Tunes in Hoboken is one of my favorite record shops.
Once Kim’s Video and Other Music closed, Tunes became the only wizards in the area who could perform the crucial alchemy of transforming promotional CDs into beer money.
They still have the only halfway decent dollar bins in a ten mile radius. Every few months, a new crate of well-loved DJ vinyl makes it on to the (literal) shop floor. You can tell when the 12”s are coming from the same collection: a Sharpie’d collector’s name, a recurring record pool promo stamp, an alarming number of Def Soul white labels.
My knees and back are becoming less fond of the crouch.
My fingers are always ready to get dusty.
The Air Pod era is a blessing; you don’t need to bring a portable Vestax or Sound Burger for previews anymore — just YouTube it on your phone. Nine times out of ten, I can already pick the heaters from their tells: credits, release dates and all the other other vibe-based clues and crumbs that become a Spidey Sense over time.
On my last visit, there was a grip of records I knew nothing about.
These 12”s stood out instantly; they shared the same freaky typefaces, neon geometry and Caribbean uncles getting fits off.
Discogs confirmed my hunch that all this was the work of one artist: Errol Dopwell, who created 200+ album and single covers from the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s, many for B’s Records on Fulton Street in Bed-Stuy (it’s a seafood boil now; they distill my fav Chartreuse dupe around the corner).
I’m no soca expert. I did hang with Machel Montano in Trinidad once (we talked about Criss Angel) but don’t ask me where these particular songs fall in the canon.
Some quick needledropping will give you the gist: Calypso commingling with Reagan-era r&b trends, sprinkled with the keyboard sonics of early digital dancehall, all starting to morph towards the hyper Carnival vibes of today.
And the sleeves look exactly like how that sounds!
One designer’s signature style — pure imagination in a clash with the fashion trends and technological limitations of the time — perfectly capturing the music contained therein?
That’s rare and amazing.
Trevor Jackson did it with his pixel rave visions for Champion. So-Me’s covers were the passport stamps to Ed Banger’s global takeover.
Obviously biased here, but Dust La Rock’s foundational Fool’s Gold imagery has powered us for fifteen years and counting.
(While I’m dropping all these Discogs links, I know Duster would be well chuffed that his Orb cassette mix is going for two bills.)
The idea that some weird kid in the future is going to get their mind blown, stumbling upon our vinyl in whatever their equivalent of a dollar bin is… maybe it involves VR goggles?
That makes me happier than you can ever imagine.