I'd be willing to bet few (if any) here have experience of going to a favorite record store and stumbling upon a federal raid for bootlegs, but I have! Back in '84 I went to a record store that I spent a lot of time at, specifically to pick up a bootleg that I had special-ordered (it was a bootleg that featured John Cipollina, and after he saw it, he eagerly asked me to try to get one for him too). After I got off work, I hitched a ride up to the record store with some of my co-workers, and they had encouraged me to smoke some "sacrament" with them, so by the time I got to the store, I was QUITE stoned! I found my passage into the store blocked by a clean-cut man in a suit and dark glasses who wouldn't tell me anything other than to come back later. High enough to be quite paranoid, I didn't stick around! In the next hour or so, I calmed down enough and gathered my wits enough to figure out that the store had been in the midst of a raid for bootlegs, and when I went back, I told the owner, "You guys just got busted for bootlegs, didn't you?" upon which the owner suspiciously asked me, "How did you know?" and I told them I had just been there earlier and hadn't been allowed in, and I figured it out. Years later I heard from someone that Jim Marshall, the famous photographer, would narc on local record stores if he saw unauthorized albums that used his photographs without permission, and that may have been the case that day. BTW, I was still able to get the bootleg for Cipollina that he wanted. It had probably been placed somewhere the feds didn't look!
I was just in the store below making my first purchase (although second visit) there. Picked up a copy of the rare Giles Giles & Fripp lp! Albany CA -- just stumbled across it two weeks ago! Been there two years apparently.
In 1996 (maybe early 1997?), I was at the cash register paying for a small pile of great CDs that I had found, when a man behind me said, "Leave the store!" I was so surprised that I wasn't sure I heard what I thought I heard. How could another customer be so rude? I said, "Let me just pay for my stuff, guy". He flashed a badge, and shouted, "Follow my orders! Leave now! Do not resist". (I won't forget that!) His fellow undercover cop was armed, and I left in shock, really pissed about not getting my music. I was shaken. I was not buying bootlegs that day, but the store definitely carried them (and I often bought them). The guys in the store were my "friends". They had several shops in the region. I instantly telephoned one of the other shops and told them (from a pay phone, no cell for me then). They closed up and left immediately. This action was ordered by New York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco, who wanted some headlines. All of the store's stock of bootlegs was confiscated. But they stayed in business. Charges were eventually dismissed. Vacco, a headline seeker, lost the next election in a landslide The craziest thing is this: a number of years later, the shop owner received a call from the authorities. They said, "Do you want your CDs back?" He was shocked, but said "Sure!". When they came with a van load of discs, they gave him everything they had. Far more than they took from him. All the stuff they confiscated from many stores! He got a real laugh out of that. He put them back out in the bins, and was one of the only shops with "real silver CD" bootlegs and printed graphics in stock, not knock off CDRs with photocopied cheap covers! It was the only time I was threatened with possible arrest when I was buying some used CDs. I will leave the shop un-named.
There were a coupe of used stores in that location. In the mid to late seventies it was a place called Deja Vu Records and in the nineties there was one of the used chain stores in that location but the name escapes me now.
My favorite shop...coolest sign, after the old Atlantic label. from the home page: ENTERPRISE RECORDS sensitive to the needs of vinyl addicts since 1987 Welcome to Enterprise Records, an LP-only retail store operating in Portland, Maine. We’ve never sold a CD, and after a couple of decades in the business, it's starting to look like we're going to outlast the format that was supposed to drive us out fifteen years ago. If you find yourself in northern New England, be sure to pay us a visit. You’ll be glad you did. In addition to our large and thoughtfully selected rock section, we have selections in categories like jazz and reggae (with separate dub ska sub-sections) that are wide and deep enough to look good in any city you could name. Also rockabilly, blues, soundtracks, spoken word... and hard-to-find stuff going into stock every day. And we’re really fussy about condition, all of our stuff is clean, clean, clean. We are first and foremost a retail store. We're starting to work on some mail-order capability through the website, but at the moment it's a fledgling effort. For the time being, if you want to send us a want list, we’ll do what we can. See you soon. In the center of the wall, directly below the "comma" in this sentence is a sandwich bag of broken CDs with a sign that reads: "Our CD collection"
Now we have Victor circus dogs. A special sale price of records at 65 cents, when the NY Times was 3 cents is like paying about $50 for 6 minutes of music.
The guy on the left was Security. He would pat your coat down and if he heard something crack, you went with him to the back room.
Horse drawn wagons would deliver Victrolas and a supply of records to wealthy customers on Park Avenue. Some of those Victrolas cost more than an automobile at that time
Brooklyn, USA Foreign language records were extremely popular in the world of immigrants. We have lost the path.
The record collector's anthem. Sunshine warps records and fades the colors in record jackets. Who needs it?
Must be an early Walmart. You could get some records, a garden rake and some thread for sewing your ripped pants (from looking at records near the floor)
Some politicians are talking about stiff sentences for people who get caught selling records without a prescription. They had free delivery of records 80 years before Amazon
Henry Burr was the most frequently recorded singer in all of history. True. His picture is on the left, and I believe that is him in the light hat near the center. Look him up.
