Morristown says so long to Scotti’s Record Shop
Posted by Kevin Coughlin on December 29, 2011 · 1 Comment
Like quite a few college students, Liz DeSimone has re-discovered the retro joys of music on vinyl. On Wednesday she had two words for the closing of Scotti’s Record Shop in Morristown:
“It stinks,” said the Mendham resident, clutching LPs by Bob Marley, Dizzy Gillespie and Stevie Wonder in the closing hour of the landmark store at South and DeHart streets.
Die-hard music fans picked over the racks for T-shirts, used records and CDs. Everything was at least 30 percent off; many of the CDs went for 99 cents. Today, Thursday, owner Gary Scotti moves everything to his Summit store, the last vestige of a chain that once also boasted shops in Madison, Gillette and Chester.
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“The last few days have been phenomenal,” Gary said of his post-Christmas clearance sale in Morristown, where he has had a presence since 1983. “If it was like this all the time, maybe we would have stayed.”
But Gary’s 25-year lease was set to expire in mid-2012, and he said it had become a struggle to break even in the age of cheap digital music. Used vinyl has enjoyed a resurgence–yet that’s not enough, he said.
Alan DiDino has worked at Scotti’s in Morristown for eight years, and was on hand for closings at the other locations.
Gary Scotti, right, is consolidating his Morristown music store to Summit. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
“It’s bittersweet,” he said. But he added that it felt good to move on; he grew weary of fielding customers’ questions about when the Morristown shop would close. While everyone now remembers coming into Scotti’s, he said, few actually made purchases there in the iTunes era.
“I’m happy (the day) is finally here. You can only struggle for so long before it gets to you. Really, I think we’ll be able to do better” focusing on one store in Summit.
The last-day shoppers in Morristown included Sandy Snider, her husband Rick and their son, Sean, 12. They were visiting from West Virginia and stopped into Scotti’s to buy “Life Is Good” t-shirts. “They’re hard to find,” said Sandy, a Sussex County native.
Brandyn “Adeo” Heppard, lead singer of Universal Rebel and RAI Nation, found vinyl copies of albums by UB40 and Peter, Paul and Mary, along with The Woman in Red soundtrack, produced by Stevie Wonder.
“It’s the way of the world,” he said of Scotti’s closing. He remembered growing up in Morristown with three record shops in the area: Scotti’s, Sam Goody’s at Headquarters Plaza and Alwik Records in the Morris County Mall. “It was great to have music in town.”
“It’s a sad thing to see, but expected. We were lucky they were here this long,” said Craig Clausen, a Mendham schoolteacher who lives in Morristown. He was buying some AC/DC records; a couple of Christmases ago he got a turntable and now he prefers vinyl to digital. “It’s a truer sound. It’s the real sound.”
Morristown High School junior Zaji Zabalerio said the sales clerks at Scotti’s introduced him to the music of Led Zeppelin.
“In my time here there was always a connection between this place and the music scene,” Zaji said. “It’s kind of sad…now it’s all iTunes and Amazon. It’s very impersonal.”
Ironically, online sales may be Scotti’s salvation.
“We have an eBay store and an Amazon store, and we sell a lot of our product on the internet, and that’s been growing, and that’s part of the reason we don’t need another location,” said Gary Scotti. “We’re shipping out 40 or 50 boxes (of merchandise) a day.”
Really sad to see an icon pass on.
We visited Morristown a few years ago when the dollar to pound ratio was a lot different.
We came away with a clutch of CDs, t shirts and guitar straps.
I now work in a trendy part of London – beware our high streets are becoming havens for coffee shops, hairdressers and fast food shops.