The Bronx Ink

Reggae music overpowers light chatter in a room where music legends cover the walls; Michael Jackson posters, Taylor Swift CDs and Lauryn Hill vinyl records flank a narrow aisle weaving between the rows of entertainment. Baskets filled with incense and hair conditioners sit near the cash register as Williamsbridge’s older residents chat on the shady sidewalk underneath a rumbling 2-train. Friends, neighbors and family joined together to celebrate the life of Earl Moodie, owner of Moodies Records, who died last September at the age of sixty-nine. 

“He opened the shop, the rest is history,” said his son, Earl Moodie Jr. 

Moodies Records, a small music store in Williamsbridge, has persisted despite the shift from vinyl to digital, and in the face of big brands like T-Mobile moving into the storefronts that line White Plains Rd. and Westchester Ave.  

The locally owned Records-N-Stuff and Tony Ryan Records & Electronics have both disappeared – just two of the Bronx vinyl shops that went out of business in the early 2010s. But Moodies is still selling records. 

Against a wave of closing independent shops, Moodies holds the line.

Entering an online search for “record shop in the Bronx” or “Bronx music store” yields two results: Moodies and Cholo’s Record Shop. Cholo’s sits at the very southern tip of the Bronx, a mere stone’s throw from Manhattan. Looking up other music shop names, like Cam DVD & Music World, lead to links and contact information for Moodies, not even showing the closed store. 

While streaming subscriptions continue to grow–$5 billion according to the Recording Industry Association of America’s mid-year report – the problem facing record shops isn’t a lack of interest in vinyl. In fact, record sales have increased over 4000% in the past decade, from one million units sold in 2009 to 41.7 million units sold in 2021, according to statistica.com.

Independent record stores scattered throughout the country comprised around 52% of the market share in 2022, most often selling rock and hip-hop albums. Major companies like Amazon, Hot Topic and Urban Outfitters, nonetheless, hold a tight grip on the vinyl market. 

But platforms like Amazon fail to highlight the sense of community that independent record stores provide. While algorithms can offer what you “may like,” the suggestion is a result of data and analytics, not a person who can “analyze the soulfulness of your music choices,” said Edward Bilous,  Founding Director of the Center for Innovation in the Arts at the Juilliard School.

Vinyl, as a medium, shows a “breakdown of the artistic choice – the tender loving care – that was put into the record making process,” Bilous said.

 The word album as we know it dates back to the 19th century, meaning a “collection of individual works with a certain structure in mind,” he said. This structure became less important in the new digital music marketplace, where someone can replay the one song that they’d like to hear without having to listen to the entire body of musical work. 

“I think that that’s missed in the digital world,” said Bilous, “I don’t think there will be a day where it will be impossible to find vinyl.”

Moodies Records opened over forty years ago in 1973, gaining popularity in the late 1980s. The shop instilled itself in the community, hosting meet and greets with artists, gatherings and performances. Stars like Bob Marley, Slick Rick and Ashanti found their way to the store, which sits among the crowds of businesses on White Plains Rd. Critic Anthony Bourdain featured the shop on an episode of his television show Parts Unknown, highlighting Moodies as a building block for hip-hop and reggae. Pierre Barclay, Moodie’s nephew, described the store as “the beating heart” of reggae.

“Music helps out. It deals with a lot,” Barclay said. He explained that Moodies aims to relieve people of their worries, even if only for the length of an album. This mission for consumers to practice self care is why the store expanded to selling a few skincare and haircare products. Moodies is for the mind and body. 

Earl Moodie began his career performing in a band, the Stepping Stones. His son said that his father “poured everything into” music which was “his life,” echoing the store’s motto, “music is life.” In Williamsbridge, Moodie was more than just an artist and tastemaker.

“It’s what he was meant to do,” reflected Moodie Jr., explaining that Moodie was “very smart” but chose not to “go corporate.” With help from fellow music enthusiast and New York City reggae icon Brad Osbourne, Moodie began his nearly fifty year career at the record store. That the store still remains speaks both to his skills as a businessman and his immersion in the neighborhood and music industry. 

Moodie was described by family and close friends as “a man of the people” and “a really good guy.” Some neighbors trusted him enough to hold onto their savings as though he were a bank. Moodie Jr. believes that his father has “good karma.” One comment on a Facebook post announcing Moodie’s death reads, “he was a true pillar of the community.” 

As for other record shops in the Bronx, “all of them are gone,” said Barclay. 

“As long as we got vinyl, we’ll be here.”

Dozens of families attended the annual Kids Comic Con event held at Bronx Community College Saturday—the first one held in-person since 2019. This year’s convention, named Sci-Fest, was focused on the relationship between comics, science and technology.

The event was co-founded and organized by comic book writer Alex Simmons and Bronx Community College Director of Collaborative Programs, Eugene Adams, as a way of introducing Bronx kids, particularly those in Black and Latino communities, to careers in science and technology through comic books.

“We want young people to see that—of course, Iron Man is cool—but we also want you to know the technology for Iron Man,” Adams said. “They are areas that … you can actually learn from. So we combined the idea of comic books with robotics, computer science, coding and media production.”

A number of volunteer vendors had comic book displays and sketches, as well as tabletop science experiments and demonstrations. Many displays featured main characters who were people of color.

