Interview with Gary Scotti, owner of Scotti's Records
24 March 2025
Mark Dempsey
So how's everything going Gary?
Gary Scotti
Pretty well, how are you?
Mark Dempsey
I'm doing well. I got band practice after this so that's why I had to be very much on time.
Gary Scotti
OK, good! I was waiting for your call so, good.
Mark Dempsey
So, I like to start out these kinds of interviews with “What's the last record you listened to?”
Gary Scotti
Oh, that's a good question. Probably Paul McCartney “Ram".
Mark Dempsey
Hmm! That's one I haven't listened to in a long time.
Gary Scotti
Yeah, it's very good.
Mark Dempsey
I'm more of a Wings guy than a Paul solo guy personally. You worked at Scotti's records for a long, long time, and you owned Scotti's records from about 1983-1984 onward?
Gary Scotti
Well, it's a family business so I mean my dad started it 1956, so when you said I worked there I guess I did, but I was working at the family business.
Mark Dempsey
Right.
Gary Scotti
And I went in full-time after I graduated college in 1981.
Mark Dempsey
OK, and when did you take over primary business operations from Anthony Scotti?
Gary Scotti
Oh, it was gradual, you know? As the mid to late 80s went on,my dad was pretty much out of the business and just overseeing things and just kind of advising, so I took over in the late 80s probably
Mark Dempsey
Cool I also remember reading that in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s you had more than just two locations. I remember the Morristown store’s closing in 2011. I also read that you had a Chester and a Gillette location?
Gary Scotti
Yes, what my dad had. When he was the primary owner he opened Summit initially. And open the Madison store also. When I came in, I think it was 1983 that we took over Graymats Music in Morristown, which was a long time record store there that’d been there forever. We bought Gray out. He was ready to retire and we bought him out. Ran that business in that location for a while and then moved it like two doors down at 23 South St. which is a really prominent corner location
Mark Dempsey
Right, ‘cause you were on the green and then you were slightly off the green
Gary Scotti
Yes, so we had a very prominent location for most of our time in Morristown, which was the end of the vinyl era, the beginning of the CD era, and the decline of the CD era (laughs). All of that encompassed. We opened a store in Millburn which was there for maybe 10 years, did mediocre. We opened a store in Gillette, which did really well for a long time in the TJ Maxx mall there. It's like a big strip mall has HomeGoods there TJ Maxx and a few other stores.
Mark Dempsey
So you get the customers from like, Plainfield, but also from Basking Ridge?
Gary Scotti
Yeah, they had just rebuilt the mall, added a wing to the mall and that's where HomeGoods went and there was a whole bunch of other smaller retail stores which we took over one of them and For a while, there was our best location. I'm not sure of those years but it was in the height of the CD era. Your NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Eminem, Britney Spears prime era, which was what the late 1990s.
Mark Dempsey
Yeah, late 90s and then, what was it, Hybrid Theory or one of the other Linkin Park albums was the best selling CD in 2000 and that was all downhill from there?
Gary Scotti
Yeah, and then also Green Day American Idiot
Mark Dempsey
Oh, so that was what, 05?
Gary Scotti
That was well that we were there for that long and so yeah, that the Green Day American idiot kind of revived things for a while because everything we had was just you know, Green Day shirts, posters, I mean, that was just an unbelievable thing. That was towards the end of our run in Gillette I guess, several years after the CD business started to deteriorate.
Mark Dempsey
And those [expansion stores] all closed around the late 2000s?
Gary Scotti
Well, I started closing them. You know one at a time as leases were coming up and I could get out of leases because you know [the record store] business seemed to deteriorate pretty quickly at the end of the CD business. Napster started it, and then iTunes decided to do you $.99 songs, and all of a sudden everybody wanted to buy iTunes gift cards. [Scotti’s] gift cards were obsolete, and we used to sell tons of them and do really well with that type of business, particularly around the holidays.
I was in a coalition at that point called the music monitor network. These are the people that invented Record Store Day, Michael Kurtz, Gary Carleton. We were a small group of retailers throughout the whole country and I was an East Coast representative, and because of where we were, we had high speed Internet before anybody else. and we really started to feel [the pressure from] iTunes. If you remember your dial up network, you couldn't you couldn't do [iTunes], right? I mean, this was the situation. I was going into these meetings with these people, I was on the board of directors of the small coalition and I was telling him, I said you know, I'm having a real problem with gift cards and gift certificates. iTunes has just taken over. Everybody just wants to buy iTunes gift cards and they want me to sell them and I was like well. I don't know how I can sell them you know it's not my gift card I don't make you make like 10% on one or something, not enough to really make it worthwhile.
