"Specialty retail....
These are record stores that sell what they like.
Completely biased. Completely prejudiced.
They have their own vision of what they want to sell...."
- Tommy Boy's Steve Knudsen,
introducing me at the New Music Seminar in New York.

WHO WE ARE:

...(deep breath)... Ok, here we go:

An online/website version of our now-defunct "brick and mortar" retail store, with 25 years experience doing what we'll do here. We operated a physical space, before the Web offered a more logical alternative to having TWO sets of everything: rents, utilities, insurance and so on.



Travel back with me for a moment to the Autumn of 1982, to a store that started out as a true 'rock 'n' roll store': every cool genre from post-war urban r'n'b to rockabilly to doowop to pop idols to girl groups to surf to British Invasion to 60's garage to psych to progrock to glam to punk to new wave to goth to industrial, and all other sub-genres.

And SOUL, glorious soul music. Tons of it.

Named after and inspired by the Apollo Theatre in NYC, we had a particular fondness towards all the artists and groups who did or might have played there. And NOT stuck in the past, we realized soon after opening that the next logical progression in the soul movement (ex-Mod that i am, and always will be) included the then-early-80s twelve-inch vinyl underground scene. A lot of my friends balked back then, and STILL don't get it. But history has proved the validity of the scene.

It proved to be the LAST underground, pre-MTV, pre-mass market musical style in the pop music scene. It languished OFF the airwaves and took 10 years to finally cross over, around 1989. During the 80's, therein was justification: championing the underdog and the music just turned me on. Period.

I was listening to customer's grievances about the difficulty in obtaining underground 12" stuff. Remember this was the early 80's, a time where there were maybe 6 stores in the ENTIRE U.S. that specialized in this stuff. For many cities, it was either 'mail order' or suffer without the jams.

It was strange. The store carried ONE world of stuff. Yet, there was this OTHER world, which *I* was waist deep in, buying stuff from NYC distributors for MYSELF. I resolved to meld the two worlds. The first 12's that Apollo stocked were "Planet Rock" and "It's Like That"....when they were NEW RELEASES!

Instant sellouts. Consistently and repeatedly. Created for us a virtual Frankenstein monster. One bin of 12's became two, then a row, then the entire main floor, ghettoizing the cult rock genres to the back room, while the MAIN store area was filling up with....

Labels like Celluloid, Cutting, Enjoy, Easy Street,Emergency, Fever, Fourth & Broadway, Megatone, Next Plateau, Nia, Prelude, Profile, Reality, Select,Sleeping Bag, Specific, Spring, Streetwise, Sugar Hill, Tommy Boy, Tuff City, Vintertainment, West End. And then the next wave of labels like Def Jam, Wild Pitch, Zakia, Warlock, Urban Rock, B-Boy (i gotta stop this, i could go on forever!!)

Although becoming known for being THE dj store, all the regulars knew it was coming from a guy with a solid sense of the History of It All. I'd be just as likely to be playing Louis Jordan or the MC5 when customers walked in, OR Schooly D/Ultramagnetic MC's/DJ Cash Money!

Then the mix tapes: at a time when NO ONE was carrying them, we not only had the NYC pipeline in full effect for mixes, but sought out and exposed the REAL street crews to people who knew a good mix when they heard one. We started selling mixes in the Summer of 1984 with a handful of Latin Rascals, Red Alert's, etc., then started debuting our own commissioned discoveries from the wonderful talent pool of street dj's we discovered during the journey thru the decade. By now, most have been converted to CD as we continue to bury the cassette format once and for all.

Imports, rare groove, breakbeats, mix plates, reissues, we did it all. Not a big deal in a world of "turntablists-come-lately", but significant in 1984, surely!

By the 90's, i started testing the waters of mail order and the internet. And realized it is so much more gratifying, and to be frank, LESS WORK to play in cyberspace than to be wearing every hat from owner/schmoozer to janitor in a retail space that had started seeming rather 'quaint' and 'old' compared to how the chains and mainstream stores were doing business, ...with the very music that stores like Apollo Records Inc., VinylMania (NYC) and Gramophone (Chi.) had pioneered and created a market for.

So, Here my dear, as Marvin Gaye once said. The Apollo website, open 24/7. We're gonna wax that ass JUST as we've always done, giving you 110% satisfaction and the competition the 'bird'.

Tho this functions as a cyber-replacement for the Apollo Records retail store, i hope this will serve as an outlet for our regular customers to stay in touch and continue their support of our mail-order line of cool stuff. This mail-order gig has been up and running for 15 years, concurrent with the 25 year old retail store. We've been enjoying the unique feeling of camaradarie whenever we meet others who love this stuff as much as we do for a VERY long time now, so if this is your first visit, we're confident you'll love the service and attention.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: I consider this website perpetually "Under Consruction". I'm NEVER happy with it and plan on building it slowly and consistently to where it flat out BLOWS YOUR MIND. Hang in there and bookmark it and check the wreckage!)

Peace, love and Soul Power,
- Gary Apollo....and his trusty sidekick Minja, the bravest little girl-kitza in all of feline-dom, making the cross-country trek TWICE (buffalo to cali, cali back to buffalo!) with class and zero problems....and NEW addition to the ApolloPad: an ex-streetwalkin' tabby named Ocelot who keeps Minja on her toes! Mrrrowww!



PS: Coming up! We continue to flesh out the links to your left. Try 'em: some are done, some partly done, some are 'in progress' due to the massive contents we're preparing. Planned expansions: MORE detailed online catalog listings, mix tapes, rare video, CD's and vinyl: a select and handpicked collection of used/ import/ NEW product, and back catalog on labels who've been good to us and whom we feel are worth recommending.

Come on in! Take your shoes off! Get SOULFUL!