My Record Store Shopping Day!

Ok finally I had some time to write about this.

This past weekend a friend and I set out to have our own record store shopping day. I had the whole day planned out and even got a little help from some website that claimed to know the 10 best music stores in Manhatten. With that in mind there was also a record convention this same day so I figured ok we'll go there first since it starts at 10 and about time we get through that the other stores will be open about time we get there. Our Journey begins!

1st stop Record Convention. I've been to this thing a few times. The first time I was very excited and found a bunch of interesting things to buy and had some fun. The second time wasn't the same experience. I believe I went one last time and then gave up, until this past weekend because I thought maybe just maybe things have changed a little since I was last there. Well even though I did buy Helloween Walls Of Jericho on Vinyl and 3 King Crimson cds for $10 I'd say that nothing changed. If anything it kind of got worse. Not worse for people who love collecting Vinyl because theres plenty of that, but on the cd side of things it's mostly just crap. About 35 minutes or so we left and ventured onto our first store.

2nd stop Zig Zag Records In Brooklyn. I read about this place being a great place to shop for metal. We get there around 11:30 and its closed and actually looks like its out of business. We left and went to the next store.

3rd stop Music Matters Brooklyn. This store was suppose to be not even 10 minutes from Zig Zag but with brooklyn having a street light on every corner it took about 20-25 minutes (damn brooklyn). We finally get to this store and again this place looks like it was closed. We parked and walked over and the owner was outside not sure if he wants to open or not but since we were there he opened for us. We weren't there long since they really didnt have much. The store was pretty clean and he did have a few things but nothing I was in dire need of or wanted to pay what he wanted. Some of his prices for new cd's were a little over priced even his used cd's were a bit much so we walked out with nothing.

4th stop back to Zig Zag. Luckily they were open this time. I couldn't wait to get inside. The outside had some really cool metal posters on the windows and I thought wow I'm going to be here for a while. When we first opened the door I was shocked at how dirty this place was. Looking around theres a bunch of really old tour programs and various old Kiss merchandise and records but nothing that I was interested in. Their used section was horrible. There was so much dust on the cds you literally had to wipe it off to see what was there. My friend was like why are you even bothering. So we left after 5 minutes really dissapointed. Onto Manhatten

5th stop Rebel Rebel Bleeker St. NYC. My friend is a huge Husker Du and Bob Mould Fan. He saw an interview where Bob Mould would shop at this store every weekend and spend $100 each time so he had to see what was actually there. We walked in the door and there was stuff all over the place. Wall to wall vinyl and a little section with cds. There was stacks and stacks of cds on the floor you couldnt even look through them because the store was so small it was just me, my friend, and the 2 people that worked at the store and it was at max capacity. I did end up finding Metallica And Justice For All vinyl box set for $35. I thought it was a good deal but wasn't sure if I wanted to get it or not so I left it there. Onto the next store.

6th stop Bleeker Street Records. Ive been to this store a few times while I was in Manhatten. Occasionally I've found something. They have tons of bootlegs which would be great to buy only if they weren't $44! Just about all bootlegs are available online nowadays why on earth would someone pay $44 for a bootleg of a live show? They do have a decent selection of used cds though. I really didn't find too much metal but I did find Venom Resurrection for $8. The funniest thing happened in this store when my friend and I were looking through records and these 2 ga-hey guys came over and wanted to look at something in the area we were in and since they couldn't get through they said "oh.. of course" hinting that we were in their way. hahaha We thought it was funny so of course it became the saying of the day. We ended up seeing them from time to time at other stores and would go next to them and say it back haha. NEXT!

7th stop wasn't on the list so I have no idea what the name of the store was. It was a pretty decent sized store but they really didn't have anything which was surprising because it was pretty full of cds.

8th stop..... I had directions we were suppose to follow but my friend insisted that he knew where to go and he took us about 25 minutes out of our way in the pooring rain. We couldn't find the stores so we walked all the way back to where we originally planned going. I think the store was Generation Records, but at this point I loose track of what the store names were either way this store was probably one of the better stores of the day. The whole upstairs was cd's with new release vinyl. Everything was easy to find. The metal section was ok but I didnt find anything. Downstairs they have bands playing occasionally and its also the area where they have their used cd's and t shirts. A huge selection of t shirts. I came across a Hirax shirt for El Dablo Negro so I picked it up also got used Edguy F***ing with fire cd and Lana Lane Lady Mabeth (which I found out when I got home that I had...oops). We must have been there for atleast an hour. Definetly a good store. I think once the metal releases start picking up again it would be a good place to shop.

