Sound and Vision Vinyl
Address: 3444 South Main Street
Telephone: 385-229-4165
Website: soundandvisionvinyl.com
District: South Salt Lake
“I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was two years old in 1964. I pointed at the television and said out loud, ‘I want to be a Beatle.’” For Michael Maccarrone, owner of Sound and Vision Vinyl, that moment was not just a childhood memory. It was the beginning of everything.
Born in Bethpage and raised across Long Island - Farmingdale, Huntington, Central Islip, Hampton Bays - Michael moved from place to place, shaped by change but grounded by one constant - music. “My world was music,” he says, and from the earliest days, it was never a passing interest. It was direction.
By the time he was six, Michael had a Beatles 45 in his hand. By thirteen, his father, recognizing something deeper, offered a simple but life-altering suggestion: “You buy all this Beatles stuff all the time. Why don’t you try to make some money with it? Design a business card.” Michael did exactly that - buying, selling, and trading - a teenager with a homemade card and a growing instinct for the business.
Then, one day, the phone rang. A man on the other end said he was from New Jersey and had his card. When Michael asked where he had found it, the reply was simple: “In John Lennon’s office in Manhattan.” Michael still does not know how it got there.
What he does know is that by sixteen, still in high school, he was already running record stores. His bedroom, he says, had looked like one since he was fourteen. “So, I’m a little crazy.” Or maybe he was just exactly who he was meant to be.
For decades, Michael built his life in and around mom-and-pop record shops and retail chains across Long Island and New York, but most notably at Record Stop where he spent the better part of twenty years. He learned every side of the business, not because he set out to, but because he never wanted to do anything else. “I tried the real world a couple of times. I did not appreciate it or enjoy it whatsoever, because that’s not what I was made for.”
Alongside it all, there was always music in another form. At twenty, he bought a guitar and taught himself to play. A punk rock band followed, with a record released internationally. And decades later, that part of him has never gone quiet. Today, Michael continues to perform and record. In 2026, he has a Salt Lake-based project, That Sound in Your Head, an alternative pop rock collaboration with musicians from back east, California, and Brazil. Their music lives on streaming platforms, but the spirit behind it remains the same as it did all those years ago.
Michael did not leave Long Island until he was about fifty. Then, in 2012, something shifted. A past connection pulled him west to Utah. At the same time, the man he had worked for over two decades - someone he had met as a teenager and who had helped shape his understanding of records and collecting - was preparing to retire. He wanted Michael to come back to New York and take over the store. But the answer, unexpectedly, came from Utah. His partner made it clear: “He’s not moving back to New York. He should have his own store.” Michael appreciated that his former boss trusted him. “I was different. You could give me the keys, and within twenty-four hours, I would know everything that was going on.” Still, it was not what Michael wanted.
Six months later, in October 2015, his dream became reality. Michael opened Sound and Vision Vinyl. It is, in his words, “an old school record store.” About eighty-five percent new vinyl, fifteen percent used. The used, however, leans toward the rare, the collectible, the pieces people have been searching for. The range is wide, from AC/DC to Celine Dion to Taylor Swift to GG Allin. And if he does not have it, he will find it. That has always been part of the job, and he admits that he loves the hunt.
The shop carries more than records - turntables, posters, and occasional signed pieces - but the heart of it is vinyl. There are rows of it, bins to flip through, covers to hold. And if you look a little closer, underneath, there are also rare 45s and even some 78s. When asked to describe his space in his own words, Michael replied quickly, “It looks like my bedroom did when I was fourteen,” with posters on the walls and records everywhere. In his mind, it is exactly how it should be. His customers span generations, from seven years old to seventy-five. “I have new collectors coming in all the time, as well as lifelong fans.” Some arrive knowing exactly what they want. Others come in simply to see what they might find.
But what defines the shop is not just what is sold. It is how it feels. “There’s always been people who come in, sit down on the couch, and say, let me tell you about my day.” He compares it to “Cheers without alcohol.” A place where strangers become part of the same conversation - where music leads, but it is never the only thing discussed.
Michael is almost always there. “I’m here nine days a week,” he says, only half joking. He has stepped away before, briefly, but it never quite feels right. “If I’m not here, I feel like I’m not where I’m supposed to be.” That sense - that this is exactly where he belongs - has followed him from a two-year-old pointing at a television, to a teenager designing a business card, to decades behind counters in New York, and now to this shop in Salt Lake.
As Michael continues to play and record music, he still looks forward each April to preparing for Record Store Day, sourcing collections from private sellers, and sharing stories with anyone who wants to listen. And after nearly fifty years in the record business, what matters most has not changed. “I enjoy seeing people pick up something that means something to them.” Because for Michael, it has never been about anything else. "The reason why I do what I do is because of the music. If it weren’t for the music, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”