Mark Dempsey
Right, and that's less margin than you'd have on a CD or a record
Gary Scotti
Oh yeah, yeah and back then like the people that in that coalition, they didn't really believe me you know because they were all throughout the country, in the middle of the country. Even California was behind us [in terms of consumer internet] at that point in time and yeah, and I was like you know this is happening, and they just kind of shrugged their shoulders at me and I said wow, OK. The next year when we went to the next meetings, everybody was feeling it you know because everybody was going through the same thing. It was that invention of high-speed Internet that really kicked in, kind of ruined the record store in the CD business at that time frame
Mark Dempsey
And just for a frame of reference, how much did a CD Maxi single cost around that time period, and how much did a vinyl 7 inch cost?
Gary Scotti
Well, you know we don't really do much singles at that point in time. It was more like your CDs and they were expensive! I mean if, you remember during that height of the CD they're like 20 bucks I think aren't they? 15.99, 19.99, and then all of a sudden you could get a song for $.99 so kind of threw that out and we weren't really buying singles, because can't pay rent selling $.99 singles.
Mark Dempsey
No, you definitely can't
Gary Scotti
So we just couldn't do it.
Mark Dempsey
That's more than $.99 worth of plastic these days.
Gary Scotti
It seems like it, yeah, we got payroll and all that stuff than that so that really put a wrinkle in you know everybody actually
Mark Dempsey
I'd like to ask a couple questions about the building on Springfield Avenue
Gary Scotti
OK.
Mark Dempsey
I noticed that there were apartments above the building or at least there seems to be apartments above the building.
Gary Scotti
Yes, there are three apartments. There are three apartments above the building, yes.
Mark Dempsey
Does anyone currently live there?
Gary Scotti
Yes.
Mark Dempsey
And what about Summit Ski & Snow? Did they open up around the same time that you did?
Gary Scotti
You know, my dad bought the building in the mid to late 1970s. The initial Scotti’s record shop was across the street on Springfield Avenue diagonally across the street but on the same block. He moved over to the store[front] that it was in when I closed it In the early 1970s. The owners were seniors, and I think the husband passed away and the lady wanted to sell the building so my dad did buy the building probably in the late 1970s so my dad had all that building up until December 2013. My dad has passed away so it passed through into the family, and it was decided that we needed to sell it to split up those assets. The ski shop was a tenant of my dad.
Mark Dempsey
OK, I have approximate ownership documents in front of me so I see it was in Anthony Scotti's name and then it was an Elsie Scotti's name?
Gary Scotti
Yes, that's my mom, yes.
Mark Dempsey
OK so your mother Elsie Scotti and then it was moved over to 351 Springfield Ave. LLC
Gary Scotti
Yeah, there was there were some estate planning going on for all that yes
Mark Dempsey
And then that was sold to 353 Springfield redevelopment LLC.
Gary Scotti
Correct, in December 2023.
Mark Dempsey
So, before that happened, were you effectively paying rent to yourself?
Gary Scotti
(huffs) Well, I was paying rent to my family .
Mark Dempsey
Right.
Gary Scotti
And then I ended up being… I mean… not really. I was paying rent to my family.
Mark Dempsey
Right, OK.
Gary Scotti
So I really wasn't benefiting from the rental income except I guess maybe through you know my dad was making money so it was going to the family and I was the superintendent. I was paying a substantial rent, but I was the superintendent of the building handling everything so I had a little bit of a discount on the rent, but not significant.
Mark Dempsey
OK, that sounds like pretty much all the family businesses that I know about near me.
Gary Scotti
Yeah, yeah I mean it was. It was all good.
Mark Dempsey
I overheard a conversation while I was in the store one of those days that the current owners had denied a request or didn't want you to stay in the building. Is that correct?
Gary Scotti
Not totally.
Mark Dempsey
OK, so what happened?
Gary Scotti
Well, my lease had expired. I knew that they were not planning on doing anything and I asked if I could stay through Christmas, through the end of February, and they agreed to that graciously. When I went back to talk to them to reassess to them, we mutually agreed that it was beneficial just to part ways.
Mark Dempsey
So, there was just no way to meet in the middle in terms of what they wanted and what you wanted?
Gary Scotti
Well, they wanna renovate the building. It needs work. Rent’s expensive.
Mark Dempsey
That building from the 30s, so I would imagine so.
