Willie Burns is a man with fingers in many pies. He’s released his own music under Grackle & Black Deer amongst other aliases on forward thinking labels such as L.I.E.S., The Trilogy Tapes & Creme Organization. As well as DJing under Speculator and heading up his label W.T. Records, he also runs his own record shop, The Thing in Brooklyn, where we stopped by for an afternoon to sample some of the nuggets deep inside some of his dustiest crates.

“This is just one aisle of records in the basement: crates on crates in front of shelves on shelves.”

“”Digging for Dummies”: kind of rude but functional sign written by a former employee.”

“Any good record store needs a listening station.”

“You can move and stack the crates all you want, just keep them full.”

“That’s the 45 room. 2 for a $1”

 “We got a lot more stuff than just records. We got everything.”