Needle Vinyl Bar

Review

Put one on

Photo: Heribert Corn You're not really used to it anymore. That CHRT-CHRT-CHRT-CHRT-CHRT sound of the needle on hold. But at the new Needle Vinyl Bar you can experience this acoustic retro experience, not least because Erlind Kasemi, Arber Qarri and Argient Kokalla, three economics students with roots in Kosovo, are both DJs and bartenders, thirdly hosts and fourthly a bit at home here. And then it can happen that a record runs out. There are so many fancy bars in Vienna anyway, so many well-equipped trendy places, says Arber Qarri, they simply wanted to create a kind of second living room for themselves and for people who just want to spend some time with a nice drink and some music from used records. A good idea, and they chose one of the most bizarre pubs in Vienna at the time, Café Cats, a truly gloomy place that people who were looking for a place to go to always gave it a wide berth. And it also took them five months to gut the place, says Arber, "there were tiles glued to tiles ..." Now there are no more tiles, but gray screed, a brick wall, an old Persian carpet, a few Caritas armchairs, a swing, a somewhat dramatic-looking bar, a low ceiling with all kinds of vinyl-religious statement graffiti such as "Buy vinyl, go to heaven" or "no CDs, no tapes, just records". And, of course, the two essential elements of the Needle Vinyl Bar: a shelf with currently around 800 second-hand records from the jazz, blues and rock'n'roll categories and an old German secretary in the middle of the bar, on which two Pro-Ject turntables (Heinz Lichtenegger started this company almost 30 years ago, today his purist devices are among the darlings of both the DJ scene and the analog congregation) stand.
When it comes to food and drink, they tend to keep a low profile in terms of equipment, although they do take coffee very seriously - when they recently had problems with the coffee machine, they stopped selling coffee altogether, "rather not sell any than mediocre" - and a specially developed cocktail called "Dizzy Bee" is also coming soon, with honey, strawberries, ginger, Havana Club and Markus Altrichter's Old Judge Falernum rum liqueur, which is rather sweeter. But there are also a few beers, a few wines, a few of the usual spirits and toast - as in almost every place that plays records, interestingly enough. In summary: a small, cosy middle ground between a bar, café and club, where the focus is on atmosphere and analogue record playing. Needle Vinyl Bar 1st, Färberg. 8 Tel. 0660/535 23 25 Mon-Sat 11am-1pm, Sun 2pm-1am www.facebook.com/needlebar

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