Back to See/Hear

It's been closed now for a decade, but since it's been gone, it seems almost inconceivable that such a place even ever existed, ... much like the neighborhood it once called home. See/Hear was an independent magazine shop in the heart of the East Village that specialized almost exclusively in music periodicals. It stocked some other reading material as well -- comics, poetry, cinema stuff -- but it's main attraction were "Zines"... independent fanzines, catering to all stripes of music geek, from bedenimed metal cretins to bespectacled indie dweebs to die-hard prog archivists, punk revivalists, psychedelic lost souls, and everyone in between. Located in a cramped, basement-level bunker, See/Hear was a furtive hive for fetishistic music knowitalls to meet, learn, glean, share discoveries, etc. Prior to the adventure-squashing advent of the internet, it was places like See/Hear that made being an ardent music fan so exciting.

 

My favorite anecdote about See/Hear comes from this very recent post on Dangerous Minds about the rarified and disarmingly profane "Hard Rock" cassette put out by Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label (which featured luridly disturbing spoken-word pieces by Lydia Lunch and Michael Gira of SWANS). Evidently See/Hear's old proprietor plays in a Sonic Youth cover duo that practiced their art on ukuleles. Their name? SONIC UKE.

In any case, I probably discovered See/Hear around 1989, when I was interning and SPIN and just starting to work for an independent zine that I've mentioned here before called The New York Review of Records (or NYROR). After first walking down into the place, I swiftly became a regular. And I probably took it for granted for many years.

See/Hear is a tellingly indicative example of the New York City that I spend most of my time paying tribute to here on Flaming Pablum, because it's a New York City that's now largely vanished.

One of NYROR's contributors, the great and unrepentantly hirsute Brian O'Neil (or, as he sometimes called himself back then, Brain O'Null), posted this fleeting clip of the old interior of See/Hear on my Facebook page this evening, and I instantly felt compelled to post something about it here. Sure, it may look like just a dingy little magazine shop to you, but for some of us, it was a veritable temple.

Comments

[Elyse]

best east village store ever! spent many a dollar there. thanks for posting.

[EV Grieve]

I was trying to remember... They moved briefly to St. Mark's Place... then back. But how long were they on St. Mark's?

[URL Brenner]

Thanks for that. See Hear was one of my favorite stores, and your right, it was one of those places that defined what the East Village was all about. Very sad that things are not that way anymore. You think about why they aren't and no good reasons come to mind at all. Sure there's that old argument that New York is 'always changing' but through the decades and generations the East Village was about being outside the system. To Gen X just because something happened in the 50s or 60s didn't make it 'old', rather it was a strong connection to the past and you took pride in carrying the torch. Kerouac, Burroughs, and The Fugs for example weren't then and still aren't now a bunch of passe' old people. Their work was/is still relevant. The people and faces may have changed in the EV but the vibe was always the same. Why that ended and why young people are more interested in selling out is beyond me. Corporate thought control if you ask me. But as the old saying goes 'don't be sad that it's over be glad it happened'.

[~Evilsugar]

The post about See/Hear made me cry. I had forgotten about this place. It crystalizes so clearly the vibe that THIS neighborhood was where I wanted - needed! - to be. I belonged here. These were my people