The
internet sure has been Schumperterian when it comes to music. You always used
to be able to find experimental music magazine Signal to Noise at the East 4th Street music store
co-founded and operated by Chris Vanderloo and Josh Madell. Neither is still in
business today. The final days and lasting legacy of the beloved retail store
are documented in Puloma Basu & Rob Hatch-Miller’s Other Music, which screens at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
The
name Other Music was more or less intended to imply all sorts of
outside-the-top-40 music, but downtown indie rock always seemed to get the most
merchandising attention. They sold CDs, but vinyl was everyone’s passion. Many
bands, like The National were championed by the stores staff and many notched
their first sales through Other Music’s consignment program. They even had the
foresight to open a download service, but the tide they were swimming against
was just too strong.
Basu
& Hatch-Miller record plenty a tearful farewell from regular customers, as
well as a bounty of talking head testimonials from a who’s who of indie
rockers. They also had intimate access to Vanderloo and Madell, as well as
their staff and wives. Seeing the once-familiar store logo is sure to bring
back waves of nostalgia for anyone who was vinyl-hunting in New York during the
late 1990s and early 2000s, but the doc’s commercial current appeal will be
even more limited than the store’s customer base at the time of its demise.
Still,
watching the Other Music doc brings on the realization that those of us who
were collecting music at that time, we witnessing a golden era of New York City
music stores. Yet, whenever I wanted to talk music for a little while, I wouldn’t
go to Other Music (their jazz section was limited and honestly, the staff wasn’t
that inviting). Instead, I went to the corporate bogeyman across the street, Tower
Records, which had a terrific jazz section at the 4th Street
location (you could often find reasonably priced Japanese imports). The also
had a knowledgeable jazz staff and the friendly crew working the ground floor information
desk also knew quite a bit about the music of Armstrong and Zorn, even though
it wasn’t their specialty. In fact, to their credit, Vanderloo and Madell both
readily agree they were sorry to see Tower close.
As
it happens, Vanderloo, Madell, and their third original co-founder first met
while working at Kim’s Video & Music, another East Village landmark that
sadly gave up the ghost. Plus, we see one of the tweets lamenting Other Music’s
closure came from Academy LPs, which was formerly located near Astor Place, but
was forced to relocate to Alphabet City. I bought a lot of great music from
those stores, but not so much from Other Music. Nevertheless, it contributed to
the critical mass of the neighborhood.
If
you knew these establishments, Basu & Hatch-Miller’s doc will unleash a
flood of memories. It will also make you wonder what happened to the people you
used to see so often. Various musicians and commentators are not wrong when the
bemoan throughout the film the current lack of community spaces for serious music
fans. For some people, Other Music provided that, so it is a shame it no longer
exists. Recommended for the store’s former customers and the artists it
stocked, Other Music screens again
this Sunday (5/5), as part of this year’s Tribeca.