Gary Scotti
Yeah, I mean it's maintained but you know it's not maintained to the AAA gold standards of Summit New Jersey. You know it needs… it does need some renovations. It's pretty obvious if you walk around to look at it, but the bones of it are great. People are still living there. They've lived there for a long time. People have stayed in those apartments forever. The ski shop stayed there forever. So they’re looking to redevelop the building to a gold standard, make it a AAA building.
Mark Dempsey
I also heard that they were going to do something owner-operated, to run their own business inside there the way that Scotti's owned the building and also had the record store in there.
Gary Scotti
I mean, I've heard that, but I have no information about that.
Mark Dempsey
How did you feel about the community reaction to Scotti's final closure?
Gary Scotti
The community reaction was just overwhelming. Positively. To this day. I'm floored by the reaction of people and how much it meant to everybody,. I had tears in my eyes when people came to talk to me, I just, I just couldn't believe it. You know that it meant so much to them and they had such nice things to say, and I just really couldn't believe the response.
Mark Dempsey
That must be really gratifying.
Gary Scotti
I had all my old employees from the days when I had all those stores, I used to have 40 employees! So they were coming into the store individually, and then one day like 10 or 15 of them all came in, had presents for me and they had just we had a whole reunion there. They surprised me with it, which was touching. They took pictures out front and I got to see everybody cause they kind of grew up. I was hiring people that were 16, 17, 18 years old, they'd stay with me for five or seven years so they were young adults. A couple of them got married that met at my store. They have kids. They all stay in touch. It was just really moving.
Mark Dempsey
That's beautiful.
Gary Scotti
It was really nice, yeah so I was really floored by it. I knew that I would have an outpouring of response, but it well exceeded anything… I was nervous about that! I didn't know how to make the announcement. I didn't know what the reaction would be. I thought people would come in and wanna buy stuff you know, but it well exceeded my expectations in a positive way.
Mark Dempsey
How much of the store do you think you were able to sell in that last month? I remember going in there a day after that you said that you were going to close and seeing that the shelves were being picked over and then I remember coming back two weeks later and almost everything was gone.
Gary Scotti
I sold every vinyl record that I wanted to sell. I brought home several thousand records ‘cause I'm maintaining an online presence.
Mark Dempsey
Discogs?
Gary Scotti
Yeah, through Discogs and eBay and Amazon you know I do sell CDs and miscellaneous stuff and so I have a decent collection of stuff that I kept for myself because I didn't wanna sell at a steeply discounted Market, which is not that much of it, but I did have somebody come in and buy every record that was left over at the end of my closing sales which I had maybe 2 or 3000 records left and I had somebody come in and buy every one just now one swoop. I gave him a good price they took everything.
CDs, you know, I had a list of customers that were good to me over the years just individuals that would come in and buy CDs. People I thought that were selective customers meaning, I don't know how to say this in a positive way, that you know they were on a budget you know so they would come in and buy two or three CDs at a time used CDs, $5, $6, $7, $10 you know and I knew they were working class people. They didn't have a lot of money and they were good good customers for a long time so I was taking their names and phone numbers and towards the end I called 10 or 15 of them. And said look, I'm I'm done selling. I got a lot of great CDs left. Come on in, I wanna give you some. I gave them boxes and just have them pick stuff out. They were such good people that they were like “Well is this too many to take?” I said look, I gave you the box to fill up, just fill it up. Don't worry about the price. Take ‘em! I didn’t know what I was gonna do with them! CDs, they’re hard to get rid of, we sold a lot of them but we had thousands of them left over and there was a lot of good stuff so I was able to give away two or three thousand CDs that way.
Mark Dempsey
That's very big-hearted of you.
Gary Scotti
And then I really wasn't it was you know they deserved? You know they seem to appreciated it and it was something that I was really happy to do. You know I didn't know what to do with the stuff anyway so I appreciate the big party, but I guess it was and I really felt like I gave them to the right people you know I was selective about that and not not overly selective but I knew these guys would come all the time and and have for years and there were such good people that I really take this minute look if you want another box I'll give you another box and then we get a bag sale but we throw away a few thousand CDs towards the end Because we had to get rid of them But we got rid of most of the stuff, all the T-shirts, I sold all my record racks…
Mark Dempsey
I got one of the T-shirts!
