March 18, 2026

Anyone that know me knows that my love of movies is only rivaled by one other thing, my love of music. And I feel pretty darned fortunate to have grown up in an era where I got to witness the tail end of 80s pop, the birth of MTV, the somewhat intimidation of heavy metal, hardcore and punk, and the eventual “grunge” revolution!

I can easily give credit to NIRVANA for completely changing the way I looked at the world, and for inspiring me to create my own art, because they made it seem effortless. And more importantly, they made you feel as if you could do it too. One of my earliest attempts to play guitar, for example, was when my older cousins introduced me to DEF LEPPARD. I gave up pretty quickly not being able to decipher the basic chords of “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” But alas!

There was one record store that was walkable in Cedarhurst for me, which I believe was called Record Town? Platterpuss Records sounds familiar? There was also a smaller shop that primarily carried cassette tapes not too far from there. Those were all of my local options. And until I got a license, Tower Records was this elusive myth, at least until my late teens when I could drive there myself. Ironically enough, I would eventually go on to work at Tower Records Carle Place, then Massapequa for many, many years! But there was one record store that absolutely made me who I am today, and that was Slipped Disc Records in Valley Stream, New York.

Getting there was fairly easy by the Long Island Railroad. But my brother John was also kind enough to give me a lift occasionally. This was the first record store that carried ONLY metal, punk, and hardcore. There were no pop artists to be found within these bins! And it was the first place I’d ever been to that carried CD Imports. Often times, bands would save 2 unreleased tracks from their albums for their import single. Being that, as teens, we all tried to pretend like we found each and every suddenly-popular band first, there was a sense of pride in bragging about having a song that no one else had ever heard of!

For me, at the height of the grunge revolution, it was a matter of obtaining every single thing I could from both NIRVANA and PEARL JAM. And Slipped Disc delivered! My vague memory was that each import CD cost about $9.99. So, keep in mind, in 1992 dollars, a CD of a full album was roughly somewhere between $12.99-$14.99. Meaning, if I wanted to hear “Footsteps” and “Yellow Ledbetter” by PEARL JAM, I had to fork over close to the same price as the full album to hear ’em! But alas, in the days before the Internet, this was a golden time! And back in high school, at a time when I couldn’t have been less popular, it gave me a tiny sliver of coolness.

Case in point, I used to carry my Walkman with me every where in high school. And on my lunch break, there was a girl named Tara who I thought was the prettiest girl in school. I don’t remember how the conversation was even initiated, but many years before most people knew the song “Yellow Ledbetter,” it was a rare track on an import CD of “Jeremy!” I, of course, had taped it to a cassette and asked her to listen to it. She loved it so much that every single day at lunch time, she’d ask me to walk with her to Foodland Express (the corner market) just so she could hear it again. I’m telling you, it was a very different and very beautiful era!

Because of the popularity of PEARL JAM, at one point, I would buy a stack of blank cassette tapes and make my own “albums” consisting of all the B-sides. (Even though in my heart I was a NIRVANA guy! PEARL JAM was more in demand.) I still remember crafting the photocopied cover of the “Evenflow” single and using that for my “unreleased” Pearl Jam album which consisted of all the B-sides I found at Slipped Disc. (Their RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS spoof “Dirty Frank” being a personal favorite, and their BEATLES cover of “I Got A Feeling” from the Japanese release of “Ten!”) I sold these to fellow classmates and did pretty well!

Once I got my license, you’d better believe that I used my lunch hour to make it over to Slipped Disc! It would take about 15 minutes to get there from Lawrence High School. Which means a half hour just to go back and forth. 15-20 minutes to shop and look around. It I was lucky, I could squeeze in a few minutes to actually eat something, but what could be more nourishing than new music?!

Then in college, something kind of magical happened in front of Slipped Disc. I was enamored with this girl Maria who, funnily enough, I met in my human sexuality class. But I was painfully shy then and only managed to find the courage to have very, very brief small talk with her. (I awkwardly handed her a flier to one of my band’s shows, as if that was supposed to be impressive!) The semester ended and I was mad at myself for never asking for her phone number to keep in touch. Or to, ya know, ask her out! One afternoon, my buddy Pete and I decided to stop over at Slipped Disc before heading into Manhattan to see the band SIX FINGER SATELLITE. Pete went into the store. But for whatever reason, I opted to stand outside. Just at that moment, this giant beast of a car, a brown-ish 1978 Thunderbird, pulled up to the red light in front of Slipped Disc. It featured two bumper stickers; one for NIRVANA and another for NINE INCH NAILS, my two favorite bands at that time! I scanned over to the driver, and it was Maria! I called out to her and I don’t think either of us could believe the randomness of this encounter! With just a few seconds before the light turned green again, the only thing I could think to ask was, “um, where do you live?” “Elmont!” She drove off, but that was enough information for me to find her home phone number in the phonebook. Just for context of how long ago this was, she was the first person I knew that had a beeper! And yes, because of this random meet-cute moment in front of Slipped Disc, straight out of an 80s movie, we briefly dated and she was kinda my first real girlfriend! Random post-script: that same night, we bumped into Alex Winter eating outside at a NYC restaurant before the show!

