Happy Record Store Day: I Like It Like That

by Bob Schwartz

I Like It LIke That
To celebrate International Record Store Day on April 20, Ambassador Jack White might have visited I Like It Like That Records & Tapes on Main Street in Newark, Delaware.

The problem is that the second most important record store in my life is no longer around. Hasn’t been for years. And even if it was, I’m not sure Jack White would be there, though he would have been welcome.

(The first most important record store? A hole in the wall in New Jersey, which soaked up every bit of available adolescent cash, like a dealer peddling stuff to an underage junkie. A gateway drug.)

For the record, Newark has a number of musical distinctions.

The Stone Balloon, also on Main Street, was the site of some epic performances by not-quite-yet-superstars like Bruce Springsteen. That The Balloon is now a “Winehouse” says something about civic and commercial evolution, though there’s too much loud laughter to tell that story.

The Deer Park, also on Main Street, is even more important musically than The Balloon. George Thorogood and the Destroyers began as George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers, and back then George could be found some Thursday nights at the Park, finishing off the destruction of masses of Newark townies with his guitar.

But this is about I Like It Like That. Main Street had a number of worthwhile places to simultaneously be enlightened and spend/kill lots of time. Two in the pantheon were the world’s greatest and most significant bookstore and I Like It Like That.

Somewhere in space, the sounds of I Like It Like That are still reverbing, though those alien rockers will be missing the feeling of walking through that door into another world (though, technically, they are in another world).

To celebrate, one thing would be a marathon playing of Frampton Comes Alive—the most overbought and traded-in album of all time, at least by ILILT standards. Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.

Better yet, the name of the store is I Like It Like That. So let’s sing:

They got a little place
Across the track
The name of the place is
I Like It Like That
Now, you take Sally
And I’ll take Sue
And we are gonna rock away
All our blues

Now, the last time I was down there
I lost my shoes
They had some cat
Shoutin’ the blues
The people was yellin’
Out for more
And all they were sayin’
Was, ‘Go man go’

Come on, let me show you where it’s at
Come on, let me show you where it’s at
Come on, let me show you where it’s at
The name of the place is
I Like It Like That

Every record store, past, present and future, is where it’s at. BJL, JG and DC—thanks and rock on.