9th stop Bleeker Bob's. Didn't get anything here and we were almost ready to give up because it was raining and we were starving so we went back to the car, but on the way we stopped back at Rebel REbel and I picked up the Metallica records and he also had the black album box set on vinyl for $35 so I picked that up as well. I don't collect vinyl but I thought these would be cool to have. After that we put our stuff away in the car and went to find food. Found a decent little diner and got hamburgers. They weren't bad! after that we were going to go home but thought ok since were going back to the car lets drive over to the area we were going to before and see if we can find anything and lo and behold we did!

10th stop... no idea, but this store was actually really cool. Tons of used cd's for cheap. Nothing was above $6.99 used and I actually walked away with a few things. Venom Cast In Stone 2 cd, Ozzy Black Rain, Cronos The Anthology and MD. 45 the Craving original version. We were there for a while. Definetly would go there again. It was on St. Marks Street. If you ever go into manhatten thats where you want to go for music stores by the way. We asked if theres more stores around and the guy pointed us to one across the street.

11th stop... again no idea what the name was. This was another store mostly dedicated to vinyl. I did find some cool metal stuff though. He had all the Pantera albums before Cowboys From Hell for $20. I was going to grab them but I didn't want to spend that kind of money on stuff I knew was crap and also I didn't want to find out that they were some cheap bootlegs or something so I passed on them. We asked this guy if there were any more shops around and again he pointed us to a few more.

12th stop the store from before didn't mention this place so we decided to go in and our jaws just dropped to the floor. This place was stacked with cd's from wall to wall. This guy didn't realy deal with vinyl but he did have a few, but everything was just cd's everywhere. The only problem was that the cd's were just everywhere. Stacked up above my head on the floor. Stacked on racks not where you can read the spines but stacked so you can see the artwork but if you were to look through them I swear the whole store would be like one big damino game and just crash all over the place. My friend and I were pretty annoyed because we knew there was stuff in this store that we wanted. I came a cross a Madness cd for $3.99 so I grabbed that but I knew there were things in there that I was really looking for but every time I touched something a whole row of cds would come falling down. We had a good laugh though. The owner was a really old guy and my friend moved a cd and the guy came over and was like... did you move something there? we almost died laughing because the whole store was a mess and my friend moves one cd and its a problem? hahaha we left but said we would be back because this store was just too much to handle at the moment so we left.

13th stop Kim's Videos and music. This store was pretty decent. Not a lot of used cd's but what they did have was a decent selection and well priced I think we both found a thing or two and stayed there for atleast a half hour. Then we went back to the store we were previously in. My friend started to just dig through things despite everything falling down, but the place is just so overwhelming that there was no way to look through anything unless you completely removed all the cds and then replaced them. It was a huge fire hazard which most of the stores we visted that day were. I don't know how they are allowed to stay open like that.
So that was my music store day experience. Definetly a fun day and we plan to do it again soon but atleast now we got the crap stores done with and now we know where to go again. Hope this wasn't too boring haha.

Updated!

Cool story, man. Sounds like my friend Sean and I when we were in college, we used to do what we called the "Punk & Metal Record Store Tour" around NYC every month or so. We were on Staten Island so we'd take the S.I. Ferry over to Manhattan on a Sunday morning and spend the day hitting every record store in Greenwich Village and beyond (of course there were a lot more of them in those days). We usually finished the day off with a stop at the big Tower Records store uptown (66th and Broadway). We always returned home with an armload of stuff. (I didn't have a CD player yet at that time so it was mostly vinyl and cassettes for me.)

Glad to see that Bleecker Bob's Records is still in business, that was always one of our fave places to hit. Total hole in the wall store, but they used to have the best selection of demo tapes by local bands, underground metal t-shirts and other swag.

If I had to take a guess, the store on St. Mark's Place whose name you couldn't remember is probably St. Mark's Sounds. That was another "regular" stop for us.

I'm pleasantly surprised there are still that many record stores left in the city. A lot of the ones that Sean and I used to hit regularly -- Tower Records, Revolver Records, It's Only Rock N Roll, Second Coming Records, etc. -- are all long gone.

Sean lives in Oregon now but he keeps saying "one of these days I'm gonna come back East to visit and you and I have to do the Record Store Tour again." Haha.

ah yes Sounds is the name of that store! I forgot I still have the stickers on their cd's haha. The store reminded me of one that we used to have on the Island called Slipped Disc. They close I think 2 years ago. Slipped Disc was better than sounds cause he just had everything I listened to. Sounds is set up the same way though it was kind of wierd. Yea I remember some of those stores you mention FF. They are all about gone now. I used to love Tower Records. There was 2 on the Island that I would go to all the time after band practice cause they would be open til 1 or 2 in the morning. I miss those days!

