[kj] KJ spotting circa 1981

[Alexander Smith]

Hey all...

Some of my fellow record-shop geeks might appreciate this. A few days  
ago, I posted an entry on my blog about an old favorite shop of mine  
down in SoHo here in NYC called Rocks in Your Head. It was this tiny,  
little basement enclave in a desolate part of town that just felt like  
a veritable SHRINE to everything that was cool. I can't tell you the  
amount of amazing records I procured from this spot. It was also the  
first place I ever laid my hands on a Killing Joke t-shirt (white with  
the cover of the ALMOST RED sleeve on it). When I first started going  
there, they even had a little ice cream shop in the back, so you could  
thumb through their vinyl, fine a few rare treasures and then treat  
yourself to a milkshake. It was awesome.

Over the years, Rocks in Your Head had to diversify to stay afloat.  
They got rid of the ice cream shop in the back and started selling/ 
renting DVDs. They still stocked vinyl, but also featured an  
impressive CD collection. As the neighborhood started to gentrify,  
Rocks had a hard time keeping up with its spiraling rent. Sadly, they  
were forced to close up shop in 2006. They moved to Brooklyn for a  
very short while and then went out of business. Very sad.

In any case, I wrote a little thing about it the other day, and then  
apropos of nothing, did another little Google image search for it last  
night. Up came some pictures of the place I'd never seen before. Turns  
out they came from this MASSIVE archive of downtown NYC pics culled  
together by New York University.

In any case, here's a shot of the interior of ROCKS IN YOUR HEAD circa  
1981. Gatherers might recognize something here.....

http://dlib.nyu.edu/washingtonsquare/2333.1/vq83bkjn/index.html

If you're curious, you can find out more about the archive in question  
here....

http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2012/01/vanishing-downtown-photographic-paydirt.html

Alex in NYC