Sounds 20 St. Marks Place Greenwich Village New York City
Closed.
When I went there in August 2012, when I originally wrote this post, it was but a shell of its old self. It had mostly cds and just a few records in the back.
But now, even that is gone. Here’s a Sept. 21, 2015 in the blog EV Grieve The Last Record Store On St. Marks Place Is Closing announcing its sad departure. It was the last man standing on what was a block full of record stores. Venus and Rockit Scientist were across the street. Kim’s was down the block, toward Third. And Finyl Vinyl was around the corner on 2d Ave.
But back in the day, it was filled with used records everywhere. New releases were in the bins that lined the left hand wall as you walked into the store. Used records were in the center and back bins. Blues and soul records were on the right, below featured records on the wall. And you had to check your bag when you went in.
I bought so many records there, I couldn’t even begin to name them all. One of my personal favorites was by Earl Hooker – There’s a Fungus Amung Us – a great blues record from 1972 that sounds a lot like Booker T. Pictured below, the cover art was by none other than the great R Crumb. The album recently had a deserved record store day reissue in 2024.
This was once full of records. All of these bins and more.
Ah, dig the purple Sounds price tag. How many records do I have the bear that?
Here’s a link to a story by Binky Phillips titled Stars In A Record Store that recently appeared in the Huffington Post about various stars who visited Sounds back in the day. Hey, how come he didn’t mention me?
And here’s a picture of the Sound’s bag.
