#New Jersey’s Vintage Vinyl is Closing

Vintage Vinyl, the Fords, New Jersey record shop that sat at the nexus of the state’s punk and metal scenes for decades, is closing next month. Owner Rob Roth announced today (June 21) in the shop’s newsletter that it would shut its doors permanently on July 31 after 42 years of business. 

In addition to hosting one of the state’s largest collections of new and used punk and metal records, the shop also played host to scores of in-store performances over the years, both from local acts like Thursday, Saves the Day, Midtown, Titus Andronicus, and My Chemical Romance, as well as national acts such as Queens of the Stone Age, the Get Up Kids, Jimmy Eat World, and many, many more. 

Roth opened the first iteration of the store at 23 years old in Irvington, New Jersey in 1979. It has been at its current location since 1984. “I couldn’t get the music I wanted in the chain stores,” Roth told NJ Advanced Media. “It was the era of punk and you couldn’t get those records anywhere. I wanted to fill that void and bring the obscure, selling the punk and British records, and the stuff that was being ignored.” Roth said that the COVID-19 pandemic was not a deciding factor in the shop’s closure and that he was retiring to spend more time with his family.

Read Pitchfork’s “Longform” feature “What It Takes for an Independent Record Store to Survive Now.”