Remember Record Stores?

[mrmusic]

Go to the "Good Music Coming" thread, which quickly veered off track to this subject, and add your own thoughts and memories -- quick! before everyone forgets what a record was! Or even a CD store!

[kennyt]

I do fondly remember a few good ones.

Bleeker Bob's in the village was a true classic, seems to have gone CD in the 80's and I am not even sure iif it is still around nowadays. I used to have a great local record shop on Route 23 in Packanack lake NJ, used to have great bands come through there (my brother got into a fight with Wendy-O-Williams when the Plasmatics were there!) (Come to think of it he ****ed Dee Snyder off when Twister Sister came there too... guess Steve had issues!)

The best one I've been in in the lasty ten years is in Amsterdam on Zeedijk, a nasty little street (one of the few places in Amsterdam people try to sell you drugs on the street, and mainly fake ones as it is where many heroin addicts try to earn $$ for their own habbits) but a beautifiul store, specializing in house/trance/club music. The store has mirrored counters and bar stools in front of CD players and turntables in the back so you can listen to anything you want before you buy on your own or there headphones, I seem to remember them giving me a nice pair of AKG's to listen to! Bring in a beer and smoke whatever you want, they'll even bring you an ashtray. Stay as long as you like, local and traveling DJ's always come through here, and they have many local clubs night recordings.

This is the only place I've been lately that comes close to the record shops of yore....and a place I'll visit every time I am in that city... That and the cigar shop on Rokin, if you like cigars, you must stop by this shop!

Ken

[AVarntanymore]

Let's not forget Costa Mesa's Music Market. I worked there for a while just after college. I'm pretty sure the mob was involved, but oh what a selection! And behind the Orange Curtain! I remember getting paid in cash...yep, that raised my suspicions.

[MoosePond]

How about Music Masters and Liberty Music in midtown Manhattan? Both are long gone now but were primo sources for vinyl, particularly hard-to-find and esoteric stuff. Liberty (at 50th and Madison) was reportedly the oldest music store in the country and could trace their lineage all the way back to when it was a sheet music and musical instrument emporium and their customers arrived by horse-drawn carriage. Music Masters was the musical equivalent of a turn-of-the-century (19th, that is) bookstore and made up for its cramped quarters and rather inelegant decor with an awesome selection and the promise that if they didn't have it they'd do backflips until they located a copy for you.