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Get a musical immersion education while you can at Hackensack Record King.
Owner Craig Stepneski says he has been notified he must vacate the 56-year-old Main Street storefront where he has worked since 1974 to make way for downtown redevelopment, and is welcoming in-person customers while he can.
"That's the part I'll miss," said Stepneski. "Talking to the customers."
The store's attraction for musical buffs of all ages is its ability to come up with that obscure tune that never found its way onto the internet, as well as the historic favorites. Customers benefit from Stepneski's encyclopedic musical memory, his ability to pick a disc from an obscure stack, and the store's encyclopedic range of music on 45s, LPs, eight-track tapes, cassettes and CDs.
If you hum a few bars, he can usually come up with the name of the song, the name of the group, and sometimes sing all the lyrics. With arm motions. And finger snaps.
"I don't do that so much anymore," Stepneski said.
Stepneski says the '50s segment of his customer base is tapering off as they succumb to age, but that he continues to draw a strong following among fans of '60s music. His personal favorites: Jan & Dean, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Cowsills.
The Cowsills? The siblings who sang "The Rain, the Park and Other Things"? The group that inspired "The Partridge Family" television series with (sigh) David Cassidy?
"I don't know why, I always liked them," Stepneski said. "It was on my bucket list to see them in person, and I finally did at B.B. King's restaurant in Manhattan. Their drummer is now playing for The Beach Boys, by the way."
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