Defying all industry trends, Paul and Jill Epstein have made it to a very unlikely finish line – gainful retirement in the embattled record-store industry.

Saying “the time has come,” Epstein has announced the couple’s retirement after 33 years running Twist & Shout, one of Denver’s most iconic record stores. Ownership of the store at  2508 E. Colfax Ave. will transfer to longtime manager Patrick Brown, who says very little will change in the day-to-day operation of the store. 

“We believe that Twist & Shout has become part of Denver life, and if it were to disappear, a huge hole in the cultural and musical life of our city would appear,” Epstein wrote in his farewell message.

Epstein said he began to think seriously about standing down in the early months of the pandemic, but that his retirement would have to dovetail with a solid succession plan that would keep Twist & Shout operating far into the future.

“At the same time, Patrick stepped up in a life-saving and heroic way,” Epstein said. “He let us know immediately that he and a small group of employees would keep the store going.” During the first days of the pandemic, he added, They collected mail, kept the lights on and helped grow our small mail-order business into a substantial service. … Simply put, Patrick has been the employee of a lifetime.”

And 2020, Epstein said, was the challenge of a lifetime. “We worked so hard to bring the store back, keep the community together and create new ways of doing an old business. And we succeeded.”

Twist & Shout buys and sells new and used vinyl, CDs, DVDs, books and merchandise, while also offering occasional live music, such as a surprise acoustic set by Mumford and Sons in 2019. Twist & Shout opened in 1989 at 724 S. Pearl St., and in 1995 moved into a former Safeway building at Alameda Avenue and Logan Street, with a separate vinyl outlet across the street.

In 2006, Twist & Shout joined with the Tattered Cover Book Store and the three-screen Neighborhood Flix movie house (later sold to Denver Film) to create an all-locally owned, $16 million retail culture hub at the site of the long-shuttered Lowenstein Theatre. At the time, the Epsteins bought the building that houses Twist & Shout, New World Cheese and a Chipotle Mexican Grill for $3 million. In 2016, Epstein put that building up for sale at an asking price of $4 million. “I’m tired of being a landlord,” he said at the time. “I just wanted to be a retailer.”

The record-store industry has been in a steady decline with the continued proliferation of digital music. The market size of the industry in the U.S. has declined an average of 13 percent per year since 2017, according to the industry research company IBISWorld, with another 11.9 percent decline predicted for 2022. Still, record stores are expected to generate about $890 million this year.

Epstein says 2021 was actually Twist & Shout’s best year in two decades. “In spite of lockdowns, mask mandates, supply-chain issues and COVID outbreaks, we have come back stronger than ever,” he said. “The store is a bigger refuge for music, musicians and music lovers than it’s ever been.”

On a typical weekend, Twist & Shout draws about 1,000 visitors – triple on designated Record Store Days. And Epstein promises “nothing will change” under Brown. “The employees, product mix, special events, policies and overall vibe … will remain the same,” he said. “Patrick will bring 30 years of institutional knowledge to his management as well as the beating heart of a true music scholar. He’s every bit the nut that I am for this stuff, but he is 11 years younger than me, and his energy will carry the store way into the future.”

For Epstein, this closes a chapter that has consumed more than half his life. “I’ve given everything I have to it,” he said. “I love it so much.”

New voices at the New Play Summit

The Denver Center’s Colorado New Play Summit returned after a two-year absence and made evident the DCPA Theatre Company’s renewed commitment to telling underrepresented stories. The four selected developing plays included the unique tale of a Muslim female college basketball star whose lukewarm faith collides with March Madness and Ramadan (“American Fast”); a fun road-trip comedy involving three Latino sisters and a corpse (“Cebollas”); an adopted Asian American woman who returns to Montana to reconcile with her difficult mother (“saturday”), and the true story of an American housewife turned World War II spy (“Rubicon”).

For the first time, the DCPA is now making all four Summit readings available for free online streaming, through March 19.

Typically, two of each year’s selected plays are later chosen to be fully staged by the DCPA Theatre Company, which finishes its current season with the coming-of-age story of a gay Black student (“Choir Boy,” opening April 22), and a Tejano-infused reimagination of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” (“Quixote Nuevo,” opening May 13).

In brief …

The 400-seat Holiday Theater at 32nd Avenue and Clay Street has an official reopening date of April 7. The rechristened “MCA Denver at the Holiday” will open with a free party including music, dance, poetry and art. The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is leasing the theater from the Denver Cultural Property Trust, which owns the building. The MCA Denver says the Holiday will be host lectures, music, performances and more. RSVP here. …

Boulder author Erika Krouse’s true-crime memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, hits the shelves March 15. It follows a female private investigator who helped crack open a landmark sexual assault investigation into the University of Colorado football team in 2002. Lighthouse Writers Workshop hosts a party at 5 p.m. March 19, bothon Zoom andin Denver. …

Denver Film has announced the Women+Film Festival will return to the Sie Film Center from April 5-10, with stories and conversations by and about women. … The Underground Music Showcase returns to South Broadway for its 22nd year from July 29-31. The pre-sale has begun.   

What to do, what to do …

Film: Denver Film pays tribute to Ukrainian cinema by screening Atlantis, Ukraine’s official selection for the 2021 Academy Awards, from March 11-17 at the Sie Film Center …

Mega shows: The Weeknd and Doja Cat perform on Aug. 18 at Mile High Stadium. …

Local music:  An evening of American roots with Mike Clark and the Sugar Sounds, with Jen Korte and the Loss and Heated Bones, on Saturday (March 12) at the hi-dive, 7 S. Broadway. …

Comedy: Chelcie Lynn’s “Trailer Trash Tammy” tour hits Comedy Works South from April 13-16 …

Theater: Local Theater Company presents a developing new play called “The Lady M Project,” which imagines the posthumous trial of Macbeth’s wife, at 2 p.m. Sunday (March 13) at The Savoy, 2700 Arapahoe St. (also available online). …

Just for fun: Remember reading here about Denver’s longest-running garage band? Its side project, called Glory Days, plays and pays tribute to Bruce Springsteen on Friday (March 11) at the Oriental Theater. (With Dolls in the Attic playing Aerosmith).

And finally …

Seeing the Katie Couric-produced documentary “Refuge” was the most powerful experience I have had in any theater in a long time. It’s the true story of a friendship that develops between an U.S. Army vet and former Ku Klux Klan member in Georgia, and a Muslim doctor and former Syrian refugee who lives nearby. It was screened at last week’s Boulder International Film Festival, and is among selected festival films that remain available for online viewing through March 17. Do yourself a favor and watch it. “Refuge” will make you feel a little better about, well, everything in our troubled world.