1979
« I went down to the place on 6th Avenue and I saw this little annex. Maybe it was a room that was about 8 feet by 10 feet, if that big, or maybe even 6 by 8. It had a three and a half foot counter and the guy had a turntable behind it. All over the wall he had 45s. Some of them were bootlegs, some of them were original. Then they had some albums too. I remember seeing The Eagles’ The Long Run album there. The guy would write on them, you know, “Rare breakbeat, Bob James’ ‘Mardi Gras’.” There was “Son of Scorpio” and stuff like that. All these weird records. Some of them were cut-out records that they probably bought for 99 cents. They were selling them for $19 in 1979.
And there’d be these black kids that would come in, that were about 15 years old, or maybe 14. There’d be two or three of them and they’d chip in together and buy the record as a group, so they could share it for DJing. I didn’t know who any of them were, but the room was always filled with these little kids and they were mostly from the Bronx. That’s where Kool Herc was, that’s where Grandmaster Flash was, and Bambaataa. »
— Tom Silverman, Tommy Boy’s Greatest Beats 1981 — 1996 compilation, liner notes.