Record Grouch

Always a few good finds here, from the collectible to gems priced between seven and fifteen dollars. Harder to find new releases and imports are a specialty here, but there’s a little bit of everything.

Record Grouch has always been my favorite record purveyor in NYC, since the days of the Monster Island basement and Eat. I always find something cool. In fact, I often avoid going in there because I have little will power when it comes to buying music and know I’ll end up lightening my wallet. I find the prices to be completely fair. I’ve never had anyone behind the counter be unfriendly to me.
I have to say — I can’t believe people are complaining about not getting discounts, how tacky. Glad that this place still exists.

Small store with an interesting mix of rap/​hip hop, punk, metal, rock, and psych. Grading seemed fair, prices were decent. They also carry some books, magazines, ‘zines, and posters. A neat place that I’ll remember to swing by the next time I’m in town!

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — 4 Way Street $ 8 AS IS
Pharoah Sanders — Heart Is A Melody $ 15 AS IS
Record Grouch — 3 stars AS IS

Great shop. Good selection and they seem to have a steady flow of new arrivals. They have mostly old records but a good selection of new releases, mostly on the more left-​field side of things. As for the old records, it’s a good mix of rock from psych to pop, soul/​funk, rap and disco 12s, reggae, cheap bins with standards…

This was a fun little record store to visit. I could tell that the owner/​gentleman at the counter really does love records and puts careful thought into the selection they carry in the store. A majority of their records are brand new and they have an extensive collection in Alternative and Rock. However I couldn’t really find any «must buys» in their R&B section and their collection of used records didn’t yield that many finds either. Still, if you want to spend an afternoon of getting lost in boxes of vinyls, Record Grouch is a nice place to look through. Prices are definitely on the steeper end, but this quaint little store embodies the character of music purism.

I love how people bitch about not getting a discount and refer to it as common practice. Really? Where? Please tell me about these amazing stores that give you a discount. Record fairs — absolutely. Record stores — not so much.
Record Grouch is a great store. The used selection is much better than Co-​Op or Captured Tracks and their prices are fair. I find the used selection to be better priced than Academy who seem to have kicked prices up a notch after the move to Greenpoint.
While one employee can be difficult, the rest of the staff is always friendly and helpful.
I think that some of the negative reviews were written by collectors who, for some reason, seem to feel entitled to a discount and when they didn’t get one — they ran to the internet to whine. These are the same guys who ran home to mommy to complain that they didn’t get picked to play kickball. Grow up and realize that Record Grouch has bills to pay. Be happy that a record store like Grouch exists and support the fuck out of them.

