I could have fitted in many more stores if;
- A: I had actually made a plan
- B: I used the subway not walked everywhere
The one store I intended to visit while in New York was Rough Trade, a store I frequent in London whenever I visit, Rough Trade East to be precise. It has a proper record store ambience, a cross between Tower Records, Piccadilly and a 1980s side street independent, it just feels and looks right. I had quickly searched Rough Trade New York and literally glanced at the photos seeing a huge warehouse like store “that’ll do” looks at wallet “lock and load!!”. In reality those pictures were of the old store, the new was a smaller space right next door to Radio City Music hall. Smaller yes, but big enough I could waste a good amount of time searching the racks of new and second hand vinyl, and I did! There was nothing there I was specifically looking for or that jumped out at me, but filled couple of gaps in my collection with ‘Nine in Nails – Pretty Hate Machine’ finally owned vinyl and ‘Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense’.
Love the quote over the door;
“If music is my religion, then Rough Trade is my Church” – Don Letts
Donovan Letts (born 10 January 1956) is a British film director, disc jockey (DJ) and musician. Letts first came to prominence as the videographer for the Clash, directing several of their music videos. In 1984, Letts co-founded the band Big Audio Dynamite with former Clash lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist Mick Jones - Wikipedia
Later that day when I was walking back down Broadway, returning from a separate pop culture mission, I quickly searched record stores on Google maps and RPM Underground was close. A quick detour and there it was, looked great from outside and a true Aladdin’s cave inside. Interesting and extensive racks of vinyl for the space they had and a variety of albums I didn’t know that well, need to up my game. The lad behind the counter was up for conversation, so we had one, throwing music tastes and opinions back and forth clearly defined by the age gap but fun. Left there with ‘Radiohead – Ok Computer’ as it was there, an album I stream all the time but not owned on vinyl for some reason until now, I’ve since seen an album on a shelf I should have left with as well (insert angry emoji).
On my way a couple of days later to John Varvatos in the Bowery where, although a menswear shop, they still sell vinyl as a homage to CBGBs that used to occupy the space. I came across Ergot Records purely by accident, a small independent store where I think I touched every record in every box, the one thing I was looking for was rap music on vinyl as a present but this was not the store for it. A few temptations in there but I had plans for the next stop. I got to CBGBs and in fitting with the location I bought ‘The Pretenders – Get Close”.
On my last day I searched once again and detoured on my walk to visit Generation Records, the pictures via maps and reviews along with the lean towards punk and metal looked perfect, sadly the building was in scaffold and all closed up.
A small but good vinyl haul bearing in mind it had to be transported in hand luggage, all made it home intact! Next time – MAKE A PLAN!
