Other Music NYC to close...

I'm confused - isn't there a record-buying boon going on? Or is everyone buying online...

 

Are you familiar with New York City rent

 

Me, too, @Sneaky Pete. Me, too.

 

Guess I had a different experience the hundreds of times i was there. Great staff and super-supportive of unsigned unknown bands bringing in their demos/homemade CDs/whatever to sell.

 

it's so sad NYC is an empty shell of stores it once was.....

 

Is there a story here or just a general policy? I don't remember.

 

Having worked with them on the business end a few times, I can tell you that in recent years they were far less willing to stock releases from small labels and artists.

 

Dunno but he refused to allow anybody take photos in there. I saw him deny different people more than a dozen different times over the years.

 

I was not referring to small labels - they always seemed to have stuff by local bands who were unsigned, and friends of mine were in bands who either walked in with their stuff or one of the owners or managers were at a gig and picked up merch directly from the band

 

maybe they changed their policies once they started the label a few years ago

 

Yes. I lived in NYC and Carroll Gardens and Park Slope for more than 20 years. There's a reason I now live in CT. It's just plain wrong what has happened to Manhattan and the boroughs when people can't even afford to live in Bed-Stuy. Who is living in all the high-rises that have gone up in the last few years? Are people getting paid that much money? And the actual record business is in a huge resurgence, the likes of which haven't been seen since either the Swing era or the dawn of Rock & Roll. The whole thing is just so damn sad. And there's not a record/cd store anywhere near where I live so I buy records in NYC or online but I much prefer the record store buying experience (what there is left of it).

 

David from Rebel could be difficult at times but he was cool with me.
With the amount of records he had in that tiny space, it was amazing how he would find what I was looking for. I hope it's not true that he's closing.

 

Yeah and it's the same story that's playing out in so many other cities. Quite sad really.

I went back to NYC last May and I hadn't been there since 2011. I went to the old Meat Packing district because I spent a lot of time there when I was sent to our NY office. I couldn't believe what they did to the place. I mean that area had changed quite a lot even by 2011 but this was on a different level that I was not expecting. I'm not against progress but they killed the character of that area. We made a quick exit. But judging by the amount of people there not many cared. It's now just a nice place to go and have a drink and grab a bite to eat. People don't really want character unless it's been scrubbed clean.

Reminds me of many places in London, England where they bludgeoned the character out of so many areas.

 

Never really a fan of Other Music (too snooty and cultish for my taste).....but I'm sorry to see any music store close in NY.
I used to mainly buy magazines from Rebel Rebel. For many years they were the first place to receive shipments of my fave UK music publications.
NYC is becoming a dead zone for retail music purchasing

 

not "becoming," it is a dead zone for retail music.

 

I left NYC for Los Angeles six years ago, it was a bittersweet departure from my home town, but the abundance of used vinyl stores in all corners of LA has definitely eased the transition. With Other Music closing, the last Manhattan record stores standing are I believe Academy on W. 18th and E. 12? The Academy store in Greenpoint is quite good, as is Captured Tracks nearby.

The overdevelopment of New York is truly awful, there's very little about the city that's better now than it was say 20 years ago. There are blocks where building owners will keep storefronts vacant for months or longer, waiting for a Starbucks, Chase, or Marc Jacobs store to sign on. Sad to say I'm glad I left.

 

In the beginning, Other Music was based on a business plan of "esoteric music." The very name of the shop was a statement of intent and they opened directly across the street from Tower Records during its heyday. That was a bold move.

But in the past ten years they've done a very good job of being - for my money - a full service music outlet. I would find interesting Folk/Rock/Pop reissues as well as Blues, Soul and Reggae. I would go there to buy the latest from artists such as Lucinda Williams and Dion. I also continued to buy new releases by the kinds of [less mainstream] artists that I associate with the shop... in my last couple of visits; East of Venus, Explosions in the Sky, Nap Eyes, Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band. Other Music also had choice cuts in the used bins, they knew good music. They may have cut their bones on sounds that were under-the-radar, but that was only one ingredient in recent memory.

I think the demographic of their customer base was also shifting up the age scale, which changed their focus to a broader base.

I'm very sad to hear about it. Good people. We left NYC at the end of April and I would miss Other Music terribly if we were still in town.

 

Generation, Bleecker Street, Record Runner are still around. Sad to get the news of Other Music and Rebel Rebel on the same day.

 

David was always very nice to me.
I hope it's not true too.

 

the first two are owned by the same people. I really like the dude who owns Record Runner but that store seems to be closed the vast majority of the time.

 

Why do you think that? The profit margin on any individual sale is no more than a few bucks. If they sold just 250,000 items annually, times 20 years, that would be 5,000,000 albums. But I suspect that their business was more robust than that, at least in the early years. I'm sure they were paying over $100K annually in rent, there were originally three partners, later two, but there were always three or four employees in the store at any given time.

I don't know what the bottom line is for gross sales to maintain a business in NYC, but it's a lot more than in Bucks County, PA.

 

Rent a storefront in NYC and you'll quickly find out.

 

I'm sure the huge sales figures in the past are the only reason they've even lasted this long

 

Dammit, that's really too bad. I liked that place. IMHO Academy Records Annex in Brooklyn is NYC's hidden gem. Good prices and an amazing selection.

 

Those numbers would be really optimistic. They'd be ringing up 77 items every single hour they were open. More than one a minute? Every minute of the year? Not bloody likely.