One Ninth and O tenant starts over, another delays the inevitable (2024)

A few weeks ago, Stuart Kolnick took a phone call on a Friday afternoon at Recycled Sounds as a few customers milled through the rock records in the back of the cavernous shop at 909 O St.

“Getting ready to move into a new location in the next month or so,” Kolnick told the caller.

In the front of the shop, a couple cardboard boxes sat half-filled with albums. Rolled-up rock band posters leaned against one another. But otherwise, the place looked much like it always does, with records lining the rows of blues, country, soul, rock and other offerings from A to Z.

He hung up, and the phone rang again. This time, it was a longtime customer offering to help box up some of the thousands of records, CDs and posters that haven't yet moved from the store.

“I’m taking anybody that can spend a couple hours here,” Kolnick said.

When the owners of Knickerbockers agreed to sell the property they owned at Ninth and O to developers expected to tear it down and build a 12-story mixed-use building, they decided to close Knickerbockers along with it. The owners of the businesses who rented from them, however, want to keep going.

Kolnick, who remains in search of a feasible new location for his record shop, is still at Ninth and O for the time being. He plans to be open for another week there, maybe a little longer.

“Thank you for calling Recylced Sounds,” Kolnick says on the shop’s answering machine message. “We will be open through the end of February. We are normally open from 1:30 to 9, although I have been running late. But I am normally going to be here till 9 o’clock. If you have any questions, we are still buying vinyl ...”

The owner of the tattoo parlor that had been on the block since 1977 moved in mid-December, soon after learning of the property sale. Call the old number to Hungry Eye Tattoo, and owner Curtis Sorge says: “Welcome to Studio 48. We have moved to 2803 N.W. 48th St., out in Air Park …”

With a new location, he decided it was time for a new name.

“New place, new start, you know?” he said.

Studio 48 increased his parlor space from 240 square feet to 1,800, and he shares it with his next-door neighbor from his Ninth and O days, William “Duffy” Duffield, who runs Duffy’s Exotic Body Piercing and Military Knives. Sorge said he’s had several people from the area stop by the business just to see what filled the space that sat vacant for about two years.

“It’s always been a passion and it’s the only thing I know,” Sorge said. “I know a little about a lot, but it’s always something that’s been in me since I was a little kid doing art.”

He got his first tattoo when he was 19, “a little Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. He’s on my arm.”

The first he gave was a dolphin with a little rose, he said. He remembered being nervous, even though he’d been hanging out at then-owner Ralph Spangler’s parlor for ages before he was permitted to put needle to skin.He bought Spangler out about 17 years ago, and has since left his mark on "Jackass" star and punk musician Bam Margera, drummer Tommy Lee, members of both the football team and the band Jackyl and many repeat customers.

“You know, it’s almost like being a bartender and having the regulars coming in -- you just listen to their stories,” he said. “Sometimes it’s interesting; sometimes you wish you could just put on headphones.”

Sorge said being downtown brought many of those visiting band members into Hungry Eye.

Same for Recycled Sounds, Kolnick said. The proximity of music venues both arena- and club-sized drew music fans and musicians into his shop. He recalled Eric Church’s touring guitarist swinging by to sate a vinyl fix when the country act passed through.

When the downtown property was sold, Sorge said he didn’t consider a career change. Kolnick, who closed the shop for nearly half of November after undergoing surgery to remove kidney stones, said it crossed his mind to get out of the business.

“If you would have asked me three months ago when I was going through all my fun health (issues) and surgeries, there might have been the tiniest shred of, 'it’s time to go do something else',” he said.

But Kolnick said he still enjoys playing records, still enjoys looking at them and still enjoys learning things he didn’t know about the music and sharing that with others. And since vinyl continues to come back, he said, he wants to sell them somewhere that people can pore over the selection.

“People still want to run their fingers through them,” he said.

He said he's looking into several locations in Lincoln, where he wants to stay, and another in Omaha. If those don't pan out, he said,“then I make a phone call and talk to someone in Texas who wants to buy all my records anyway.”

It's the lifer's last option.

"I have a little bit of time," he said. "Not much. But a little bit."