Music Factory, Never Mind the Bollocks, 14 Years Old, 1986

I purchased the Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks" cassette from a store called the MUSIC FACTORY on Kings Highway and E.14th Street in Brooklyn. I was 14, an outer-borough punk rocker and skateboarder. Back in those days finding punk and hardcore music wasn't easy! You really had to search for it- go out of your way, introduce yourself to people that looked like they knew what punk was. If you were lucky they would dub you or trade a tape.

MUSIC FACTORY was mostly a guido (or what we in Brooklyn called cugine) dance music place. Their punk and hardcore section was tiny: about 1/3 of a bin, maybe 15-20 albums at best. But if you're dying of cultural thirst you don't complain that a canteen is only a third full! You drink!

MUSIC FACTORY is where I went on to pick up my copy of the absolutely mindblowing "Let Them Eat Jellybeans" comp LP (America's first widespread introduction to BLACK FLAG, BAD BRAINS, CIRCLE JERKS, DOA, etc.). I think I paid $4.99! The album became a Rosetta stone to American hardcore punk. I would be writing those band names on my clothes with a sharpee within days.

Also picked up at that spot? SUICIDAL TENDENCIES 1st LP on Frontier Records, and Verbal Assault's "Learn" 12" on Positive Force (bought after I read a positive review in THRASHER magazine).

Hearing the opening bars of "Holidays In The Sun" on my Walkman as I ambled down Quentin Road I felt like I had discovered one of the most powerful substances on Earth: punk-fucking-rock. My relationship to the Sex Pistols would vacillate between love and hate over the next decade ("sellouts", not real punk, destructive, blah blah blah), but to a 14 year old south Brooklyn rebel they were like oxygen. STILL love that album! Great rock n roll that can't be denied. The gateway drug to my future punk rock addiction!

More on the MUSIC FACTORY, an old-school chain of 4 NYC stores:

http://uritraxx.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/making-music-for-you-but-you-wouldnt-buy-it-for-twenty-years/