Bleecker Bobs is closing.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/bleecker_bobs_is_closing_legendary_record_store_to_be_replaced_by

looks like the new tenant has signed the lease. we’ve heard they want to be open by June 1. it will take probably around 2 months to get work permits for the massive remodeling job they’ll need to do so we’re figuring we should be open until May 2013!!
—-get ready for another chain of self serve yogurt/coffee/hot chocolate cafes NYC!!”

Someone didn't put two and two together and never realized that that guy was Bob. D'oh! RIP.

RIP Rockit Scientist too
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/01/rockit-scientist-records.html

The Old Weird New York ain't what it used to be.

I am pretty sure they still have those overpriced and damaged-sleeve vinyl from back when I used to go there and cringe at how much they wanted. I still did buy a bunch of Peaceville and Earache stuff back in the day when it was harder to come by.

Fondest memory was getting to know a guy who worked there who loved soundtracks. I got all kinds of promos back then so in exchange for giving him every soundtrack I got, he gave me a discount.

"Here ya go, the soundtrack to Snow Dogs."

"70% OFF EVERYTHING!"

i know it's a place with some history, but whenever i went there (late 90s/early 00s) it was not an amazing record store. still: RIP.

I hear you. I think its prime must have been decades ago. I didn't really like going in there and don't think I ever bought much there, went to all kinds of other places much more often: Venus, Rocks in Your Head, Rockist Scientist, Sounds, etc.

The only other place as unpleasantly overpriced- is it still there, on Carmine Street? - was Village Oldies.

I did get some priceless attitude from him once though: favorite and least favorite record store in your city/town/village

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8sHhpZDwpI

I went in one time, Bob was on the phone, the place was otherwise empty of people.

Usually, I get some sort of 'vibe' as to where to look, but I got none.

I flicked through some of the LPs in the Beatles rack, but they were quite expensive.

The 'punk' specials, well I could find them much cheaper at home, obviously.

So, I left after five minutes.

i think the only thing i ever bought there was Best Track On The Greater Antilles Sampler

i bought stuff there in the 80's when i was a teen. everyone who worked there always looked pissed off but they never gave me a hard time. someone there recommended the godfathers hit by hit comp and i am forever grateful for that. bought a cool cocteau twins bootleg live tape. some bukowski t-shirts. even in the 80's though i could have a hard time finding stuff i wanted. and then i would go to Tower and they seemingly had EVERYTHING that i wanted. the chains in general in nyc in the 80's had awesome stuff and they would be cheaper than places like bob's. i liked second coming more than bob's.

this is pretty sad. in all kinds of ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rumys6vr5QI&feature=player_embedded

Forgot to mention Second Coming.

Aww, that's sad. There was another record store right around the corner from there that I used to go to more but, still, BB's was an institution.

when i went to the emp conference last year at nyu i went to a store off of washington square that was AWESOME. way better than a dinosaur like bob's. i could have stayed there all day. i had to stop buying stuff. i spent so much money there. and stuff was cheap! so, yeah, an institution, and probably great in the mid-70's when the place was crammed full of indie/diy/punk singles, but now it probably needs a little rest.

What was the name of that store Scott?

Yes, good question.

Forgot about Golden Disc which was also an Bleecker, on the other side of Sixth Avenue.

Here is a list of which record stores were gone and which still standing as of 2008:
http://charmicarmicat.blogspot.com/2008/04/death-and-life-of-great-manhattan.html

i'm blanking on the name. i still have the bag, i think. black bag. two locations. this store was two floors. new stuff up top, old stuff on the bottom. they had a lot of stuff cheaper than i would have sold it and i'm in the sticks. got great cherry red 12 inches and the pillows and prayers comp and i swear they were like 6 bucks each.

i think the other location on the bag was bleeker street records? but his store was not bleeker street records. and now googling i see that bleeker street records might be closing too.

That was the thing, when I was there I found more that I was looking for but wouldn't find at home (The Monks CD on Infinite Zero for one) at Mondo Kims..

fuck a frozen yogurt and all the shits who slurp that goop

The Bleecker Street Records on Bleecker Street is where Golden Disc was. Never liked them that much, maybe out of loyalty to the old place.

Generation Records is the other one. On Thompson.

