Record Rev was a fantastic place to browse for hours and hours when I was a kid growing up in the 80s. The logo summed up the attitude: Take a classic Chuck Berry photo and slap a skull over Berry's mug. When you walked in, the front section was all cool clothing and Rock t-shirts. Step down to the right and there were record albums of every kind, used and new. One wall towards the front of the "head shop" section was painted white but signed by dozens of local and national bands and celebrities that had walked through the doors. I remember walking down to the basement and the walls were lined with collectible LPs and posters. The one that I distinctly remember is an original-pressing Rolling Stones "Some Girls" LP. Massive speakers hung from the ceiling and destroyed your eardrums with great music.
As I got older, the records were replaced by CDs, the drug paraphernalia disappeared, and in the basement was a ton of old vinyl to purchase along with posters and some turntable supplies. Bootleg VHS tapes lined a wall upstairs: GG Allin, Rolling Stones, Ramones, Lou Reed, hard to find movies and cartoons (remember, this was before the internet and VHS tapes still cost $20). They even had a skateboard section with a decent selection. There was a black dude who worked there that my brother and I went to high school with who always wore tons of black leather, spikes, and topped it all off with a huge mohawk. On the back of his leather jacket was "Pagan and Proud." About two years ago I saw him again at the store...in a suit!
Well, as cool as this place used to be, there was always one major issue I had with the place - it was expensive. Actually, it was more expensive than any other record store on the East Side of Cleveland. Used vinyl, used CDs, bootleg CDs, new CDs, bootleg videos...who the hell was paying $15 for a new CD anymore? Who was going to pay $10 for a used CD when you could walk down the street to the Record Exchange (now called "The Exchange") and get it new for the same price? These were questions the owners obviously never wanted to deal with.
Record Rev never caught up with the times and is now, sadly, in its death throes. It is about 20% the size it was 10 years ago. It is actually almost completely a head shop now, with all sorts of marijuana...err...I mean tobacco supplies taking up several display cases. A tiny section of some sad, overpriced used vinyl, a "skateboard section" that is actually just a few decks crammed into a tiny corner of the now one-room shop (although the Record Rev logo on a sk8 deck IS pretty damn cool), and some cheap jewelry. There's some clothing, too. When I walked into the place I was hit by how a legendary hang-out was now just waiting to die.
It didn't have to be this way! Down the street, The Exchange is BOOMING! It is bigger than it was when I was a kid and sells tons of video games and music, and even has a small selection of vinyl. They sized up the consumers, took into consideration what we wanted, and reformatted their store to give us what we wanted at a good price. It used to be a hole-in-the-wall, but has moved into a new building down the road about 2 minutes. The shame here is, is that I used to hang out for a good 1/2 hour at Record Rev, but wander down to the Record Exchange to buy the music at half the cost.
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| The Competition |
Record Rev had the name recognition and "cool factor" to remain on Coventry for decades. Instead of lowering prices and tweaking inventory, they kept their prices high and let the smaller upstarts take over the market. It's sad. I'll always remember those triangle-head mannequins in the window! I saved the above newspaper clipping to remember the good times.
Go
HERE for an excellent article about the history of Record Rev.