It’s just so funny how much significance a certain piece of real estate can hold for an individual. Back in 2015, I decided to come back out to New York for several weeks to reunite and record an album with my band The Great Below. (Jason Catropa and Pete McGeary) I had a lot of downtime during the days as both my bandmates worked regular jobs. So, I went around exploring some of the old haunts. Much to my surprise, the spot where Slipped Disc once was became a coffee shop called “Sip This,” in honor of Slipped Disc!

So, I went in with my laptop, ordered a coffee and some pastries, and sat at a table just admiring the history of this place. They even still sold “Slipped Disc” T-shirts at the counter. (I bought one and still wear it to this day!) There was something surreal about sitting at a table in a coffee shop and realizing this was the same exact spot where I remember first pulling out the CD for NINE INCH NAILS “The Downward Spiral” on the day it came out! Or somewhat embarrassingly buying STONE TEMPLE PILOTS “Tiny Music” on release day in March of 1996 because they weren’t considered “cool” until after that particular album came out. At the very beginning of the Brit-Pop cycle, this was the same place I bought all the early OASIS and ELASTICA 7 inch singles and vinyl. Thanks to Slipped Disc, I still have all of the original NIRVANA vinyl imports and releases from ’92 through ’94! It’s where I got the first MINOR THREAT single, which I still have to this day! And now, at this moment in 2015, it was a coffee shop!

Fast forward, after several years away, I had made it back to Long Island in August of 2022. No longer was the spot at 64 Rockaway Ave in Valley Stream the coffee house Sip This. But now, it was the Standard Pour Espresso & Wine Bar. It sounded a bit more upscale than your average coffee spot, but sadly, I never had the time to make it over there to check it out, primarily due to their scattered hours of operation.

Fast forward even further, now it’s September of 2024. I have a car! I drive around and visit all the old ghosts. First, the Tower Records location I worked at in Massapequa Park for several years, now just a bunch of unmemorable stores. The only thing in that parking lot with any semblance of character is a Barnes & Noble. I then drove to good ol’ Rockaway Avenue and it was unrecognizable! Ancona Pizzeria was the only thing still there from the old days. The rest of the block looked rundown with a handful of random bodegas and closed store fronts. Which included the location where Slipped Disc once was.

It was no longer a record store, a coffee shop, or even a Wine bar. It was just… closed. Which seems to be a growing problem all over parts of Long Island but also in small communities in general. The building owners, most of which don’t even live in the State, are charging astronomical prices on rent. So, no small business can afford to actually thrive there. And so, it makes more financial sense for these building owners to just write off these empty properties as a tax loss. In the window of 64 Rockaway Ave, there were remnants of all the places that had been there once before, including FROGS, which was the cloths shop with a Ticketmaster before Slipped Disc Records was there.

As of 2025, it is now a Tandoori Twist restaurant. And while I haven’t been, I’m sure there are no reminders of the rich history of this single location celebrated on their walls.

There’s something bittersweet about that, but at the same time, much like with that RKO 3-screen movie theater in Lawrence that gave me so many memories, the same can be said about Slipped Disc. And I should mention and thank the long time owner Mike Schuzman, who was always incredibly kind, helpful, and supportive. And never judged my music picks, unlike some of his long time employees!

Speaking of, my bandmate and friend Pete McGeary, who I mentioned a few times earlier, ended up working at Slipped Disc for a couple of years. And Mike still does Record Shows in the New York area where you can still get Slipped Disc merchandise! I’m long overdue to stock up on more Slipped Disc T-shirts, which I will wear proudly! If you want to keep tabs, join the Facebook group HERE. Or, of course, you can snag your own Slipped Disc T-shirt over at their official website: http://www.slippeddiscrecords.com

*QUICK UPDATE: One of the discrepancies I kept running into while researching this article is that I always knew the address of Slipped Disc to be 68 Rockaway Avenue. And yet, it’s clearly visible in my pictures of the subsequent shops that it’s 64 Rockaway Avenue on the window. I reached out to Mike and he clarified, “For some reason when Sip This opened they were given the choice of 64 or 68. I think the apartments above had something to do with it. It has been 64 ever since.”