Yeah, used to go in there too. Maybe will pop in soon for old times sake.

in 1990/91 I was working in an antiquarian books and records shop in Sarasota, Florida when Bob walked in, looking like the Ramones' uncle. sized me up to see what kind of discount he could get away with. I only knew of him through stories in Psychotic Reactions, so was suitably impressed when he revealed his identity - in truth probably the Bangs connection! anyway I had bought a few used ESG and Liquid Liquid records cheaply and marked them up to glamourize our selection - he was happy to get a bunch of New York stuff at dealer discount. paid me the ultimate Bob compliment: "your prices are almost as high as mine"

later I read the Kris Needs book

Awesome.

Rocks In Your Head was great. I was bummed when they closed up.

That was my favorite they were so low key and friendly. Went there decades ago in high school and then started going there again in 2003 until they finally went to meet their maker on Brooklyn. Seem to remember Kevin was managing his girlfriend's band which was kind of taking off at the time, can't remember the name though.

An ilxor weighs in, a year ago: http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2012/01/farewell-to-bleecker-bobs.html

"Generation Records is the other one. On Thompson."

can't remember if we talked about this place when i saw you in nyc. do you ever go there? i was impressed.

generation is pretty decent. a lot of people pigeonhole it as a 'punk store' so the non-punk stuff doesn't get picked over so much, which is good for me, obviously.
kevin, from rocks in yer head, is one of my best buddies -- super sweet, nice guy. runs the label 'what's yer rupture' now.

is rocks in yr head going? i went there once. i still remember one of the guys working saw i was buying the (new at the time) interpol CD ep/single thing that came out in advance of the first album...he was trying to push a band that featured an employee of rocks in your head, but i was sort of skeptical, anyway that band was the rapture lol

i swear that mpls is the only place where there are new record stores opening up, not closing

Rocks has been gone for a while now :(

There are still stores opening up in NYC, but their chances of survival are roughly 1-in-3.

Sure it wasn't Crystal Stilts, M@tt?

i guess here you can always find some funky old building where the rent is really cheap

(xpost james - i'm almost positive it was the first rapture thing:)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Rapture_races.jpg

because i saw it later after they were more popular and the CD cover had stuck in my head for some reason

unless i'm crazy, could that have been self-released prior to subpop?

do the ratpure still make music? everyone liked that one song a lot. even i liked it.

i never went to rockit scientist. all i ever heard was that everything was $$$$$$.

there were nice expensive records at rockit scientist, but they had a very good selection of obscure reissues & stuff. and there were totally affordable things there, too. i got my first sandy bull record there for like $8? which is great for new york.

Forgot to mention Second Coming.

There is where I shopped when in NY, as well as far a friend back in Minnesota who would give me some money to bring something back.

The rack of cassette tapes with colored paper on the outside, band name, concert date/city. Lots of nicely pressed vinyl bootlegs. All that.

anyone ever go to downtown music gallery? can you get good jazz rekkerds there? they're jazzy.

i bought my first copy of in the court of the crimson king at second coming. memorable day. i was like 11 or something.

people around here talk about second coming but they are talking about the boston one that i have never been to.

i feel like i remember this massive dusty record store around times square that was amazingly overpriced, all the records filed on shelves. lots of cds too. don't remember the name. this was in '96.

generation records was fun. lots of bootlegs iirc?

ian you ever buy stuff at tropicalia in furs? pictures i have seen make it look tiny. i'm kinda wary of boutique-y record stores.

Scott tropilcalia in furs is gone :(, though Joel is putting his records up for sale in Hoboken at his girlfriends thrift shop.

Thrift boutique that is. Tropicalia was great. It was tiny but Joel is a great guy. Also gone is gimme records right across the street from that, but they moved out west apparently.

I never made it to that place, was just seeing it on the lists and thinking I should go over there and check it out if it was still alive, and wondering what the odds of that would be.

I am an old man who used to live in Brooklyn way back in 1989-1994.

The NYC store I frequented the most was a place called It's Only Rock N Roll on West 8th Street.

