Disappearing Atlanta
Record Revolution, Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Record Rev was a revered independent music store on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, Ohio from 1968 through 2022.
We worked down the street at Record Exchange in the 80s and early 90s, then located one block to the north, same side of Coventry Road. Our used music competition was obviously Record Rev. Used selection wasn't as good as Record Ex, and Record Rev neglected to mark down non-selling used music as aggressively as they should have (though occasionally you could pick up an underpriced gem). We often slipped into Record Rev to shop, but never told co-workers.
Record Revolution had a far edgier reputation than we did: the ambience was goth/punk/club rat/head shop. Experience is a huge asset in retail. Being there--like being invited to enter an exclusive and hip club, or the black-painted basement apartment of a musician/artist older brother of a friend, who also liked to party, and with a suggestion of lawlessness--was by itself an experience. When you purchased music there, and then took it home and played it, it was as if you were taking the "black painted basement with incense" experience home with you. Record Rev was far ahead of us in style points, and in in-store visits by hugely popular musicians, but they were almost never crowded and we often were; they had more customer window shopping and we had lower prices, better attitudes and more sales. I'm sure they thought of us as a "sausage factory."
Peter Schliewen, Record Rev’s original owner, to be fair, had died in an accident while still a relatively young guy. He crashed his Porsche 911 on Shaker Blvd. in 1983 (near Green Road). Record Rev at the time was, as mentioned, almost never crowded, boasted a huge amount of square footage (three storefronts plus basement, half of it wasted), and not the most extroverted staff upstairs. Perhaps there was enough traffic and markup in the "smoking accessories" (the rear of store near the entrance was a head shop) and in the S&M, goth and punk costume items they carried and kept near the entrance, or life insurance, or investor, or family kept the store propped up; music was likely a loss leader. Reportedly Peter's wife sold the store to its current majority owner in 1985.
Upstairs as you entered the store on the left was Stan, a mostly-quiet (though good for a quick "hello" or a nod) black-clad rockabilly-dressed guy with a towering pompadour. Six inches of his height was boot heels and hair. He was tall as it was. Once in a while we would see him in clubs downtown with his pretty girlfriend.
From the entrance above, you had to walk across through two other storefronts to the right of this shot to reach the used department, known as "Stiff Records." We never understood where the name "Stiff Records" came from. There was a "Stiff Records" label, an indie but not especially avant-garde label out of the UK that we knew of. (Some "inside baseball": Stiff eventually became a subsidiary of CBS in the US only.) This may have been coincidence, but we suspect Record Rev simply copied the name and the UK Stiff did nothing about it. The respective logos are different. Additionally, at the time, if an album or song "stiffed" (loosely meaning became "dead" or "useless") it was a flop in music industry slang. So irony may also have been at work. Near its entrance to the basement, management painted a black-and-white mural of Chuck Berry's guitar-playing, suit-clad body, topped with a grinning human skull, which was part of Record Rev's "Stiff Records" logo, and records they sold were price-stickered with this logo. There were hundreds of autographs of band members who visited the store on the brick wall of the stairs headed down (mostly unknown now), and elsewhere throughout the store. When most of them came through town, they were playing medium-si=zed clubs. (For some reason we remember "Boomtown Rats.")
The two or three guys that worked downstairs in "Stiff Records"--Fred (Fred Mills, III, d, 2016), and especially Warren--whom we assume played in bands, were nicer and far more helpful than their boutique and new vinyl colleagues upstairs. Several college-age women worked in the boutique: probably students at CIA (Cleveland Institute of Art) or in bands. The women boutique staffers in particular were on a scary/pretend-customer-doesn't-exist continuum. One of them was reportedly friendly (Heather). We feel sure that there were no management-to-floor-staff motivational sales "pep talks" or standardized psych tests to gauge suitability of new hires.
One of the first things noticeable when you walked in from the street was the sound system. That and the incense. Commenter "dgwojo" on audiophile site Audiokarma recalls Record Rev as "the place that had Altec A7's hanging on the walls." (N.B.: "Altec A7s" are heavy studio monitor speakers known for their clarity that can play music loud. Very loud.) There were, other than the store's terrific sound system, a couple of curios that interested me.
First, around 1982, Record Rev kept a Fender Broadcaster in their front left window (i.e., on the left as you go in), very old, and old-looking, in its case, from around 1950. Broadcasters, a solid body electric guitar, were the predecessors to Telecasters which Bruce Springsteen is best known for playing. The price: $125.00, on a beautifully-hand-lettered sign. Or was it? I was looking for a guitar and, hell, I had more than that in the bank. A very good, name brand guitar cost $700.00 at the time, maybe $500.00 used. I made a special trip back to Record Rev to recheck the price. Alas, I had forgotten a zero: it was $1,250.00, so that was out. A stupendous sum of money for me as a ninth-grader. There were only something like 250 Broadcasters manufactured between 1948 and 1950. It was in the window for over six months; collectors guitars didn't have the cult following they do now. Interestingly, the owner's family had a hard time moving this guitar at $1,250.00. You could buy a rental house for what a Broadcaster would cost now.
