The Top Ten Records that Recently Sold at Hospital Productions on East 3rd

In 2009, the traditional practice of exchanging physical copies of records for money is a trade that might best be called quixotic. But New Yorkers are stubborn people, and the record store is not dead. Below, the top ten records that actually sold in the last week at a store near you.

The shades are drawn in Hospital Productions on a sunny Thursday in the East Village. "It keeps out the riff-raff," says owner Dominick Fernow. The store is an extension of the noise-rock record label Fernow started in high school. Fernow, 28, is the sole employee. He works seven days a week, compiling noise and underground metal from around the world. There's a shelf that holds 1,000 tapes, along with rows of experimental, atonal CDs and LPs. On the wall is a massive painting of Lee Harvey Oswald; across from it is a glass case of smashed mic's from Fernow's own confessional noise project, Prurient. The phone to Hospital is permanently disconnected. "I want to give people a reason to actually still come to a record store," he says.

Fernow wasn't too keen on the idea of surrendering an exact top 10, saying "that's not really what we do." Instead, here is what he says is popular at the moment, in no particular order:

1. Skull Flower - Malediction (Second Layer Records)
2. Ancestors - (Tour de Garde)
3. Cold Cave - The Trees Grew Emotions and Died (Dais Records)
4. Consumer Electronics - Crowdpleaser (Hand to Mouth)
5. Burning Star Core - Challenger (Hospital Productions)
6. Tamaryn - Led Astray Washed Ashore (Troubleman)
7. Realicide - Resisting the Viral Self (Youth Records)
8. Emeralds - Solar Bridge (Hanson Records)
9. Wolf Eyes - Always Wrong (Hospital Productions)
10. Prurient - Cocaine Death (Hospital Productions)

Hospital Productions is located at 60 E. 3rd Street, between 1st and 2nd Ave. Open 12pm-8pm daily.