There used to be a great, little record/disc shop in Greenwich Village, in the late `90s, called Route 66. Originally on Bleecker, it moved over to MacDougal Street into the small space above what had formerly been 99 Records about a decade earlier. For a while, there was this kid named Daniel behind the register who I was friendly with, but my closest contact was the store’s main buyer and manager, a guy named Andy. After several visits, I’d become something of a regular, and Andy – knowing my tastes and sensibilities, by this point – used to set stuff aside and snagged limited editions of stuff for me, which was kind of amazing. The world has become so used to immediate gratification here in the age of ubiquitous streaming, but back during the era of physical media, if you wanted to own or even simply hear something, you had to put your pants on and go out and find it. So, if you had an ally out there reserving copies of such items for you, that was a nice set-up.
So, while Andy dutifully kept his eye out for any product that was in-line with my tastes, he also recognized me as a fellow music fan and, frankly, an easy mark. As such, he would regularly evangelize new stuff to me (Andy, for example, was the first guy to hip me to Queens of the Stone Age). But, thanks to Andy’s frothy-mouthed powers of persuasion, I found myself frequently springing for first singles and albums from indie bands I’d previously never heard of like The Futureheads, Ash, Strangelove, My Vitriol, The Hot Hot Heat, Kula Shaker, Mansun, Muse and dozens more. Some of them “stuck” and I became an ardent follower of their output. Others… well, not so much. Suffice to say, I never purchased another record by the Hot Hot Heat … if they even made one.
In any case, one such album was the eponymous debut by a Dublin trio called JJ72 … their name, if memory serves, being some sort of oblique allusion to fellow countryman James Joyce, although they weren’t forthcoming about it. JJ72 played a sort of youthfully angst-ridden variant of ponderously histrionic indie rock with obvious nods to more celebrated forebears like Joy Division, albeit without the grim gravitas. I regularly listened to it and included songs from the record in question on mixtapes I made for friends of mine (remember when people did that?). After a while, though, I moved onto other things.
If I’m not mistaken, Route 66 closed-up shop in about 2001. Daniel had jumped ship a year or so earlier, first decamping to JetSet Records, the then-label of my friends in Firewater, before quitting there to concentrate on his own band, that being a little concern named Interpol. Sadly, I have no idea whatever became of Andy. I’d love to track him down and speak with him again.
While much of the music from that particular era now feels dated and nostalgic to me, there is a song by JJ72 that almost smacks me in the face every year, that being the one below. Apropos of their signature, “Snow” strains to establish some inner vein of deep, emotional turmoil, but the somewhat clumsy latticework of the song’s lyrics don’t entirely carry the weight of that ambition. The chorus, however, does ring true for me….
“WHY WON’T IT SNOW? LIKE THEY SAID IT WOULD?”
It hasn’t substantially snowed in New York City in over 650 days, which …. is quite something to consider.
The lovely shot of MacDougal Street in the snow at the top of this post was snapped by one Brian Eden. You can find more of his stunning images by clicking right here.
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