Friends and Family, as you may know, Billy passed away last Saturday after battling brain cancer for the last 10 months. Billy was the most alive person I’ve ever met. A man who had too many good ideas in one day. He would hang out in the green room with you when your band played at his venues. He treated entire shifts at the record shop like a 7-hour long dj set and he would say: “Don’t you just wish you could listen to every song at the same time.” Billy had the rare gift of feeling comfortable walking into any room and not changing who he was. He spent his life walking into rooms we all might have been intimidated by and then leaving the door open behind him. It seemed like every business he started boils down to: What’s the best way to hang out? What’s the best way to hang out at a bar; What’s the best way to hang out at a music venue; What’s the best way to hang out at a record store. Billy’s Record Salon had been a dream of his for a long time. He started collecting records in 2018 with the idea of opening a shop. In early 2023 he was on his way to lunch at Baby Blues Luncheonette and saw the empty storefront at 133 Manhattan Ave. A couple months later the shop was open. He taught me to lead with passion over practicality and just figure it out once you need to. He lead with chaos and in some mad way everything always worked out. I showed up on the second day the shop was open. After an hour of digging through cardboard boxes full of records and feeling the buzz of all the people in the store I decided I never wanted to leave. I told Billy I’d be back next weekend to begin working at the shop. Billy said he’d pay me in records, probably assuming the whole thing was a joke. I showed up the next weekend right at 9am. I don’t think Billy thought I would stick around until closing time, or for the next two years. At the end of my shift Billy handed me MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams” and a Wah-Wah guitar pedal. This was my pay for the day. Even once Billy brought me on as his employee he still sent me home some days with handfuls of records: Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, Linda Cohen’s Leda, Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine. Over the following weeks…[cont’d below]