Long Island Record-Shopping Mainstay Catches Fire
The West Babylon, N.Y., music store Looney Tunes, one of the few independent record stores remaining on the strip-mall-mined byways of Long Island, burned down last night, apparently the fault of a faulty electrical cord. The store had been a family-owned business since it opened in 1971, and while the immediate plans are to rebuild, some of the inventory within–which included 57 autographed guitars and a lot of gold and platinum record plaques–is irreplaceable. This is heartbreaking news for both the store’s owners and its consumers (I know how hard it is to actually find non-FYE places that are simultaneously devoted to selling music and east of the Nassau/Queens border); the Coalition of Independent Music Stores is taking up a collection to help restore the shop to its original state, which will no doubt help in these crummy music-selling times in general.
