Gold Shop New Release

African Love Records

With the recent untimely death of the King of pop, Michael Jackson, people all over the world have been compiling playlists of his hits. In reggae music there have been many covers of Michael Jackson songs, and in these playlists, people often list covers of his songs which have become classics on there own. I would say that Shinehead’s version of “Billy Jean” is the most famous example of this. To commemorate the passing of MJ, Gold Shop has released Billy Jean, along with another Michael Jackson cover “Lady In My Life” and the sound killer version on this rhythm “Reprimand”. For this historic release, we saw fit to pay tribute in the sleeve design as well, by adding the signature glove to our beloved Gold Shop mascot. These will be limited to a run of 1000 copies each, and will not be available again in this format.
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ALM-7-001A     Shinehead - Billy Jean

ALM-7-001AA  Shinehead - Mama Used To Say

ALM-7-010A     Shinehead - Lady In My Life

ALM-7-010B      Dub

ALM-7-011A      Shinehead - Reprimand

ALM-7-011B       Dub

R.I.P STEELY

As most of you know by now, Steely has passed away. In one of the articles about him, it states that Steely & Clevie contributed to over 80% of the dancehall rhythms produced in the late 80’s. I would say that this is a conservative estimate. Simply put, Steely & Clevie RAN dancehalls heyday of the mid 80’s to the early 90’s. The sound that we all identify as the golden dancehall era, is the Steely & Clevie sound. It is impossible to guess what direction reggae music would have taken without them, but it definitely would have been completely different. Steely was also a larger than life personality, and I would say that if he never played a note in his life, he still would have been the center of attention on charisma alone. He was a legend among legends, and was the ultimate producers producer. I don’t think there has been a producer that started after him that has not tried to emulate his style in some way. There will not be another Steely, and now that he is gone, Jamaica and Dancehall music will never be the same. R.I.P Steely.

When I first went to Rough House, it was known as NY King Jammy$, but when the name changed the crew stayed the same, Beardie running the store, veteran DJ General Jah Mikey running the dubplate studio downstairs. Singer, Trevor African was the man behind the counter. They always had some different 45’s that the other stores didn’t have. When Delroy took over the shop he took it to a different level. He quietly amassed a huge selection of 45’s that stacked in piles leaning to impossible angles on his narrow counter. God help you if you ever tipped one over. Delroy became legendary for his unique approach to customer service. He was as feisty as he was knowledgeable. People either loved him or hated him. Regardless of what you thought of him, everyone would have to agree, Delroy is a music fanatic. He could argue for hours about a particular song, artist, producer, etc. Even if he was wrong, he could win any argument by perseverance. As the market for reggae vinyl started to dwindle and shops started closing, Rough House showed little signs of following this trend. Delroy continued stocking and presumably selling at basically the same rate as he ever did. As other stores moved away from vinyl, rough house stayed firm, and really became one of the last places to get new release 45’s. The end of Rough House arrived not because of the decline of music sales, but a more traditional NY retail story of a conflict between partners, landlords, etc. Delroy, has never given up, and still buys and sells records among his friends and long time customers. He plans to open up a new retail store, and when this happens, expect a full update right here. Rough House, R.I.P.

Gold Shop New Release

Sluggy Ranks- Sodom & Gomorrah

Here it is, the long awaited 7 Inch Re-issue of Sluggy’s massive sound system anthem “Sodom & Gomorrah”. This tune was produced by Devon “Part 2″ Garnett, a NY promoter and producer around 1991. It was released only on 12 Inch, and has never been re-issued before. Original copies of the 12 Inch consistently fetch big money at auction, as there has not been another way to get this massive tune until now.  As is the standard for Gold Shop, great care has been put into the remastering and re-packaging of this classic tune. This will be a limited run, so get your copy while you can.

PT2-001 Sluggy Ranks - Sodom & Gomorrah

Barry U was originally run by Count Shelly’s brother but after the Count returned to Jamaica, his brother took over Super Power and his nephews took over Barry U. The original spot was on Church Ave., close to NY Ave., but in the mid-nineties they moved down Church, closer to Flatbush on the same block as the legendary Biltmore Ballroom. Unfortunately within a year or so of this move, the Biltmore Ballroom closed. I think that when Super Power started to lose steam, Barry U took over the soundman crowd, as they always had the latest 45’s, and never slipped up. They would stock up on certain big tunes and would be able to continue selling them after all the other stores ran out. In addition to the record business, they devoted the front half of the store to greeting cards which, surprisingly, seemed to do well and certainly brought a few female customers into the shop. Barry U also had a label which put out quite a few singles as well as albums by Sluggy Ranks, George Nooks, and others. I can’t remember exactly what year they closed up, but I think it was around 2004 or so, maybe earlier. When they closed, most of the crew migrated down to Super Power , which closed down a couple of years later. Barry U was a solid store run by decent people and when they closed, you could see that the writing was on the wall for the NY record store scene. Barry U, R.I.P.