“Look!” Scott Dudelson exclaims as he points to John Coltrane, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Lou Reed vinyl albums displayed on the wall of the restaurant where we are having dinner. “If you have those, you’re pretty set,” he states definitively.
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Dudelson’s excitement is laced with more than a tinge of bittersweetness. He lost his collection of more than 8,000 records—which he built over 25 years—in the Palisades Fire, one of Los Angeles’ recent wildfires that burned almost 24,000 acres in that oceanside region.
A self-confessed vinyl junkie, the affable Dudelsonn is generous in sharing his passion for music, particularly its representation on vinyl. His Instagram posts @alldayvinyl about records, record shops, and record collections have organically grown to reach more than 55,000 followers. His knowledge and enthusiasm extends to Legends, a podcast he hosts featuring some of his heroes such as The Doors’ Robby Krieger, Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum and Dizzy Reed, Nils Lofgren, Warren Zevon, and many more. Dudelson is also an experienced photographer (including for SPIN) specializing in live concert photography.
Before Dudelson committed full-time to music-based pursuits, he co-founded Swagbucks and Prodege. But his obsession with vinyl started, funnily enough, when CDs became the prevalent format. “I had an insatiable appetite for music,” Dudelson says, “but I was in college. I had no money, and CDs were $12 to $18 a piece. I would go to Goodwill and thrift stores and see records with titles I’d heard of, but didn’t know about, for 50 cents or $1.00. That became my conduit to music discovery.”
I met Dudelson spring of 2020 when I was a two-time guest on the Instagram Live series he hosted on @alldayvinyl during the pandemic. Dudelson cut quite a friendly figure against his dense collection of vinyl and was so much fun to talk to about music. Since then, whenever his name has come up, I’ve invariably heard, from everyone, “Oh! I love The Dude!”
Now, Dudelson sits across from me, a Hurley hoodie pulled over his head, looking like a classic California surfer, even though we’re miles from the ocean. Dudelson bought this hoodie yesterday because, when he evacuated his home, he left with no clothes except what he was wearing.
It was 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 7, when Dudelson first smelled the fire. “You couldn’t see the flames because they were still up in the hill, but you could feel it,” he says. “You could feel the wind, feel the heat. When the wind blew, you knew it was coming.”
Dudelson called his ex-wife and asked her to help him move out as many items as possible. He loaded up her car and his own. The smoke arrived soon after, but Dudelson wasn’t considering leaving. He and a handful of neighbors were determined to stay and save the community. They mobilized themselves with 80-foot hoses and stood at the ready.
By noon, the police arrived, and the smoke was “just killing,” according to Dudelson. Still, he and his neighbors remained, prepared to fight the fire. Around 2:00 p.m., aided by the gusts of wind, the fire jumped into the brush surrounding Dudelson’s community, then hit a power pole, which flew up 20 feet in front of them. At that point, they watched everything start to burn.
“A few of the houses literally blew up,” recounts Dudelson as he plays me a jarring video from that day. “I stayed a long time. Everything was evacuated. PCH [the Pacific Coast Highway] was empty, just me and a few other people driving through to get out. It was apocalyptic. There was fire on the beach. There was fire on the mountains. I’m driving through the fire and ash, and palm fronds are flying into my car.
He continues, “That night, I stayed up the entire night listening to police scanners, fire scanners, listening for my address and I didn’t hear it. When I woke up in the morning, I thought maybe miraculously my place would survive.”
Dudelson’s home didn’t survive and none of his belongings did either. “In hindsight, I could have grabbed so much more stuff. I could have thrown everything in the car. There was ample time to pack. But, you know, I’m walking around looking at things I should take, and my mind is just not comprehending that this is real. This is happening right now. It’s a disconnect. I feel like it was the same thing with my neighbors. When I saw them leave, their cars were not full. It was the same denial of, ‘We’re going to be back later tonight,’ which is part of the reason why I was not ready to grab all my stuff, because I felt confident in myself and my neighbors that we were going to stop this.”
The Palisades Fire is not Dudelson’s first experience with wildfires threatening his home. He and his belongings survived the 2018 Woolsey Fire (although some 500 records were destroyed). “I had never experienced a fire,” he says of that time. “I was not prepared at all for evacuation. After [the Woolsey Fire], I separated my most valuable, most cherished, and most favorite records into specific sections so if there ever was a fire, I could easily grab that section, throw it in a box and put it in my car. I had a plan in place.
“But the thing is, those boxes of records were the only thing I grabbed. I did a good job of getting my daughter’s pictures and some personal mementos. But I was thinking, ‘How can this happen twice?’ which is such wrong thinking. Of course it could happen. It could happen to any of us. But I let amps burn, I let guitars burn, I let speakers burn, because my mind was in denial. I didn’t grab anything else. Everything I owned burned—except those records.”
Dudelson was able to save roughly 450 records. Three weeks prior to the Palisades Fire, 1,000 of his records at a future home he is building were smoke damaged in the Franklin Fire. Dudselson didn’t get a chance to add any of the collectibles he had amassed since the Woolsey Fire to his earmarked valuable records and therefore were lost.
The vinyl community has been quick to offer unsolicited help to rebuild Dudelson’s collection. Rhino Records and Jampol Artist Management kicked off the restart. Flooded with DMs from people asking where they can send him vinyl, Dudelson has secured a PO Box at the following address: 4474 Park Granada #8908, Calabasas, CA 91372. While he has not set up a GoFundMe, and isn’t planning on it, he welcomes record donations. Says Dudelson, “It’s so humbling and I’m so grateful for it.”
He won’t be able to replace his signed records or signed concert posters, but Dudelson says much of what he lost is replaceable. But, as he points out, “The question is, do you want to pay the premium price to get it again? Am I going to pay $400 to get a 13th Floor Elevators record again? A few weeks ago, I bought a beautiful mint copy of Slayer’s Reign in Blood in the shrink wrap. I lost that and a very rare Blue Note record by Jutta Hipp from 1957 in mint condition. Those don’t come up again.”
Dudelson’s focus is on what he was able to take with him, some of which he shares in this video. He was also able to snatch his Beatles mono box set, his Technics 1200 record player (although he forgot the power cord and the preamp), one camera (without cables, batteries or lens caps), a lap steel guitar plus an electric and an acoustic guitar (but no amps).
“The key is preparation in advance so when it happens, you’re not running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” Dudelson advises. “Understand what’s important to you, know exactly where everything is, get it all together and get it out of there. You should fill cars to the brim. Don’t organize it. Throw it all in.”
The home Dudelson lost in the fire was a rental. His former home where his ex-wife lives is intact, as is the home he is building. He pays a lot to be insured living in Los Angeles’ high risk oceanside, but, as Dudelson found out after the Palisades Fire, his insurance did not cover the rental where he was living.
“I don’t know if L.A. has had such a tragedy in my lifetime,” he says. “The community that’s come together to support wildfire victims, I’ve never experienced such a thing. What I’m seeing is fucking amazing. Absolutely incredible and absolutely extraordinary. I hope it lasts. I feel like it’s emblematic of how L.A .is going to rebuild.”
In the meantime, Dudelson is on the lookout for a small place to rent not too far from the beach. In fact, the place can be tiny, as Dudelson reminds me, “It’s just me, and I don’t own anything anymore. But, I’ve always romanticized being a minimalist. Now I get to live that fantasy—even if it’s in a forced fashion.”
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