Gary Scotti
You did? Though, you were in there right away. Yes, it was just totally amazing. I just, you know, I did work my ass off the last month or so every day. Carrying stuff, helping people carry records out and record racks out, and bringing stuff home. It was a lot of work but well worth it and I miss it, but I don't miss the daily grind of it. I don't miss it. The rent and the taxes and the insurance and keeping employees. My employees were really good, so I don't mean to say anything negative about them, but it's expensive to have employees. Payroll taxes, workers comp insurance.
Mark Dempsey
And the fact that you're like a retail place, that's actually a Mom and Pop place that's actually taking the time to cross the Ts, dot the Is, give the workers’ comp speaks to your character.
Gary Scotti
I appreciate that, thank you. I mean, that's how you're supposed to run a business right? I mean, my employees stayed with me for a very long time, so I guess I treated him right [dog begins barking in the background] that's the only you know I think I can say about that is that's why all those people came in. They stayed with me until that. There was a point where we were going broke and they had to go find other jobs cause they knew that I just didn't how long was gonna last? I finally condensed down to one store and was able to last for quite a long time. One thing I really grateful for is - give me a minute, it’s my dog barking.
Mark Dempsey
She misses the customers.
Gary Scotti
Ahh, she does a lot. Was she there when you were there?
Mark Dempsey
Yes
Gary Scotti
I think she misses it more than anything because she would go all the time, and now she's sitting home with their old old husband - er, old owner, not husband. I'm really grateful that I was able to go out the way I did, you know. I feel like I went out on my own terms. It wasn't a bankruptcy situation. I wasn't desolate. I considered moving it and I went through all that stuff, but I'm not a young man, and I just didn't think that the expense of relocating and renovating and moving… It's a lot of work, a lot of expense and it carries risk and I just didn't think it was worth it at my age. If I was 50 years old, I probably would've done it.
Mark Dempsey
Right
Gary Scotti
I'm really grateful for going out the way I did the overwhelming response from people and the customers, employees, really I couldn't have asked for anything more. We had a great run you know? What more can you ask out of a retail business? Without a lease I couldn't sell it. It probably was financially beneficial for me to do it the way I did because we sold everything so I did pocket some decent money and got rid of everything and got to say goodbye to everybody. We had people that would come in every day, I still have all their phone numbers you know where you texting and chatting periodically so yeah
Mark Dempsey
So, first month of retirement how's it treating you
Gary Scotti
Well, as I told you, I was very very tired, so the first couple of weeks, I had my garage filled with stuff, the computers, the racks, and I have a lot of stuff that I'm slowly working through so I’m just relaxed. My daughter is pregnant.
Mark Dempsey
Congratulations!
Gary Scotti
She's having her first child, which is my only she's my only child. She is in Buffalo. I was up there this weekend so she's due in mid April, right around record store day. So that part of it is good so I get to do that kind of stuff I'm catching up on things I never used to be able to do, but it hasn't been that long. What, it's been a month?
Mark Dempsey
Yeah.
Gary Scotti
I'm doing some yardwork. The weather is iffy, but we've had some decent weather.
Mark Dempsey
Are you still in the area? I'm in Madison.
Gary Scotti
Yes, I live in Madison also
Mark Dempsey
Oh nice, I'm on [redacted]
Gary Scotti
Yes, OK yes, I'm on [redacted]. I've been here in this house for 24 years and I used to live over on [redacted] for another 18 or 15 years over there. I married and I went to Madison high school out of Harding Township. I was the second class that went to Madison High School from Harding and I've met my wife there and we got married. She has passed away so she's gone. I’ve been here since, so I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Mark Dempsey
I remember reading in the papers about the Harding negotiations with the town maybe switching to Chatham
Gary Scotti
Recently, right yeah yeah I don't know. I don't know what happened to that. I saw the signs [on the road protesting the change].
Mark Dempsey
So they stayed with Madison and they're gonna stay with Madison for the next decade.
Gary Scotti
Good I don't think Chatham is a fit, but they've been going to Madison I think that's the right place for them… Anyway, I'm blessed to be in a situation where I don't really have to do anything. I got a house here that's basically paid off. It's nice. I have a lot of stuff here, I have a lot of records here now that I'm starting to sell online so I don't know where I would go if I leave leave Madison, but I’ve always said I'm gonna keep the house until I close my store and a lot of people are asking me so where are you going? Move to Florida blah blah blah you know I'm going home. I'm gonna relax figure it out and I've been looking for places over the last few years, but I haven't found a place that really hits me.
Mark Dempsey
I'll say, the Florida humidity is not great for records.
Gary Scotti
No, but I'm not gonna have that many. I'm not gonna move 10, 000 records. A couple of thousand, maybe.
