While spending money on a musical black frisbee is not everyone’s cup of tea, the novelty and nostalgia is still prevalent and clearly evident in the northern Illawarra.

At the last Census Thirroul only had a population of 6083 people but its central shopping district along Lawrence Hargrave Drive has been abuzz with restaurants, cafes, bars and now three independent record stores.

Each has their own genre of music (though there is sometimes crossover) and each also doubles as a live music venue, all owners happy they can coexist in this small creative ecosystem.

Founder of the Spunk Records label Aaron Curnow was the pioneer, setting up his vinyl collection on the stands above the popular surf store Finbox. Spunk runs out of Black Gold which opened as a creative hub in 2014 and exists as a studio, gallery, music venue and record store.

“I just had these vinyl racks sitting in my garage and thought it could be a really cool thing ... have a couple of people come up and buy a record and leave with a smile on their face,” Curnow said. 

For him, the art of sifting through a stack of records and deciding what melody you’re in the mood for is far more relaxing than pressing a button on an iPod, especially with how busy life has become.

“When you play a record it slows life down a bit and you really concentrate on the music because you’ve really got to make an effort to take the LP out of it’s package, put it on and play it, you tend to sort of sit back and really enjoy that time away from the rest of the world,” he said.

Nostalgia has nothing to do with Jai Love’s passion for vinyl and cassettes. The 22-year-old co-owns Urge Records with Allan Gojeck, Phoebe and Cooper Tapin and is probably too young to remember the heyday of turntables and boomboxes.

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Urge recently celebrated its first year providing new imported, independent and underground music to the people and focusing on punk, hardcore, heavy metal and world music.

Love said cassettes were just as popular as vinyl within the community of “alternative music connoisseurs”, partly due to their efficiency and how cost effective they can be to produce.

“In the punk and hardcore scene cassettes are huge and we sell a fair few of them. I find a lot of bands when they’re putting out something and they can’t afford a record press they’ll put out a cassette,” Love said. “It’s interesting for the art, it’s interesting for this kind of music [and] the sound you get out of a cassette.”

Every few weeks Urge is also home to all ages live music events which Love said is changing the way overseas bands perceive the Illawarra – that is, the region caters to more than just surf pop and indie rock.

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Back over the bridge to the north side of Thirroul is a retro styled bar with diner-style stools, Nirvana and the Village People among the stands.

Frank’s Wild Years was the idea of Imogen Ramsay, 29, who’s love for vinyl began at a young age as her dad owned a music store in Bowral.

“There’s lots of really great things happening in Thirroul at the moment ... everyone goes along to everyone else’s shows, it’s a really good community here and for someone who didn’t grown up here it’s really nice to enter into it,” she said.

Ramsay’s stock is predominantly pre-loved and sourced from people wanting to sell their collections and garage sales while she said no one type of person appreciates listening to analogue.

“All sorts of people are on the hunt for records,” she said. “You’ve got school kids coming in and looking for records or older more experienced collectors, people looking for all sorts of things.

“Who knows, maybe CDs will come back, but right now everyone is very much on the vinyl wagon.”

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All store owners agreed there was “something” about Thirroul that made it special but also meant they each complemented each other in the consumer market.

“It makes it an exciting place to live and gives us multiple options for going out,” Curnow said. “The more creative people in our area the better.”

He put it down to Wollongong being driven by a university crowd while music-lovers in the north had more eclectic tastes, more cash to spend and possibly influenced by the amount of “retired rock stars” settling in the area.

Interestingly Thirroul is also home to one of the last surviving DVD rental stores plus several antique and second-hand clothing stores.