“The goal is just to see more kids of color enter STEM based careers,” said Delanda Coleman, founder of the publishing company behind More than a Princess, Sydney and Coleman. “A lot of kids, especially minority kids, children who are poor or in rural areas, don’t get the right level of exposure to STEM based concepts… so we integrate science concepts into the story.”

The convention also featured a tribute to the late actress Nichelle Nichols, who starred in the Star Trek franchise and led efforts in the 1970s to diversify recruits in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including the hiring of the first Black American astronaut and the first female American astronaut.

“[Other] comic cons are more expensive,” said Danira Roman, a student at Bronx Community College who works with children with special needs. She added that Saturday’s convention was inviting.

Other attendees were in agreement, making references to New York Comic Con, where a one-day ticket costs $67.75 according to its website.

“It’s kind of tight right now with a lot of parents, especially mine” said Aryanna Chiraunjilal, a Bronx Community College student. “So having this free Comic Con at the college, it provides a safe environment to bring the kids out here and give them an opportunity to be excited, to explore, to meet new people, especially to be creative.”

Conventional wisdom does not usually pair up Hollywood with The Bronx.  But the nonprofit Yes the Bronx would like to change that misperception this coming weekend with the inaugural Yes the Bronx Film Festival. Festival planners said the goal is to spark a discussion about how the borough has been portrayed in popular films.

“It happens to be the 100^th anniversary of the Bronx,” said George Stephanopoulos, president of the organization and film festival director.  “If we are going to do something to promote the Bronx community, this is as good a year as any to launch.” Stephanopoulos is a television and film lawyer by trade, in addition to a producer and life-long aficionado of independent cinema – a combination that he felt might be put to good use in organizing the festival.

When he put the plan into effect, his first call was to famed film historian Foster Hirsch to assist in selecting the best films to program for the event, and organize the panels and talkbacks. The two experts settled upon five feature films: “The Pride of the Yankees” a 1942 film about Lou Gehrig, “The We and I” a 2012 picture about Bronx teenagers’ bus ride on the last day of school, “A Bronx Tale” the 1993 De Niro directorial debut about a Bronx boy’s two heroes, “Marty” the 1955 Best Picture Academy Award winner about a socially awkward Bronx butcher, and “City Island” the 2009 family comedy-drama.  The films all encompass different historical periods and perspectives of the borough – ranging from the heartwarming to the shockingly realistic, and tickets to each of the screenings cost between $10 and $15.

 

Yes the Bronx Film Festival Poster (Image courtesy of Yes the Bronx organization)

Compared to other film festivals that Hirsch has helped to curate,  this weekend’s festival has a larger focus on current films and lots of talk about the future. “We want response from the audience,” Hirsch said.  “What is the effect of this film on your thinking about the Bronx?  We want a sort of interactive connection between the spectators and the films.”

A key goal is to encourage the city to open up the Bronx to future filmmakers. To that end, on Saturday, Hirsch will moderate a panel entitled “The Bronx in Hollywood Films” featuring Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Commissioner Cynthia Lopez from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.“I think opening filming sites to the Bronx increases the variety of locations that New York has to offer and also corrects the misperception that filming in New York City is just about urban congestion and density,” Hirsch said.

In addition to the five films, the festival will also showcase several shorts shot by local Bronx filmmakers and artists. Stephanopoulos worked with the Bronx Artists Collective to create a short documentary film Artistic Energy: The Bronx, based upon the Bronx Artist Documentary Project – an exhibit featuring local visual artists on display at the historic Andrew Freedman home on the Grand Concourse.

The project is the brainchild of painter Daniel Hauben who, with his wife Judith Lane, worked on a series of photos documenting the artistic community of the Bronx. Lane said the idea to photograph artists at work came to her husband when he was painting on location in an artist friend’s studio.  He began ruminating about the significance of artist’s spaces, and thought non-artists would be interested as well.

Artistic Energy: The Bronx Trailer

So Hauben and Lane began to send photographers into artists’ studios in order to create an exhibition, with the help of New York Times photojournalist and adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School, Michael Kamber, who joined the project. The Documentary Project was intended to cap at 100 photos to celebrate the centennial, but the interest was so large that the project wound up expanding to document 110 different artists, a number that Lane says is ironically reflective of the “110 percent” that all participating artists gave.

A primary goal of the documentary is to allow those outside of the artistic community to recognize the local artists who are working on beautifying their neighborhoods. “This project was designed to get people connected with each other, to get collaborations going, to get friendships going,” Lane said.  “So that the arts community as a whole can grow and flourish within this new Bronx that is growing and flourishing.” Kamber noted the groundbreaking work and the “astonishing diversity of creativity that exists all over the Bronx.”

The Bronx itself is a “brand,” said Stephanopoulos.  “The aim is to showcase the borough’s renaissance.  But it has become clear that we really are also promoting the Bronx as a film site.” And Lane has one main sentiment that she hopes attendees will walk away with after the three-day festival. “I hope they think, ‘my entire viewpoint of the Bronx has changed and it is not what I thought it was, and I am going to go tell the world,’” she said.    

Yes the Bronx Film Festival runs from Friday, September 19 through Sunday, September 21 at Lehman College, Lovinger Theatre. You can view the complete schedule here.

Tim Hetherington, photojournalist, was killed while reporting in Libya last April. He dreamed of opening a film and photography gallery space in the Bronx. Soon, reports The Daily News, his dream will be realized. Fellow photojournalist Mike Kamber plans to open the doors to the gallery in tribute to his heroic friend.