Record Store Review: Rough Trade NYC

I guess I first heard about Rough Trade when I was in high school (not to be confused with lower-case “rough trade,” which is another story for another day). It was a record label, and also a store, or vice-versa, and it was British and mysterious and cool, with an iconic logo, perfect for us pubescent Anglophiles.

Maybe I knew that the shops and label became separate companies, or maybe I didn’t. Then the record label went away, and then it came back, and the Rough Trade Shops started putting out a bunch of compilations, that were maybe not on the Rough Trade label.

British. Mysterious. Cool. But perhaps had become a little more corporate?

Flash-forward to last month, when I learned that a new Rough Trade Shop was opening in the United States—in Brooklyn. What the what? It’s 2013 and record stores close, they don’t open. But it was true. I read an article about the massive building and the promise of in-store performances. Were we entering some new golden age? Let us rejoice.

The thing about record stores is, I love them. If I’m going to a different town, I Google “best record store” (and also “best book store” because obsolete industries are kind of my thing). My collection has albums I’ve picked up all over the country. Giant stores, tiny stores. Oh how I love methodically going from A to Z, flipping through those dusty racks. Ah, the wonderful satisfaction of finding that one record you’ve been seeking out for years! (Thing I learned early on: Girls don’t always have the same level of enthusiasm for this hobby. Consider not bringing the girl to the record store.) I always buy something: They are businesses, not museums.

But I’d never been to a Rough Trade Shop. So this was a big moment—that I put off for several weeks. (Brooklyn is a little bit of a schlep, two rivers away, so I like to multi-task: see a band, visit a record store; attend a trivia night, visit a record store. Maximize that MetroCard fare.)

I finally made it there last night and am ready to report back.

You walk from the Bedford L train stop to North 9th Street, and then down toward the river. And there it is on the left: A warehouse-like structure with giant album covers glued to the exterior, like oversized sports-star photos outside a stadium.

I was pleased before I even stepped inside: The sign on the door said they are open till 11 p.m. (9 p.m. on Sundays). I really miss Tower Records and the Virgin Megastore in Manhattan. Tower was open until midnight, and Virgin till 1 a.m. After some disappointing night in a bar, you’d often find me in one of those stores until closing time. If I was sad, buying a record could make me feel better. “Retail therapy” I guess they call it. So I was glad that Williamsburg record goons would have someplace to go after 9 p.m. It’s important.

Entering, it is indeed cavernous. The second floor is only around the perimeter so there’s a very high ceiling. Celebrate, claustrophobics.

I was surprised that there were very few people in this humungous store. Granted, it was 5:30 on a weeknight, so most locals would not be back from work yet. Still, on the last Friday night before Christmas, I figured the place would be hopping.

I wandered about, as downcast dance music emanated from a DJ booth. The overall mood was a bit cold and antiseptic. But it’s BIG and CLEAN and NEW and there are a LOT OF RECORDS so that’s all good. Vinyl, a ton of vinyl, and racks and racks of CDs. It felt like a salute to music, to the devoted fan. A place where you are welcome.

But like I said, these are businesses, not some sort of clubhouse. And my immediate reaction was sticker shock. The new Arcade Fire album was on display front-and-center—both LP and CD—and the compact disc was $19.99. Huh? Was this a special-edition import? Three-disc “deluxe”? Nope, just the regular record. Now, did I mention I go to a lot of record stores? This album should be priced somewhere around $13.99. (At Newbury Comics in New England, it’s $11.98.) It’s a new release that the band wants to sell, the label wants to sell, and the store wants to sell. So why is it several dollars more than I can buy it elsewhere?

I walked around and confirmed that this was not a fluke. Many new-release CDs were $15.99 or more, and then vinyl two to three dollars greater. (In our bizarro new retro world, vinyl is always pricier.) And there are no used records (which, for a major chain, didn’t surprise me, but new-and-used shops, like my beloved Tunes right here in Hoboken, are my favorite by far). So everything is priced at top dollar.

