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Get Hip at Mt. Lebanon residents’ new North Side store

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 3 min read
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When three members of the Cynics formed Get Hip Recordings in 1986, their impetus was to release the rock band’s records on their own terms.

Three decades later, guitarist and Mt. Lebanon resident Gregg Kostelich has come full circle by opening the Get Hip Store, which has much of its space dedicated to carrying the prevailing recording medium when the Cynics got their start: vinyl.

The store is in the same North Side building at 1800 Columbus Ave. where he and his wife, Barbara Garcia-Bernardo, run the Get Hip operation. The label releases music of a wide variety of styles from all over the world and recently launched its Archive Series, reissuing music from the 1950s and ’60s, and Folk Series for singer-songwriters.

“No store can afford to stock everything that we believe in or love, Barbara and I,” Kostelich explained. “So I just said, look, I think it’s important to show everybody all the options there are in music from every genre.”

Take a look around, and you’re likely to find LPs you haven’t seen since the ’70s or CDs you never knew existed. As for younger folks who are discovering the allure of vinyl in the digital era, here’s an example of a 19-year-old customer who left the shop with something special for his turntable:

“He bought the original Deep Purple ‘Book of Taliesyn,’ sealed, with the sticker: featuring ‘Kentucky Woman,'” Kostelich said about the future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees’ long-out-of-print second album from 1968.

For organizational purposes, he decided to arrange the LPs purely by alphabetical order, instead of following the once-common practice of sectioning by genre, which can be a challenge.

“I am not going to say, ‘Johnny Cash was country at this point. Then he was mainstream pop here,'” Kostelich explained. “Pink Floyd’s psychedelic, and really they’re middle-of-the-road rock from ‘Wish You Were Here,'” he said about the legendary British band’s 1975 best-seller. “So where do you go with it?”

One section, though, specifically is for Get Hip products, where customers can find everything from the archival collection of ’60s recordings by the Arondies – the McKeesport trio’s claim to fame was the instrumental “69” – to selections from the Cynics’ catalogue.

Undguarded Moments

Along with the store, Kostelich and Garcia-Bernardo have refurbished another room in the building as a multipurpose events center, where Barbara, a registered yoga teacher, plans to conduct classes. His emphasis, of course, is music, and an area is set up with microphone stands, amplifiers and a percussion kit with “The Cynics” emblazoned on the bass drum.

On Nov. 24, they are hosting photographer Theresa Kereakes and her “Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond” exhibit, featuring images from the punk-rock scene in late-’70s New York City. Frank Secich, who performed with punk legend Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys, will play live at 7 p.m.

Other musical acts during the weekend are Ploughman’s Lunch at 7 p.m. Nov. 25 and Slim Forsythe, Stephen Sciulli and Zack Keim, starting at 5 p.m. Nov. 26.

For more information, visit www.gethip.com/site.

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