Look, I know I’m far from the only one who likes to crawl into perpetual wormholes of nostalgia to get away from the hellscape of a world we’re living in. So with that in mind, let me ask you a question: do you remember what it was like to buy an album from a record store when you were a kid? To hold that piece of music, be it a record, a tape, or a CD, in your hands, and know there was a journey awaiting you the moment you pressed play?
It’s worlds apart from how we consume music now. I’ll be honest: the digital age made me forget about the deeper connection that comes with actually owning an album and building a collection. But a few years back, while wandering around Portland, Maine, I found myself in a store selling a cassette tape of Monster by R.E.M. My cassettes were my most prized possessions as a kid, and Monster was right at the top of that pile.
Holding it in my hand again and flipping through the liner notes was surreal because I remembered it all so clearly. Without getting too dramatic, it made me realize a certain type of pure joy that the digital age has robbed us of. I wanted to feel that joy again.
Since that day, I’ve been collecting cassettes. It started with an ambition to buy back every cassette I once owned, but it has since grown into a desire to curate a collection and sell them myself. More importantly, it has given me the perfect excuse to step back into record stores and reconnect with my past.
Every city I visit now includes plotting out a map and visiting all the record stores in the immediate vicinity. In paying these visits, I’ve met fascinating people who share that same passion, whether for cassettes, vinyl, CDs, or other physical media. Their stories are all different, but the common thread is an uncompromising love for music and collecting. It inspired me to create a new interview series called “Searching to Rewind,” which focuses on the stories behind record stores and their owners, and why, as a culture, we still desperately need them.
So without further ado, let’s dive in.
To begin this journey, I need not travel far from my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. A few blocks away, nestled beside a high-end barber shop, is Buzzed Monkey Records. In the same way that a barber operates with precision, so too does Buzzed Monkey owner Robbie Busch in his sourcing and selection of the records that fill the shelves. This attention to detail is a multifaceted characteristic of Busch, whose own history is rooted in a love of comics and illustration, and an imposed-then-realized talent for DJing.
A New Yorker by way of the Midwest, Busch has always been a collector. Figurines, comics, and books were collected with intention, while his records were more of an accumulation resulting from his musical exploration and discovery. It all began with a 45 of Jackson 5’s “Rockin’ Robin” and a neighbor’s Big Bird record player. “All of us would go to the thrift or to the Woolworth and like buy a few 45s for cheap,” Busch recalls. “And we were just fascinated.”
Busch found a passion for punk and then fell in love with hip-hop as it came onto the scene. “My best friend’s sister had gotten ‘Rapper’s Delight’ on 12-inch. We just sat and listened to that, like, 50 times. Over and over and over.” The same spiritual awakening came when Beastie Boys first played over the airwaves of WNYU. Hearing the unique blend of punk and hip-hop was enough to force Busch to pull over his car and process what he was hearing.
By this time, Busch’s record collection had earned him a bit of a reputation. “Somebody came up to me and they were like ‘I heard you have a lot of records. You want to DJ?’ I was like, yeah, but I don’t know what that means.” Radio DJs were nothing new, but DJing in the way we understand it today wasn’t as much of a thing at that time. Still, Busch learned enough of the basics to give it a shot and, in turn, found a new passion.
This passion for music and DJing shared brain space with Busch’s pursuit of a career in cartooning and comic books. They existed in tandem, perhaps influencing his purchases of kitschy Latin and jazz records that had interesting graphics on the cover, or growing his talent in visual art to include concert photography. While the freelance lifestyle took Busch in many artistic directions, DJing was a constant, and a financially lucrative one at that.
Busch invested his DJ earnings into the expansion of his catalog. “I would go out and just buy records like a fiend,” he says. “Then eventually you have 2 or 3 of the same record, or you get a promo that you’re not really interested in, and you go to the store and you trade it in, try to get something better. And then eventually you start selling them.”
Those casual transactions were still a few steps away from becoming a brick-and-mortar shop. First came selling at events like the WFMU Record Fair, along with the easy scalability of online sales through eBay. Even then, Busch wasn’t viewing it as a career move so much as a practical way to offload a crate here and there. But over time, the volume of records in his orbit became too much to manage at home. “I have a car full of records,” Busch says with a laugh. But at least now, with Buzzed Monkey Records, he has a place for them to go.
Buzzed Monkey is in many ways a physical manifestation of Busch’s story. The logo is his design and illustration. The collection of records shows the ear of a DJ, with a well-curated presence across genres. I couldn’t help but notice the storage of some of the records even looking similar to the way boxes of comics are stored; perhaps a stretch on my part or maybe a subconscious manifestation of the other half of Busch’s artistic brain.
The name Buzzed Monkey is a nod to the store’s hair-trimming neighbor, along with one of Busch’s favorite animals. While simple in its explanation, there is an interesting allegory to be found in the symbolism of monkeys as evolution as well as primitive beings. The resurgence of physical media, particularly in vinyl collecting among younger generations, may feel on its surface like a step backward in our evolution towards a digital future, but more so it speaks to our primitive desire to hold something in our hands, for it to feel like ours. Maybe the depth of that connection risks leaning more into the “buzzed” part of the name, as I may sound two joints deep with that logic, but I do believe it to be the case all the same.
Buying a record is making an investment in one’s connection to it. Before streaming, what you had in your crates was all you had to listen to. And in those moments of “nothing else to listen to,” you listen to the songs you might have otherwise skipped in a streaming world. Some of my favorite songs weren’t what made me buy my tapes, but were instead the songs I heard when I was on a road trip with but one tape in my Walkman, and a lack of desire to rewind the tape for the hundredth time.
Busch feels this is what is, at least to some degree, fueling the desire for physical media by the youth of today. “They’re trying to break away from being on their phones or being hooked into, you know, multinational conglomerates’ algorithms. It’s nice to see that people are starting to feel like they want an attachment to the real world.”
That real-world attachment is something that is palpable when inside a record store like Buzzed Monkey. Your next favorite record isn’t suggested via a collection of 0s and 1s but instead by a human being, like Busch, who listens with intent to what you’re looking for and relies on his own knowledge and experience to offer up some options. “I like to talk to people and talk about records,” says Busch. “If people are looking for something, it’s fun to say, oh, well, I don’t necessarily have that or I do have that, but check this out also.” It’s a human connection that we’ve increasingly lost in the digital age.
But those 0s and 1s can have a place in this process too. “I always encourage people to take pictures of stuff, stream it at home, see what you think, and then a lot of times people will come back and be like, ‘oh, that was really cool. I’ll grab that record.’”
That sense of community and connection is something Busch has been nurturing since Buzzed Monkey first opened its doors, and he continues to find new methods to deepen it.
“About two years ago, I started having live performances in the shop,” says Busch. “I’ve had all kinds of different artists come through and do different kinds of musical performances. I like that it’s intimate.” That concept is now evolving into Buzzed Monkey Presents, a Tiny Desk-style variety show featuring artist interviews, live musical performances, visual art, animation, and more.
It’s a fitting expansion of the Buzzed Monkey mission and an even more sincere manifestation of Robbie Busch’s creative persona: a seamless marriage of visual and musical art, rooted in a desire to build a space where kindred spirits can share, exercise, and collect their passions.
Buzzed Monkey Records is located at 88 S. Portland Ave in the heart of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The shop offers an outstanding selection of rare vinyl, alongside a smaller but equally well-curated collection of CDs and cassettes.