I wasn’t astonished by any of this: The big record retailers—Tower, Virgin, HMV, Sam Goody, etc.—always had stupidly high-priced “catalog” albums (i.e. old ones). I guess the logic being that it’s not an impulse purchase, so you’re willing to pay more, thereby increasing their profit margin. But, at least with the Towers and Virgins of the world, they knew how to handle new releases. They were prominently displayed by the entrance, with bright stickers announcing discounted prices. There are no sales, no bright stickers at Rough Trade. That wouldn’t be very “British,” would it.

And then these stores always had racks of marked-down catalog releases—the “Nice Price,” as a ubiquitous circular sticker used to announce. There was really no equivalent at the Rough Trade shop. Yes, I noticed a handful of “classic” alternative albums—My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground, etc.—priced around $8.99. But in general this is not the destination for the bargain-conscious record shopper.

Genre-wise, mainstream alternative rock seems to have the most real estate in the store. (Hmm, didn’t check if they carried Real Estate. Probably.) Electronic/dance probably came in second, with smaller sections for punk, metal, indie/shoegaze, 60s/70s rock, hip-hop, jazz, country, folk, and reggae. I did not notice any classical, “oldies,” or experimental sections.

Overall, a fairly vast inventory, but not nearly the diversity of stock that a Tower or Virgin would carry. Maybe that’s based on a study of the neighborhood’s demographics, or maybe stocking every record is just no longer a feasible business model.

Upstairs, along the wall, there are books and magazines—mostly music, photography, lifestyle—the sorts of things that are reviewed in the back of British music magazines (including some U.K. imports, for those seeking out Morrissey’s autobiography). Further along the upper level there is a large room with ping-pong tables in it—you can purchase a ping-pong ball from a vending machine for a quarter. From this room, you can see the performance space in the back, a pretty mainstream design with a mini-Bowery Ballroom/Music Hall of Williamsburg look.

Maybe the Guardian newspaper sponsors the ping-pong? I think so. In any case, the Guardian has a smaller room upstairs with several touchscreens but their purpose wasn’t immediately clear to me so I walked out.

Indeed, the Shop seems to be reaching out to the young, moneyed Anglophile. And with the influx of luxury construction in Williamsburg, maybe the local residents won’t mind paying inflated prices—won’t even notice.

I went up yet another staircase, where some other entity is sponsoring an art space. And the current exhibit is Childish Gambino’s bedroom. Now, if you don’t know the rapper Childish Gambino, he’s Troy on TV’s Community, which for me basically destroys any street cred he might have. As for his on-display bedroom: I went into a lot of model houses when I was a kid, and this is basically that, with strobe lights. Not impressed.

It was time to go. But first, like I said, I had to buy something. The new release from Midlake was only $12.99. I’d learned about them at Good Records in Dallas in 2004. They’re from Texas but Midlake’s records are on a British-based label, so it seemed like a solid Rough Trade purchase.

With tax, it came to $14.14. I handed the clerk a twenty and then said “Oh, I have a quarter” and handed her that too. (Good thing I didn’t splurge on a ping-pong ball.) She rang me up and handed me $5.86.

“No,” I said. “I gave you the quarter so I’d get six dollars back.”

I handed her back the money to start again and she handed me… six dollars.

“And eleven cents,” I said.

She handed me 12 cents.

That exchange left a slightly bad taste in my mouth as I walked out into the night of lonely North 9th Street. I’ll likely return to Rough Trade, but probably only when they have in-store performances. For multi-tasking. My go-to store off the L train will remain Permanent Records in Greenpoint—friendlier, warmer, cheaper, used and new, with in-store shows as well, and truly indie. And it’s kind of weird how a much, much smaller store can have a significantly better selection. But I guess that’s where the real record lovers are—they’re running small stores, and they’re hanging on. Because it’s important.