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After 14 years, Fingerprints Music is calling it quits on Downtown Long Beach. The store, known for live music and signings by high-profile acts, said Monday it will relocate by the end of March to a 5,000 square-foot space in Bixby Knolls.
Workers this week were packing cardboard boxes and removing vinyls from racks along the Fourth Street storefront’s outer racks. According to owner Rand Foster, they began moving merchandise to the new location Monday as painters finished up there.
Foster said he hopes to open this month, in time for International Record Store Day on April 12. Once relocated, the shop will likely not have live music until it can acquire the proper city permits.
“We’re still open, and we don’t have a closed day yet,” Foster said, adding store hours will not change and people can follow their social media to stay up-to-date on the relocation.
The decision to move was difficult, Foster said. It was driven by anxieties over three upcoming construction projects within a two-block radius he fears would have hamstrung business with road closures and fewer places to park.
Foster recalled that during the two years of construction at The Linden apartments next door, sales dropped by a quarter as closed roadways and sidewalks made it difficult to access the storefront. The project converted a 70-80 space car lot, and, meanwhile, other nearby parking was routinely taken by building crews.
“We subsidized that building with lost sales and we just can’t do it again; it’s too hard on the customers and too hard on the staff,” Foster said. “It’s just a hit we can’t take.”
Coupled with the fact that Fingerprints’ lease has been month-to-month since 2020, Foster said it was simply the right time to leave.
The new outlet, located at a former hospital supply store at 3811 Atlantic Ave., will be one floor and slightly smaller than the current 6,000-square-foot storefront. But it will have its own parking lot, something Foster said played a major role in the decision.
The new lease is several years long “with a couple options,” Foster said, with the plan “to be there as long as I can probably do it.”
The move brings to a close a nearly 15-year chapter in Downtown Long Beach.
Fingerprints Music first opened along Second Street in Belmont Shore in 1992, “on a shoestring, with some crazy dreams and a credit card cash advance,” as their website states.
Between two locations, it spent its first 18 years in the Belmont Shore area before moving to the Downtown storefront in February 2011. From thereon, it was 14 years of live music — 70 shows a year and not a complaint by the neighbors, Foster said.
Fingerprints landed a range of musicians, from obscure rockabilly singers to Foo Fighters and Sparklehorse — one of Foster’s favorite acts. It also hosted signings with legends like Ozzy Osbourne, which drew 2,300 attendees. “The line was eleven blocks long,” Foster said.
It stood, and continues to stand, as proof that no format may supplant the vinyl LP, which finds a continuing strength in sales, and that a record store finds success through an inexact science: careful attention to independent releases, knowing which records are popular in Europe — and Australia — and what’s being played by the next generation of music lovers.
Foster said moving from Downtown is bittersweet.
“Leaving our 4th Street location has been a very emotional decision for us,” Foster wrote in a release. “This building is full of magic and memories… but we believe our customers will love the neighborhood atmosphere of Bixby Knolls.”
Reflecting on the store, Foster said he’ll always remember its ability to surprise him, thinking back to a live show the week before. Seated in the far back, Foster said he noticed a wink of flashing lights strewn across the rear windows that made a unique shade of periwinkle blue.
“I hadn’t seen it before, and I just thought, ‘We’ve been here almost fifteen years and I’m still surprised by what a beautiful place this is,’” he said. “I’m going to miss it.”