The other curio, which was near the rear of the store, was a wood phone booth, not for sale, but looked cool. Probably from a department store.
Record Rev sold new music but their selection was not as good as Record Ex. They did sell many offbeat imports, presumably music being played in clubs downtown and on college stations, such as WRUW (Case), WUJC (JCU) or WCSB (CSU). In that regard, they were way ahead of us; though we ordered and also sold imports, we were far more commercial, if stuck in the 1980s version of classic/AOR (album-oriented rock radio) mode. Record Rev also briefly advertised on cable television. The used department in the Record Rev basement seemed to be fed by radio station libraries and many promo album copies from record companies (almost always in mint condition if you were the first owner), along with the occasional music collection culling.
In the 1980s, at least, Record Rev had a drug-friendly atmosphere, to say the least, let in very little light, and they burned lots and lots of incense at all hours. Paraphernalia was for cocaine and cannabis. They carried items like studded and spiked neck collars. (For bedroom? Or for costume? Who knows?) This lent itself to unseemly rumors at the time, which have been impossible to substantiate. When we were very young--too young to work, but old enough to buy music--the drug and S&M ambiance was intimidating and scary. Parts of the store were not meant for kids.
Yet if something seriously untoward (more than perhaps personal "soft" drug use by staff, hence the incense) was going on, the police, who were all over Coventry, would certainly have known it, and the City would have shut Record Rev down as this City made happen, slowly and over a number of years, at Irv's Deli.
Why does it seem as if music was a loss leader at Record Rev? In our experience, buyers of music shop for price. In the 1980s, this meant buying "used." (Now "shopping" for music means downloading free.) Given the choice, and buying for oneself, a music buyer will almost always buy used in great condition. Used is also far more profitable for the retailer. Not uncommonly, and at irregular times, "Stiff Records" downstairs was closed, which means if you wanted any music at all from Record Rev, you had to buy new. We suspected that the employee working down there missed work that day. If music was the profit center, then the profit center of that profit center would have only rarely or never closed (or, come to think of it, even been kept in the basement).
Follow this link to a shot of this storefront when it was Coventry Books c. 1976: media.cleveland.com/sunpress/photo/coventry-books-2c13b19...
Record Revolution, Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Record Rev was a revered independent music store on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, Ohio from 1968 through 2022.
We worked down the street at Record Exchange in the 80s and early 90s, then located one block to the north, same side of Coventry Road. Our used music competition was obviously Record Rev. Used selection wasn't as good as Record Ex, and Record Rev neglected to mark down non-selling used music as aggressively as they should have (though occasionally you could pick up an underpriced gem). We often slipped into Record Rev to shop, but never told co-workers.
Record Revolution had a far edgier reputation than we did: the ambience was goth/punk/club rat/head shop. Experience is a huge asset in retail. Being there--like being invited to enter an exclusive and hip club, or the black-painted basement apartment of a musician/artist older brother of a friend, who also liked to party, and with a suggestion of lawlessness--was by itself an experience. When you purchased music there, and then took it home and played it, it was as if you were taking the "black painted basement with incense" experience home with you. Record Rev was far ahead of us in style points, and in in-store visits by hugely popular musicians, but they were almost never crowded and we often were; they had more customer window shopping and we had lower prices, better attitudes and more sales. I'm sure they thought of us as a "sausage factory."
Peter Schliewen, Record Rev’s original owner, to be fair, had died in an accident while still a relatively young guy. He crashed his Porsche 911 on Shaker Blvd. in 1983 (near Green Road). Record Rev at the time was, as mentioned, almost never crowded, boasted a huge amount of square footage (three storefronts plus basement, half of it wasted), and not the most extroverted staff upstairs. Perhaps there was enough traffic and markup in the "smoking accessories" (the rear of store near the entrance was a head shop) and in the S&M, goth and punk costume items they carried and kept near the entrance, or life insurance, or investor, or family kept the store propped up; music was likely a loss leader. Reportedly Peter's wife sold the store to its current majority owner in 1985.
Upstairs as you entered the store on the left was Stan, a mostly-quiet (though good for a quick "hello" or a nod) black-clad rockabilly-dressed guy with a towering pompadour. Six inches of his height was boot heels and hair. He was tall as it was. Once in a while we would see him in clubs downtown with his pretty girlfriend.