Our own Alex in NYC writes in his Blog:

Technically more of a curio emporium than a workaday record store, It's Only Rock and Roll was a self-styled "rock and roll museum" with a pronounced leaning towards classic rock and heavy metal. As such, you weren't likely to find anything especially hip, undiscovered or underground therein, but their supply of rock memorabilia was dizzying. Every square inch of the place was crammed with stuff -- and moving about in the store was often a chore. I dimly remember that they had the Kiss pinball machine in the back which I coveted. I'm not exactly sure why, but they shut their doors at some point in the very early 90's, but they continue to work the rock memorabilia/record festival circuit. Check out their website here.

I also worked briefly at Venus Records (outlined in Alex's recap) where I met the dude from the B-52s, listened to Chrome for the first time (who would later become one of my favorite bands), priced a Leathur Records copy of "Too Fast For Love" for $50 (and had it sell so fast I knew I underpriced it - Bleeker Bob woulda marked it at $250 probably) and met one of my best friends to this day when I was playing advance tapes of Megadeth and Testament albums and we struck up a conversation.

Venus Records is now - you guessed it! - a frozen yogurt stand.

There was some weird moment in time decades ago in which Rocks In Your Head incorporated a yogurt stand inside the shop before it went back to being just a record store.

oops,r.i.p. tropicalia.

maybe they secretly make frozen yogurt out of old records.

I think Joel still sells records in brazil regularly, he has connections there. So I think this is probably still what he does. Though portions are still boxed up, the whole inventory as I said is in Hoboken for sale as it was before he had to move out of his shop.

Xp

Still what he does for a living*

when i went to sound library on orchard street my eyes bugged out a little. boutique-y prices. anything i was even remotely interested in was 30 or higher. don't know if they are still there. record show prices. but, you know, they were in soho. had to pay the rent.

you can make a ton of money selling classic rock in brazil. if you know people there.

maybe they secretly make frozen yogurt out of old records.
Some kind of cratedigger version of Soylent Green.

i know a guy who knows the tropicalia guy and when he comes up from brazil he trades me decent brasilian stuff in trade for hendrix and floyd. i'm all for it. he reissues old brasilian psych stuff too. on 45. nice guy.

i never bought anything at tropicalia in furs. prices were pretty high, but they had nice records. i just never quite caught the brazillian bug too bad. i like my mutantes and caetano veloso and gal costa and jorge ben and alla that bossa nova stuff but i never got much deeper than that.

gimme was more my style, one of my regular spots to go. super nice folks owned/worked there. i got a lot of good rural rock records and county LPs and rounder LPs and Yazoo LPs and stuff there. the prices were good overall. reasonable. and they would mark stuff down if it sat around, so i finally go to fill in my mike nesmith collection & mason profitt collection a few bucks each. good country records too -- one of the only places to go in NYC and find a large selection of ernest tubb records. he had/has disco and punk and new wave and soul and jazz and stuff too. lots of reggae. a really good store.

sound library is also gone.

ahh i remember the times square store i was talking about. colony records!

gimme is now in l.a., a stone's throw (10 min drive) from where i live.

Oh tropilcalia prices I perceived to be only a little high sometimes, but not too bad. Not near the prices at some of those stores in the west village, yikes. I got a Michael Hurley reissue for $8 from him, thought that was a good deal.

Hey I have to look it up, but there is a book store next to the NYC campus somewhere a few blocks below Washington square park. They also have vinyl and I've found some unique gems in their limited collection. Just got a sealed Dump 10" there. I figure it isn't noticed by many record shoppers that probably walk right by on their way from other music to generation.

miss gimme, but they are open and bustling out in LA. my pal joe even moved out there from ny to continue working at gimme. xpost to al, go say hi to joe! you will known him by the short and gray hair and crossword puzzle.

evan, you are thinking of mercer st. books. i have definitely gotten good records there in the past. and books too! one of the old mercer st guys opened a book store on avenue A that is really nice too, but no records there.

NYU campus*****

Oh ok yeah! Thanks Ian.

i got a really cool richard kostelanetz record on Folkways at mercer. tape music, cut up recordings of liturgical speech/chanting/singing in a variety of languages. real cool. sealed copy, cheap, i guess Kostelanetz lived nearby and would stop by with copies occasionally. also got sun city girls 'jacks creek' on mercer street when i was working over there.

Colony went under last summer. See also this brief thread: 48th Street = Desolation Row. Bye-Bye Brick and Mortar Music Stores

Didn't one of the Mercer Street Books guys open the much-missed Heights Books on Montague Street in Brooklyn?