Mark Dempsey
I have two more questions. One: would it be all right if I linked to your Discogs page in the article at the end as a footnote?
Gary Scotti
Oh, I don't see why not as long as we're being positive. I hope we are. Like, the first of all, I know you've told me I know your name is Mark Dempsey, right, and you're writing this article on it for what purpose?
Mark Dempsey
So, there's a blog called I Have That On Vinyl. It's a relatively small music blog but guys like John Darniell have written for it and a couple of music journalists that I'm fans of so I figured I might as well take a crack at pitching an article. When Scotti's records closed, first thing I did was mourn, the second thing I did was make plans to come by and get some CDs, but after a couple days I realized there's a story here and I could tell the story of what happens when in long-standing music business disappears and the positive impact that it left while it was still there.
Gary Scotti
OK, well that's good and you know and part of that is that I was talking to my customers and they're all upset, of course, and I've known that over the last 5+ years there are a lot of other stores that I've been opening up in the area. New Jersey is a hot bed for record stores. There's a lot of them. Seven or eight years ago there wasn't any. So there's a few of them around that I know I've been somewhat competitive to me because they're close. I mean, record people go to record stores. That's what you do. I do too. when I'm away, I go to a record store. If you live in an area and there's a new store that opens up you're gonna go there that doesn't mean they're not loyal to me, but they found a new store so there's been competition in that way and so I had been reaching out to my customers and telling them I had a list of a few stores that I thought were worthy of them shopping and I was giving out names and it got back to several of those stores who came in to thank me. It was time to pass the torch along. Some of them were not really doing record store day cause they didn't really wanna get involved and compete with me with that and spending all that money and once they knew that I was closing, they reached out to me and they all started to go into it. More so than they would have if I had been there and also I did have some positive communications with competitors if you wanna call them that. Is that the right word? I don't know.
Mark Dempsey
Rivals.
Gary Scotti
Yeah, I don't know if that's the right word either. Just people in the same business. We're in this together a little bit. I was happy that you know I started mentioning some names to people to get out to the owners of those stores who did come in to see me and thank me and you asked me if there was anything they could do, blah blah blah, so that was all good. Not sure where I was going with this, but, you know, there's other stores around, newcomers coming in that have more energy, more desire, more drive than an old guy like me. ‘Cause you need that right? As you get older, you just get complacent and I felt like I was getting into that area of just kinda coasting and I hate that. I am competitive and I wanna run the best I could but it was just getting harder for me at my age. There's some good stores around. I think they're all gonna thrive. I hope everybody does well and I hope all my customers find those places and support them as opposed to online sales right? cause Amazon hurts too. Amazon's really been hurting [indie record store] quite a bit that my new vinyl sales really were starting to struggle. After Covid, we boomed, we did great. We had supply issues, situations where you know as a professional buyer that's been doing this for a long time. I know how to buy. I could stock up on the right product and then all of a sudden we wouldn't be able to get it for another six or eight months and you know I was able to keep my margins higher that way, but now Amazon gets everything just like we do and margins are squeezed.
Mark Dempsey
Yeah.
Gary Scotti
Just the way it is. And it's harder and harder to get used to go to garage sales and buy records. I've been the only one there I'd buy, “I'll give you 50 bucks for all your records” you know and they were happy to get rid of them they wouldn't even put them out at garage sales. You would go there and say “do you have any records?” “Oh yeah I think I have some in the basement…”
Mark Dempsey
Right, and now they've already wised up that there might be something rare and they go on the internet and list it themselves.
Gary Scotti
You can't go to garage sales and - I mean, every record is $10 a piece regardless, they don't know anything about it. It's not that you get 10 bucks for it [as a record store], and Facebook marketplace is very competitive so it just kept getting harder and harder and, like I said, I'm not a young man and I think that it was time to walk away from it and see my daughter raise her child and maybe move away, maybe not, I don't know, but it was the right time. I'm really grateful for the way we went out and the length of time that we ran a business. It's amazing, isn't it?
Mark Dempsey
It is. One more question. What's the next record you think you're going to listen to?
Gary Scotti
(Laughs) That's a good question. The next record. You know I really like the band called Lord Huron and I haven't really listened to them... I did bring a couple of them home. I've heard their music, but I've never listened to them on vinyl so I have two of them still sealed here by my record player so I'm gonna say that.
Mark Dempsey
Sounds good. Thank you so much, Gary.
Gary Scotti
No problem.