From the entrance above, you had to walk across through two other storefronts to the right of this shot to reach the used department, known as "Stiff Records." We never understood where the name "Stiff Records" came from. There was a "Stiff Records" label, an indie but not especially avant-garde label out of the UK that we knew of. (Some "inside baseball": Stiff eventually became a subsidiary of CBS in the US only.) This may have been coincidence, but we suspect Record Rev simply copied the name and the UK Stiff did nothing about it. The respective logos are different. Additionally, at the time, if an album or song "stiffed" (loosely meaning became "dead" or "useless") it was a flop in music industry slang. So irony may also have been at work. Near its entrance to the basement, management painted a black-and-white mural of Chuck Berry's guitar-playing, suit-clad body, topped with a grinning human skull, which was part of Record Rev's "Stiff Records" logo, and records they sold were price-stickered with this logo. There were hundreds of autographs of band members who visited the store on the brick wall of the stairs headed down (mostly unknown now), and elsewhere throughout the store. When most of them came through town, they were playing medium-si=zed clubs. (For some reason we remember "Boomtown Rats.")
The two or three guys that worked downstairs in "Stiff Records"--Fred (Fred Mills, III, d, 2016), and especially Warren--whom we assume played in bands, were nicer and far more helpful than their boutique and new vinyl colleagues upstairs. Several college-age women worked in the boutique: probably students at CIA (Cleveland Institute of Art) or in bands. The women boutique staffers in particular were on a scary/pretend-customer-doesn't-exist continuum. One of them was reportedly friendly (Heather). We feel sure that there were no management-to-floor-staff motivational sales "pep talks" or standardized psych tests to gauge suitability of new hires.
One of the first things noticeable when you walked in from the street was the sound system. That and the incense. Commenter "dgwojo" on audiophile site Audiokarma recalls Record Rev as "the place that had Altec A7's hanging on the walls." (N.B.: "Altec A7s" are heavy studio monitor speakers known for their clarity that can play music loud. Very loud.) There were, other than the store's terrific sound system, a couple of curios that interested me.
First, around 1982, Record Rev kept a Fender Broadcaster in their front left window (i.e., on the left as you go in), very old, and old-looking, in its case, from around 1950. Broadcasters, a solid body electric guitar, were the predecessors to Telecasters which Bruce Springsteen is best known for playing. The price: $125.00, on a beautifully-hand-lettered sign. Or was it? I was looking for a guitar and, hell, I had more than that in the bank. A very good, name brand guitar cost $700.00 at the time, maybe $500.00 used. I made a special trip back to Record Rev to recheck the price. Alas, I had forgotten a zero: it was $1,250.00, so that was out. A stupendous sum of money for me as a ninth-grader. There were only something like 250 Broadcasters manufactured between 1948 and 1950. It was in the window for over six months; collectors guitars didn't have the cult following they do now. Interestingly, the owner's family had a hard time moving this guitar at $1,250.00. You could buy a rental house for what a Broadcaster would cost now.
The other curio, which was near the rear of the store, was a wood phone booth, not for sale, but looked cool. Probably from a department store.
Record Rev sold new music but their selection was not as good as Record Ex. They did sell many offbeat imports, presumably music being played in clubs downtown and on college stations, such as WRUW (Case), WUJC (JCU) or WCSB (CSU). In that regard, they were way ahead of us; though we ordered and also sold imports, we were far more commercial, if stuck in the 1980s version of classic/AOR (album-oriented rock radio) mode. Record Rev also briefly advertised on cable television. The used department in the Record Rev basement seemed to be fed by radio station libraries and many promo album copies from record companies (almost always in mint condition if you were the first owner), along with the occasional music collection culling.
In the 1980s, at least, Record Rev had a drug-friendly atmosphere, to say the least, let in very little light, and they burned lots and lots of incense at all hours. Paraphernalia was for cocaine and cannabis. They carried items like studded and spiked neck collars. (For bedroom? Or for costume? Who knows?) This lent itself to unseemly rumors at the time, which have been impossible to substantiate. When we were very young--too young to work, but old enough to buy music--the drug and S&M ambiance was intimidating and scary. Parts of the store were not meant for kids.
Yet if something seriously untoward (more than perhaps personal "soft" drug use by staff, hence the incense) was going on, the police, who were all over Coventry, would certainly have known it, and the City would have shut Record Rev down as this City made happen, slowly and over a number of years, at Irv's Deli.
Why does it seem as if music was a loss leader at Record Rev? In our experience, buyers of music shop for price. In the 1980s, this meant buying "used." (Now "shopping" for music means downloading free.) Given the choice, and buying for oneself, a music buyer will almost always buy used in great condition. Used is also far more profitable for the retailer. Not uncommonly, and at irregular times, "Stiff Records" downstairs was closed, which means if you wanted any music at all from Record Rev, you had to buy new. We suspected that the employee working down there missed work that day. If music was the profit center, then the profit center of that profit center would have only rarely or never closed (or, come to think of it, even been kept in the basement).
Follow this link to a shot of this storefront when it was Coventry Books c. 1976: media.cleveland.com/sunpress/photo/coventry-books-2c13b19...