99 Records

The 99 Records (pronounced nine nine) story is really the story of a guy called Ed Bahlman and the events that surrounded his life for a few short years in the early 1980's.



99 Records was started by the aforementioned mythical, visionary Bahlman and named after its location in the basement of 99 MacDougal Street, just off Bleeker Street in New York's West Village. Originally it was a hip clothes shop run by Ed's girlfriend Gina Franklyn (a Londoner who incidentally was the first person in the States to import Doc Martens). Later Ed turned part of the shop into a record shop - 99 Records - which became a hang out for all sorts of muso types. The shop was one of the very few places to sell imports of many of the releases on Ed's beloved UK indies (he would go on trips with Gina to the UK and bring back the first copies to reach the States of many releases) and you could actually hear the records before you bought them, which was pretty much unheard of in New York back then. Gina would later split up with Ed and open a clothes shop called 99X on 6th Street. It still exists to this day but is now on 10th Street. Today the MacDougal Street shop is an Indian restaurant whose owners looked a little perplexed when I (in true saddo style) took some photos of it a few years back.

Ed was very involved in the New York music scene, putting on gigs and doing the odd bit of production. Sal Principato from Liquid Liquid recalls that he was 'thee hip underground guy at the time'. Right at the start of the 80's, he was really inspired by UK labels such as Y Records, On U Sound and Rough Trade and thought New York needed something along those lines, so after some gentle persuasion decided to start a label. Luckily this coincided with a very fertile period in New York's music scene. Importantly, Ed had a very clear idea of the sound he was looking for and was involved in mixing and producing many of the 99 releases.