London Can Keep It: A Rough Trade NYC Retraction

Somehow I've been kind of uninspired on finishing my best bands in the world for every year, but I'll finish it someday.  Also been thinking a lot about "Top 10 Most Overrated Artists of Our Time" (just guess who #1 is...) and "Top Influential Deaths" or something else that conveys an idea better on that subject.

But most importantly I wanted to take back most of the nice things I said about Rough Trade US.

I really apologize to anyone who went there after reading my review.  I want to make it clear, though, that the prices were pretty friendly when I went there that first time.  I went again on December 30th and everything went up $3-6 in price making the place really overpriced even by NYC standards.

The fact that they don't buy/sell used items is also so royally fucked.  Who do they think they are, Barnes and Noble?

Actually, they think something else about themselves, they think they're Amoeba, they think they're CBGB, they think you hold them in really high esteem because you read about them in some book written by another British Baby Boomer.  That's why so much of their store is dedicated to their self-glorifying merchandise.  This is coming from a guy who proudly wears Amoeba T-shirts, I even bought one from all three locations.  What Amoeba does, though is keep as many records, CDs, DVDs, and ephemera out on the floor, after all they are there to sell it.  At Amoeba if you want a T-shirt you'll have to ask your cashier to get it from a place where only employees go.

The store's attitude is totally wack, as if they're some kind of great British hope we need in America and everything we buy there should be cherished as if we're privileged to own it because hey, this brand new store in Brooklyn is owned by some of the people that put out good music over 30 years ago.  Really, all they're good for is books, but instead of having Ugly Things they just have very source you could ever want on English nonsense, because everyone in Brooklyn is an Anglophile who thinks that country has put out decent music after Radiohead.

In short, I hate this store.  My hope is that they go out of business and Amoeba takes over their spot and their stock.  Until then I recommend sticking to Academy records so highly that I will provide instructions how to get to their location from Rough Trade:

Walk towards the river to the final perpendicular street.  That's Kent Street - head North toward Greenpoint, the street will change names to Franklin Street (this is not apparent on Google Maps, which threw me off the first time) and stay on it until you get to Oak Street.  At that point it looks like a neighborhood again, rather than an hndustrial hellhole.  turn left on Oak and there it is.  That store has probably treated me better than any other in New York even though they insist on stocking a lot of that new San Francisco dumpster music.

As for Rough Trade a more fitting grade would be a D.  Gonna delete that last review.

"The Americans are finally starting to get the upper hand"
-The Sweet, 40 years ago