The City of Lost Cassettes

A while ago, I wrote about how cassettes are still a viable format in some places outside the U.S.

Last week, I found a place in NYC where that's also true.

Walking down Moore St., in the last holdout of old-school Boricuosity in hipster-infested Williamsburg, I stopped by one of my fave record stores, Johnny Albino's. Here is what I saw:

Click on the pix to enlarge it, but the two key elements are these: the sign saying "$1 each cassettes" and the stacks and stacks below.

Johnny Albino's is one of the last salsa middens in the city (Casa Amadeo in the Bronx and Casa Latina in El Barrio are two other ones holding out). Not only does it have a great cross-section of old-school salsa and merengue, and one of the funkiest boogaloo one-off selections (Albino himself was a trío singer back in the 40s and 50s), but it has concert DVDs, new stuff -- reggaetón and local groups like Yerbabuena. But really, what you go there for is to excavate.

There was lots of stuff I recognized in the cassettes -- La Lupe, Trio Reynoso, Milly y Los Vecinos -- and some crazy-looking stuff that had me salivating, from the days when you could tell a record by its cover.

There were hundreds of tapes, an assortment of close to a hundred different recordings. "You should see the boxes I have back there, unopened!" said Johnny.

So, who the heck buys these? Johnny said that cassette buyers fell into the following categories:

1) folks who never swapped out the cassette player from their cars;
2) old folks who never quite got used to that new-fangled shiny disky thing;
3) fans who know how rare some of these are and buy the tapes to transfer them to digital.

Makes sense. I have nothing I can play these on, but I am tempted to go back and drop an Andrew Jackson. I mean, each of these cassettes is only one cent more than a single song on iTunes.

Comments

[Kiko Jones]

Yo,

I'm down, sister.

Despite giving a way about a gross of tapes to a friend w/a deck in his car, I still actually own 3 cassette players (a small, reporter's type thingie; a mini boom box on my nightstand; and a dual deck in my stereo configuration).

Question: Does Mr. Albino carry any of his own music? That would be a pretty cool acquisition.