"Generation Records is the other one. On Thompson."

can't remember if we talked about this place when i saw you in nyc. do you ever go there? i was impressed.

― scott seward, Tuesday, March 12, 2013 1:02 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was the store I was talking about. When I was at NYU it was pretty much the only place I'd go to. I'm glad it's still there. :)

Haven't found anything for me in awhile at generation, but enjoyed nabbing some 7"s that must have been waiting for me for years when I first showed up.

I never knew about Heights Books. It's possible! I can count the times I've been to Brooklyn Heights on one hand, despite it being just a short bike or bus ride away.

i've mentioned it before, but colony used to scare me when i was a little kid. my dad would go in for jazz records and it always seemed really chaotic and frenzied on a friday or saturday night in the 70's. like fulton fish market only records. kept thinking i'd get trampled by the record freaks and the people who worked there.

generation was total skot-bait. unplayed 70's promos and cool early 80's stuff. and cheap.

kevin, from rocks in yer head, is one of my best buddies
I ran into one guy I knew in front of the store back in the day and he loved Kevin. I think he had him helping him in his office, running some errands, maybe even babysitting his kid.

yeah i only went a few times, but rock in your head was an ideal record store. i don't suppose subterranean is around anymore, either is it?

can't remember if we talked about this place when i saw you in nyc. do you ever go there?

I think you were holding a bag from there as we were talking! Yeah I go there sometimes. I should be more adventurous when I go record shopping. Usually I get stuff I know I want, not stuff I think I might want to check out. I am envious of your m.o.

subterranean is indeed gone.

I think Good Records is still running right? Haven't been there maybe close to a year? Hmm, unsure. They have a neat blues/country section usually.

http://www.spin.com/articles/bleecker-bobs-golden-oldies-new-york-record-store-final-days/

Bought on vinyl at rocks in your head in the mid 90s:
-crooked rain
-vee-vee (archers of loaf)
-whip smart
-blowout comb
-better can't make your life better
-stereopathetic soul manure (CD)

I didn't get to bleecker bob's til much later, when i got ripped off on some Steely Dan vinyl (cover indicated japanese pressing but disc was stock MCA)

What a great, if crushingly sad, article - thanks for linking it, Ned.

"I think every record store these days is in jeopardy of being priced out of its neighborhood," says Josh Madell, co-owner of Other Music, an indie-centric East Village record store. "To me, one of the biggest things about that store is maybe they were focused on music that wasn't as popular now as when it started. That was a great punk store, and in the punk era, it was the only place to get a lot of stuff. It would be disingenuous to say I'm going to miss Bleecker Bob's. I literally probably haven't been there since I was in high school. But I hate to see what was a very cool store disappear."

are people supposed to stay in business forever? i get the real estate part of it though. nyc = expensive. got that.

maybe if they had worked the coffee mug/t-shirt angle harder...just as a brand you'd think you could stay in business. online store for bleeker bobs fashion. that sorta thing.

which was the lower manhattan store that specialized in doo-wop that closed in the lats few years?

And because Bob was open-minded enough to embrace emerging musical trends, rather than focusing solely on oldies, the store found itself at the forefront of the punk-rock explosion.

"And because Bob was open-minded enough to embrace emerging musical trends, rather than focusing solely on oldies, the store found itself at the forefront of [focusing for most of the past 30 years on oldies]."

This really highlights the paradox of rock magazines. Some point in the past looks continuously like the present to them. This makes them incapable of seeing oldies as oldies, or letting go of the past (ironically, exactly what the punk explosion they venerate represented: a violent letting-go of the past), which appears to them to be the present. They really believe they've found a way to freeze that yoghurt for good.

Not sure which doo-wop place you mean.

Just realized that Village Oldies is not the same as House of Oldies, which apparently is still there:

http://peterbengtson.smugmug.com/The-Village-We-Lived-In/Village-Oldies-Record-Store/11431644_3nxP8S#!i=1551111033&k=BxGHSHV

maybe if they had worked the coffee mug/t-shirt angle harder...just as a brand you'd think you could stay in business. online store for bleeker bobs fashion. that sorta thing.
― scott seward, Wednesday, April 24, 2013 5:44 PM

So no yogurt place after all?

Nor yoghurt. Nor record store.