As I’ve probably mentioned in the past, I am forever setting images “to one side,” to speak, for the purposes of later rumination and extrapolation here on Flaming Pablum. In the last couople of weeks, I’d noticed I’d amassed something of a robust glut of images that was starting to get a bit unwieldy. As such, I thought I’d round them all up in to one single post, tie a big bow on it and that would be that. But my way in, for lack of a better way of putitng it, seemed somewhat clunky and contrived. I was striving to make some sort of overarching statement about the perils of nostalgia and finding my comfort zone in the here and now while still being able to indugle my predilections for the past. But then I read it again, and it just seemed like a pretentious pile of claptrap, so I’m abandoning that.
The problem remains, however, this big glut of images. I now figure that instead of trying ot address them all in a single narrative, I might as well post them as individual entires as originally intended, and not worry about trying to compose some sort of thought-provoking statement about them. Yeah, you’re welcome.
Below is a photo I first spied on the Facebook group, Manhattan Before 1990. It’s a shot from 1987 by one Franz Jachim. A poster in that group threw open the postulation of the location and a veritable feeding frenzy ensued, with many throwing out suggestions like Bleecker Bob’s and Freebeing Records, among several others.
Being that vanished record and disc shops of Manhattan is something of a feverish preoccupation of mine, I can confidently say that the image below is definitively Golden Disc Records, which was situated just steps to the west of Carmine Street on Bleecker (essentially just west of Father Demo Square at Sixth Avenue). The same spot was later commandeered (and rearranged a bit) by its incarnation as Bleecker Street Records (before that was pushed off Bleecker, decamping to West 4th before vanishing).
I vividly remember shopping at Golden Disc fairly regularly, although I remember some somewhat shady business practices. For example, my friend Rob was looking to procure a hard-to-find promotional artifact from U2. It hung on their wall for a princely sum, as if it was this desperately rare object. When he finally ponied up the money for it, he couldn’t help noticing that the dude behind the counter at Golden Disc just opened a box FULL of numerous copies of this disc. We left feeling a bit gouged.
In any case, it was still one of our regular stops, and I was indeed sorry when it vanished. What’s striking to me about this picture, though, is look how crowded it is!!
I miss these places. Incidentally, if you do too -- and are on Facebook -- why not consider joining NYC Independent Records Shops 70's-90's & The Collectors That Loved Them? Tell'em I sent'cha.
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