There are a lot of record stores in the Greenpoint /​Williamsburg /​Bushwick area these days, and Record Grouch is the one I find the most consistently irritating. On the one hand, they often get cool records in the shop, which makes me want to stop in and check things out. One the other hand, their records are 1. often in VG– or worse shape, and not marked down accordingly 2. maddeningly overpriced in general. On top of that, they are extremely rude.
On their new stuff, everything is ALWAYS $ 1 – 5 dollars more expensive than it is at Academy, Permanent, Captured Tracks, or Co-​op 87 (other shops in the neighborhood). For instance, a Sublime Frequencies LP that is priced at $ 21 everywhere else will be $ 24 at Record Grouch. It’s just a couple of bucks, but it’s insulting to constantly have everything priced higher than stores two blocks down dealing with the same market conditions.
On used stuff — forget it. Everything is consistently a price point higher than it should be. It feels as though they check discogs and then choose the absolute highest price a record has ever sold for and then put it out at that price… forever. Like, nothing is ever, ever marked down no matter how long it inanely sits there with a price tag beyond what anyone would pay for it (again, unlike other shops in the neighborhood).
Their owners — particularly the eponymous «Grouch» — are the rudest record store dudes in New York (well, outside of the ancient W. Village shops who have $ 50 Madonna LPs for tourists to buy.). Even the signs in their shop are patronizing and rude. Like, Academy has a sign that says «please don’t open sealed records» and the Grouch has a sign that says something like, «Seriously, opening sealed records? Are you stupid or something?» Permanent has a sign that says «Please don’t listen to new records» the Grouch has a sign that says something like «Anyone with common sense would know that you can’t listen to new records. That’s what the internet is for.» [Meanwhile, occasionally Co-​op 87 and Black Gold Records unseal new record for you and lets you listen from time to time. (They will say no sometimes, naturally! But the point is there are very customer friendly shops in Brooklyn and RG is most certainly not one of them.)] The people who work at this store seriously seem to get off on insulting their own customers. What the heck is the point of that?!
Two separate times I’ve dropped $ 80+ at this shop and asked if they can knock $ 5 off the sale, which is very common practice in record stores. The dude acted like I was asking for his firstborn. I mean, feel free to say no, Mr. Grouch, but you don’t have to treat a paying customer like you hate that they exist. One time, he used the extremely weird logic of saying that *because* I was buying expensive records, I shouldn’t get a discount, arguing that wall records are going to sell whether or not I bought them. If that were true, there might be some more turnover on your wall records, dude.
Seriously, I’ve been buying records — or trying to – from the Grouch since the early 2000s when he sold records through Eat Records. I’ve forked over $ 100s and maybe $ 1000s of to this guy. And yet, he’s been rude to me virtually every time I’ve interacted with him, even YELLING at me once when I suggested he knock a few dollars off my sale. Really, the worst thing for me is the annoyingly high prices, though. Finally, this year, I got fed up with the rudeness, extra high prices, and general negative vibes of this shop. I may lose out on one or two cool rare records a year by never again setting foot in this store again, but I will save myself a lot of agita in the process.

Forget the haters. The grouch has excellent taste. This store has some unique inventory that stands out from the other stores in the city. It’s well worth the trip to check this place out. Most the records are in great shape and priced fairly. People who complain about the prices should open their own stores and see what it costs to buy and sell records. Great store, well curated.

Record Grouch always has rare, clean and decently priced records on offer. I could easily spend a few hours in here but I restrict myself to the jazz and new arrival racks.
If you are in Greenpoint don’t miss the Grouch!
FYI, I always ask for a discount if I’m spending over 100 dollars in cash and whoever mans the register always says «no problem»

This is a record store’s record store. If you’re some know it all looking for kraut, psych, Beatles side projects, metal, world music, etc. This is the kind of store where Sublime Frequencies has its own section.
If you’re going in looking for a specific record you may not find it but if you’re looking for obscure shit then you’ll find that.

Nice store with a good selection of records to browse through. They also have CDs too but those are hard to look through since they are on a lower shelf forcing you to kneel to look through them. There is also a listening station so you can try the music before you buy it. And at last there is one thing I really like, their records are really neatly organized. Separated by genre and alphabetized.
Sp despite all this, why did I only give this place 4 stars instead of five? Well here is the deal:
Though they have a large selection of records, finding one in good condition is difficult. On my visit, I found four records I had wanted, all four of those records I had dug up were badly scratched. For that I will ding them one star, now for my second ding.
Look on the floor and you will see a sign that read CHEAP RECORDS. Now when you look through a discount bin you would expect records for one dollar, or even two dollars right? I mean thats cheap. But they have records in there for five dollars and sometimes six. To me that is not cheap, their normal records are priced at three and up.
Its still a nice shop to browse through, but I have yet to find a record I want thats not scratched up. Oh and the people are nice too, I haven’t had any problems or run ins with them.

Don’t let the name fool you — the owner is actually quite cool.
This is the true music geek store of the neighborhood. The Grouch gets the really good shit. It’s not cheap… but it’s not expensive, either. The prices are fair, the selection is fantastic, and there are definitely bargains to be had, too.
Bonus points for being the one store in the neighborhood to not feel claustrophobic when there are more than three customers in there at once.

