Vinyl Mania & Empire Rink Close!

Doily and I just went to Vinyl Mania about two weeks ago after a job interview up at Wave Hill, former home to Mark Twain among others. Vinyl Mania represented the old school disco and loft DJ. Conveniently located around the corner from the Paradise Garage, the place never lost its place in history. I always made a point of going a few blocks out of my way to check what discounted rap vinyl was floating around. Inside, the vibe was always sweet: a cashier DJing some house track, smiling as I came in, some mangy street cat happy to be sitting inside and a ton of vinyl without proper homes. The last visit scored me Young Jeezy's first LP for cheap, but unfortunately it's my last score. Vinyl Mania closed this week, open since 1978. Read an old interview with the owner Charlie Grappone.

Also closed this week is Empire Roller Rink in the heart of Brooklyn. Empire was where roller disco was born and up until the end, the place continued to be busy. Now it will be yet another storage facility stuffed full of evicted tenants' possesions, bootleg purses, drug and weapon caches and tools and supplies for the entrepeneurial developer.

While I'm on the nostalgia tip, I gotta mention how I met Kool Herc last week, even got to buy him a Corona. If I wasn't so starstruck, I would have asked for a picture. He stopped by Jazzy Jam's new weekly at Tonic. It's bumped Pure Fire into hiatus until Subtonic reopens, but I'm happy to have the Zulu Nation peoples at Tonic. Damn, Kool Herc and his girl dancing on an empty dancefloor to Zulu Nation DJs at Tonic... I had to rub my eyes a few times, pinch myself, hope I would wake up to a city that really did believe in preserving its cultural heritage...