Needle Scratch! Sterling Records Settles In on 5th Avenue
Needle Scratch! Sterling Records Settles In on 5th Avenue
Park Slope resident opens music shop with help from synth-pop pioneer/Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure co-founder
Music lovers and vinyl collectors have a new haunt on 5th Avenue! Sterling Records quietly debuted in May in the former Graphicolor storefront at 121 5th Avenue. The shop sells a diverse selection of new and used vinyl, CDs, 45s, band t-shirts, tote bags, books, puzzles, and more.
"I want it to be a place where people who like music just want to be, even if they come in for an hour, have a coffee, and just chill out," owner Gary Giddens said on a recent Wednesday afternoon. Though the store is open daily from noon to 6pm, the space is still a work in progress. Giddens and his team plan to install a new awning and add a café in the back of the shop. They also plan to kick off a collaboration with Staten Island's Maker Park Radio later this summer, where the station will broadcast live from the store once a week with various DJs, including Giddens, spinning disks.
Giddens also plans to sell turntables and expand the inventory to meet customers' needs. The selection currently reflects Giddens’ vast, eclectic tastes. Along with David Bowie, his desert island pick, the bins are stocked with rock, soul, dance, reggae, jazz, and chart toppers like Taylor Swift. "We’re trying to be a neighborhood store," he said. Since opening, jazz albums have been flying off the shelves as well as "bands like Radiohead, we can’t keep them in half the time."
He compares Sterling Records to two local businesses, "a cross between Annie’s Blue Ribbon and Beacon’s Closet, but for music," adding, "like those stores, when you walk in, you might have an idea of one thing you want but you might come out with three of four things you weren’t planning on getting. If you come in looking for the new album by Lana Del Ray, you might go out with a puzzle or a mug."
Giddens is a familiar face in the neighborhood. Originally from London, he moved to Park Slope in 1984. He started off cutting hair and, to earn extra cash, began also tending bar at local favorites High Dive, The Gate, and Commonwealth. Ray Gish, the owner of Commonwealth, is Giddens' business partner at Sterling Records. Always an avid music fan, Giddens notes, "I’m very lucky because I’ve always had jobs where music is played.... If I’m going to work, I might as well enjoy what I’m listening to."
In 2019, Giddens opened the 4th Avenue restaurant/bar Gowanus Gardens with Kelly Hayes and Liam O'Brien. "You can get a cheap beer there or you can have an expensive cocktail. It’s just a nice place to hang out," Giddens says. According to the Gowanus Gardens website, the business' mission is "to build a place that has a little something for everyone." That seems to be the same ethos instilled at Sterling Records. "I’d like to sell everything to do with music, except instruments," Giddens notes.
About a year ago, Giddens proposed the idea of opening a record shop to his friend, Vince Clarke, a founding member of iconic synth-pop bands Depeche Mode, Yaz, and Erasure. Clarke was a regular at one of the bars Giddens worked at and the two have been friends for nearly a decade.
"One day I was like, 'I want to open a record shop,'" Giddens recalls. "He said, 'I think that’s a great idea. I’m in,' and it just sort of bloomed from there." Giddens found the available 5th Avenue storefront in January and Sterling Records launched about a year after that conversation, with Clarke as one of the investors.
Prior to the store's opening, Giddens recalls walking on 7th Avenue and seeing a bunch of teens hanging out in front of a Starbucks. "I want them to say, 'Let’s go to the record store.' That’s what I want them to do. And I want them to be comfortable being able to sit here, even if they don’t spend money. Hopefully we’ll create an environment where when they do have money, or when they want to spend money, they’ll come here. That’s what I’d like…a nice environment" for people of all ages.
He fondly remembers when downtown Manhattan had stores, like Tower Records and Canal Jean, that served as perfect spots to meet friends, kill time, and just hang out. They were "wonderful places to get lost in, and you inevitably bought something, whether it was a CD or a t-shirt." He wants Sterling Records to exude that same welcoming vibe to the Park Slope community.
The response to Sterling Records so far has been positive. "People seem very excited," Giddens says. "I just want to continue making it better.... We can’t have everything but I do like the idea of people coming in and searching. Like Strand Bookstore [shoppers], I think record buyers know the best sellers are going to be there, but it’s always nice to find one that you weren’t expecting to buy."
Sterling Records started a Go Fund Me campaign to help pay for construction of the café and other improvements. If you'd like to contribute, click here.
Sterling Records
121 5th Avenue, Park Slope
Open daily from 12pm - 6pm
Pam Wong is a Brooklyn-based writer and curator who loves contemporary art and sharing community stories. To read more of her writing, go to arthagnyc.substack.com or arthag.typepad.com. Follow her on Instagram at @arthagnyc.
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