I am an avid Record shopper in the Greenpoint/​Williamsburg area. I hit up all the standard spots… co-​op 87, academy, the thing, pop fuzz, etc… I have been to Record Grouch a bunch of times and always appreciated their selection (especially the cheaper $ 5 & under stuff). It was one of my go to spots until I had the displeasure of meeting the owner. I did my normal digging in the cheap crates, picked out about 5 gems and went to pay. I simply asked the owner (who was manning the register) if we could work out a discount for buying multiple records from the cheap bins. Not exactly an unfair question if you are a hard-​core record buyer. After hearing this question his facial expression screamed «you’ve got to be kidding me». He responded in a very angry and rude manner that they don’t give discounts on cheap stuff and that I should take my business next door to the thing.
Now I have no problem with being denied a discount, it’s my right to ask and the owner’s right to say no. It’s the manner in which he acted and talked to me that was upsetting. I would diagnose the owner with Angry Old Man Syndrome. It’s today younger generation that are keeping Record stores alive and we should be treated with respect, not degraded. I will no longer support this business… which is a shame because his employees where always pleasant to deal with.

I’ve popped into this shop twice for browsing purposes. The first time was meh, with the uninterested in helping customers, possibly high girl stinking up the place with her takeout. I encouraged my friend to grab his favorite Thermals record but he decided to think on it. I didn’t see anything I was dying to own during this visit but definitely made a mental note to check it out again.
Fast forward to the second trip. The gentleman behind the counter helped hunt for the aforementioned Thermals record while I drooled over the low-​ish priced Nick Lowe record in pristine condition that had to come home with me. No luck on The Thermals record, as such things go, but I had a nice exchange with the behind the counter man re: Nick Lowe. It’s always nice to geek out about quiet geniuses like Nick Lowe.
The prices are fair and they have some decent scores. If you think you may want something, pull up compare vinyl dot com or similar on your phone and check the price, realize that Record Grouch is decently priced, purchase said record, take home, enjoy.

I stepped foot in here a couple of weeks ago just to browse around, ended up buying 10 records here. Wow, what a great selection. Rare finds like Veruca Salt’s American Thighs and Cut Chemist’s The Audience is Listening, each at least ½ off the price that any place online was asking for. They even had a lot of David Bowie, which is rare to find at any other record store in NYC.
I also noticed that they have some good artist-​related books and other paraphernalia that, if I had more money, would’ve bought in a heartbeat. What a cool place.

Right! I know it’s called «The Record Grouch» The main guy there is inconsistently crabby and snotty… one can relive that ol’ «Why do I go to this record store?» feeling we used to experience in the ’80’s… But wait Mr Grouch! That’s before eBay, Discogs etc etc was invented and being a record store crabby guy isn’t doable anymore … especially if your knowledge of music is bit narrow, sir.
All that said– okay selection with Rock mostly. No Country, No Blues to speak of, predictable Jazz… Mostly LP’s are very reasonably priced … although Williamsburg trends can occasionally make some prices a shocker…
Go to Academy Records on 12^th St between A and 1^st Ave! It’s the best record store in NYC — and they are informed and professional music people.

New location is better than the dumpy basement it was in previously.
Doug really fits his moniker, other owner is much friendlier.
Records are overpriced considering the condition they’re in. Record grading is not a priority here. Try the other shops in Brooklyn, you’ll be happier.

Easily one of the best record stores in the entire area for two simple reasons: selection and prices.
As an avid record collector you are always hoping to find a particular title — once found, you hope you can afford it. At the Record Grouch you find that elusive title and can afford it!
Sadly I’m there once a week at least because he always has the best new arrivals coming in — titles I don’t see anywhere else, and his prices simply can’t be beat.

Grouch is definitely my favorite record store in Brooklyn. There is always an excellent selection, which is updated regularly and marked down to keep shit fresh. Grouch always has copies of essential records for cheap, and awesome rare stuff too. He has designated sections for soul, hip-​hop, disco, rock, punk, and new wave. He has tapes, books, and dvds as well. Dude’s always getting new shit in, so check it out.
Cash only.