Sweet Shops *Best Record Stores* Rockit Scientist and Eat Records
Visiting NYC soon? Here are two recommended record buying locations that are easy to miss but well worth the visit.
Rockit Scientist Records
East Village, New York
Down the street from Kim’s on St. Marks Place hides the gem of all NYC record dealers. Prepare for weakened knees when you first set foot in this shop with its expansive CD wall, boasting scores of album covers you never thought you’d actually find in a brick and mortar store. The CD shelves are well designed, making it easy to flip through some Yardbirds or Downliners Sect reissues seamlessly hopping back to the Byrds/Gene Clark section. The upper shelf highlights featured albums like Roy Wood’s Boulders and Odessey & Oracle; you can easily retrieve the case and inspect the liner notes, as all the actual discs are stored up front.
I mainly use the CDs as inspiration in the hunt for vinyl. The back section stores loads of HTF wax, originals and reissues mixed together. They know how much their records are worth at Rockit Scientist, but I find pricing to be about as fair as eBay or other online dealers (minus shipping). While flipping through, you’ll find a few jaw-droppers for ‘next time’ but the discerning taste of this shop ensures you can’t go home with a bad record. Vinyl is categorized by genre including rock, psych, prog, soul, jazz, Brazilian, punk, etc. Don’t forget to check out the walls and ceiling for some desirable gems.
Kudos to Rockit Scientist for their dedication to gems of the past and classic music in general. Fans of therisingstorm.net will easily spend hours in this sweet, sweet shop.
Rockit Scientist
33 St. Marks Place
New York, NY 10003
212.242.0066
http://www.myspace.com/rockitscientistrecords
Eat Records
Brooklyn, New York
Here’s a good visit for record hounds and foodies alike. Eat Records delivers what it sounds like, a bite to eat and shelves of used vinyl to flip through. The picture above shows Eat Records before they recently underwent renovation, cutting down on the amount of shelves and increasing the dining area. I find this to be a little unfortunate, but there are enough gems scattered throughout, and hardly any filler, that I will keep coming back.
Maybe it’s a little awkward geeking through a stack of records in a room filled with dining hipsters, but when you can get VG copies of Mendocino or Up Through The Spiral for around $10 AND a sandwich this good, Eat Records is just too cool to pass up.
Eat Records
124 Meserole Ave
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718.389.8083
http://www.myspace.com/eatrecords
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Hey there!
Just wanted to let you know that I formerly co-ran EAT RECORDS & really appreciated your kind words. I’m also the guy who supplied the store with a constant supply of cool staples & rarities (both records you mentioned in your review were mine for instance). However, I’ve broken off from EAT and now run a really cool micro record store in Williamsburg called RECORD GROUCH. It’s inside a large basement performance space.
For more info (day/hours of operation), check me out http://www.recordgrouch.blogspot.com
Record Grouch can now be found in the basement of a little vintage clothing store on Metropolitan Ave and Meeker.
Not true… the store is better now than it ever was. record grouch was just an employee, basically who helped out a bit around here.
The REAL Eat Records