dilyn they wanted Dimple to sell tickets to a
show hosted at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento.
The show was a ruse: The label wanted Papa Roach to
have a hit album, and they knew Dimple used SoundScan
to track purchases. At the time, SoundScan weighed Dim-
ple heavier than other independent record stores that didn’t
use SoundScan, so one copy of an album sold at Dimple was
counted by SoundScan as three. Knowing this, the label told
Dimple the ticket to the show would be free with the pur-
chase of the band’s new album.
The scheme worked. Dimple sold more than 3,000 copies
of the album — which counted for 9,000 — and Papa Roach
had a No. 1 record for a solid month. “That one band had so
much success in Sacramento because (the audience) loves
that music,” Dilyn says.
RECORD STORE DAY — AND MORE
One of the biggest initiatives to shake up the music industry
is largely due to Dilyn Radakovitz and Dimple. In 2007, while
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