RIP Bleecker Bob

I always enjoyed stopping into his Village record store for my fair share of abuse.
Bleecker Bob has died

 

I spent so much time there in my youth although I never got a chance to have my purchase approved or berated by the guy. Don't think any kind of online music shopping experience will ever compare to the feeling of trawling from shop to shop in the Village, gathering up so many musical treasures. RIP...

 

RIP

Wonder if Bob and Midnight's JD got along?

 

I had a couple of two-week holidays over in Manhattan around twenty years ago, and I spent a whole load of dollars on Bleecker street, filling a large sports bag full of CDs to take back to the UK.

 

Frank Zappa spoke highly of Bob and his shop.
He said it was a great place to get obscure R&B and Doo-Wop 45's.

RIP.

 

RIP Bob

 

Thanks. I thought you can only edit the body of the post, not the thread title.
At any rate, thanks to the Gort who corrected it for me.

 

I used to fly into NYC to buy these great French concert posters from Bleecker Bob's. I was the only shop they would wholesale these to. I used to deal with Chris. One day Bob walked in and nearly hit me as I was going through the closet with posters. He freaked out. Then Chris told him I was finding rolls of posters they forgot they had. He then took me to the corner and bought me my first falafel. This was late 80's. Kind of crazy memories with Bob. RIP.

 

I always thought it was strange his store wasn't actually on Bleecker street.

 

Very sad news. Eddie & Keith from REVOLVER, now Bob, that's some Rock & Roll Heaven store. Loved Bob's shop when I needed something "punk". Those records looked quite at home there! RIP Bob.

 

Only record store owner to inspire a Seinfeld episode!

 

Apparently, Bob had been in declining health for some time after suffering a stroke in 2001.

 

Bob got people to work at his shop by going to the talent pool amongst his customers. If he liked you, he would keep offering the suggestion that you should work at the shop until he wore you down and you said yes. You knew he liked you even if it wasn't apparent due to his external gruffness, which was a gimmick he knew worked for him. I worked there for a bit somewhere in the 90's, and most everyone there was deeply involved in music in some way ( I DJ'd in area rock nightclubs a few years before). John DeSalvo was the de facto day to day glue that looked most like a manager. Warren, who was one of the operators of the Empire State Soul Club also worked there, and would go off and bartend at a small restaurant that I stopped at on my way to my East Village apartment with the bathtub in the kitchen. It was a fun time, and like no other place I ever worked. I sold 45's to people as diverse as Bernard Goetz- the guy involved in defending himself on a NYC subway in the 80's, to Lars Ulrich who kept a tight watch for anything that resembled Metallica bootlegs). Bob was a total original, who occasionally let you see through the tough exterior to shown his actual humanity. R.I.P. Bob.

 

I was only in his Shop twice but it was still a pleasure to be in there.

 

It was hard to read the album covers through the crusty plastic covers. The LP stock stopped being stocked at some point (late 80s?), from my experience.

RIP, Bob.

 

With a belly full of John's Brick Oven Pizza

RIP Bleecker Bob.

 

I read an article from 2013 wherein the then-operator of the store was pondering whether or not to tell Bob that the store would be closing - presumably; he was in such a state of poor health and assisted living that he would never have known either way. That being the case, I wonder if he ever knew that the store had closed.

Anyway, it's a bit saddening to me that that whole scene is gone. Sure, there are still record stores that thrive, but it's now a totally different feel. The whole culture of record stores that started in the late 60s/early 70s was gone by the early/mid 2000s. It's really the music itself that drives that engine (well, plus the desire by people in general to own the music they love on a record or CD) and I feel that there weren't new bands that generated a large following that made people care about the culture of it. Crate digging has always been a big part of the record store experience, but I think it's also important that people be even more excited about new releases, and I don't think we have that. More and more, I liken the experience of going to a record store like being at an estate sale or antique store.

 

I never got there - wish I had. Rest in peace, Bob! Another man done gone from the record store days that used to be.

 

Memories of "The Slob" playing me a new UK 45 that he just got in, forcing me to buy it. I didn't. It was Anarchy In The UK, the Sex Pistols' debut 45 on EMI. I just didn't "get it" yet. A couple of weeks later, when I did "get it", I went back to get it, and Bob laughed in my face, the disc was withdrawn and going for hundreds.

If you were looking through the LPs for too long, he would sic that freaking huge dog on you. The Village's biggest character in the '70's. Spent hours and hours there and The Golden Disc, half a block away, underground.

 

When Fred Armisen was a member of the SNL cast, I'm almost certain that his weekly intro spot featured him searching thru the LP rack at Bleecker Bob's. Looking thru "The Jam" section?
BTW, here we are discussing the passing of a "record store" person, in the same forum that we would mourn the people who make the "records". That says a lot about our "little hobby"!

 

In the 80's I managed to get a 1970 Van Der Graaf Generator Charisma promo poster from one of their long-lost rolls. Wish I still had that.

 

This is really affecting me more than I would have thought it would. He was a big part of my life, back then. Guy knew exactly what each customer liked, and God, did he pressure you to buy. He was relentless.

 

We used to hit the Village every Friday night just to look for records. By 1987 BB's wasn't a priority anymore although it would usually be the last stop of the night because in addition to being the least interesting it was open 'til 3:00am. Second Coming was where I hit first all hot and bothered with a wad of cash to blow.

 

Just watched that documentary. Totally lost it.

 

What documentary?