A documentary about New York's legendary Other Music record store, which closed in 2016, is available to view at steadysoundsrva.com and byrdtheatre.org. (Image courtesy Factory 25)
Perhaps in some desolate and dystopian future, circa six months from now, some desperate soul might ask, “What’s a record store?” The answer to that question can be found in “Other Music,” a documentary about a long-tenured music outlet in New York City’s East Village that shuttered in 2016 and moved to online sales. Directed by Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller, a married couple who met at Other Music, the film is a love letter to an important component of music culture in New York City in the 2000s and to people who love music.
One of those people, a former employee of Other Music, is Nicole Lang. Lang is the operations manager at Richmond's Alewife restaurant and also the wife of Marty Key, the owner of local record store Steady Sounds. The film is linked on the record store’s website, and 50% of the streaming fee is shared with the store. (The Byrd Theatre is also making the film available via its "virtual screening room.")
“We met in a record store, then we got married, and then we opened a record store,” Lang says. “So, we're record store people, and to have essentially my alma mater, the swan song of Other Music be able to be rented and that actually helping my husband, who is struggling to stay in business … during a pandemic, the poignancy of that was not lost on me.”
Along with the store’s founders and colorful employees, the movie also includes a few famous customers, such as Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, actor Benicio Del Toro, singer Regina Spektor and J.D. Sampson of Le Tigre.