I heard though that Williamsburg Brooklyn is a hot spot for music stores now I just have to find out how to track these places down.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Yea I remember some of those stores you mention FF. They are all about gone now.

Yea, I know. *SIGH* It's Only Rock N Roll used to be my favorite stop. I forget what street it was on but it was down in the Village somewhere in the neighborhood of NYU. Any time something new came out, they'd be my first place to hit cuz they always had still-sealed promotional copies (tapes) of 'em, cheap as hell... maybe $3.99 or $4.99 at the most. I don't know where he got'em all from, but I didn't care either. They were a budget-minded college metal head's best friend. I still have my "advance copy" of Queensryche's OPERATION MINDCRIME that I bought from that store, the tape is warped beyond recognition but I hang onto it anyway cuz it's a cool conversation piece, haha.

It's Only Rock N Roll also had a little "arcade" room in the back of the store with KISS, Ted Nugent, and Rolling Stones pinball machines (plus the legendary Journey "Escape" video game!) that you could play. We always made sure we had a few quarters on us to drop in that KISS pinball machine.

Second Coming Records was somewhere near the NYU campus too (I want to say Sullivan St. but my memories are hazy after all these years)... that place was bootleg heaven. You name the band, they had vinyl bootlegs out the wazoo. I bought a crapload of Metallica boots from that store.

Second Coming Records also used to have this huge cat that prowled around the store, I guess the owners kept him around to catch mice or something. Sean and I always called him "Record Store Cat." No matter what band I went in there to look for, this cat would ALWAYS be sitting/sleeping on top of their section so I'd have to pick him up and move him. Thankfully he was friendly.

Hahaha I saw a few stores that had cats in them. That is pretty wierd. Thats funny you mention the Kiss Pinball machine. There is this store across from sounds that is pretty much a Clothes store with some horror, and old collectable tv show things or whatever, its just an odd store. If you go to the second half of the store there is a Kiss Pinball machine, that they have clothes thrown on as a display, so I wonder if that is the very same machine you used to play on. They don't have it plugged in or anything though.

Even if most of the shops were a bust, you're lucky to still have so many choices. Most of the used/independant shops in Philly are gone. There are only 2 left that I frequent anymore. One is in town, not far from work and the other is closer to home. I've gone to that one for years, but I'm afraid it will close up when the owner dies, which, judging from the last time I was there could be any minute now.

I remember another shop I used to visit that had a big gray cat lounging always around. Must be a weird vinyl-shop-owner kind of thing.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Hahaha I saw a few stores that had cats in them. That is pretty wierd.

Not so weird. Most of those buildings downtown were built in the early part of the 20th century, they probably all have mice out the ying-yang.

Who knows, maybe that is the same KISS pinball machine I played on. The store that had it (It's Only Rock N Roll) closed in the early 90s and became an online auction/consignment service for rock n roll memorabilia. A couple of years ago I saw them turn up on one of those "Shame On You" reports on the 10 o'clock news cuz people were hiring them to sell stuff for them on consignment (not cheap stuff either -- we're talking big ticket things like autographed guitars, stage costumes, etc.), and they would sell the stuff, then pocket the $$ and never pay the owners. I can't say I was surprised. That store always did seem a little shady.

I could imagine the rats these places have it is NYC after all hahaha.

Actually how you described that store is pretty much what this store looks like.

Sounded like a cool day. Just having a bunch of places to look for music is good enough these days. I tried to do one of these in LA and it turned into the "Record Store is closed and is now a bistro" tour.

When my brother was in school at Columbia I would find any reason to go visit him just to make the NYC record shop loop. I always liked the ones in the village best because in the mid-nineties metal was clearly an afterthought to them and was priced accordingly. Sad to think those places are all gone. Near the school there was a guy who would set up on the street and sell. Tons of new things (mostly promos) and a nice bootleg selection. Funny that back then there would be lines of people just waiting to look to see what he had.

Yea its pretty sad how so many people just don't care anymore. The funny thing is though that the people who collect vinyl are like maniacs. At that convention we went to we counted atleast 10 people that paid the $15 to go in early and came out with bags of records. I wonder if people will be like this with cd's somewhere down the line again?

The only place I've ever seen in recent years that was crazy with people buying music is Amoeba in LA. Not sure if it's a tourists thing or what. Their prices aren't even that great. But it is cool to still see.