Remembering Bob Setlik

Bob Setlik passed away December 7, 2024 from cancer. He was a mentor, influence and supportor to many Detroit area musicians, record collectors, and music lovers. Through Car City Records and the performances he sponsored in the New Music Society series, Setlik left an indelible mark on the local scene. He treated customers and colleagues with respect and honesty. Music lovers of all kind fell into Car City and one would often bump into visiting musicians, fanatic buyers and foreigners searching for treasure. Many of the oddest, rarest and most obscure items found their way to Car City where imports were common and at one point there may’ve been a silent partner from Japan secretly stocking the bins. Legend has it that R. Crumb traded the store’s logo design for rare 78s he scored there. After retirement, Bob could be seen every summer (except the last one) at the Detroit Book Fest, where he’d be selling off old music books, poetry, radical lit, and a crate or two of bargain-bin records. He loved the festival and came back mainly to meet old friends. Bob was also a friend and supporter at Book Beat and we wanted to honor his memory with stories from co-workers, colleagues and friends with a few lifted from online sources, thank you all.

From the Car City Records FB Page Dec 8, 2024:

Yesterday we lost one of the heroes of the record world – many of us lost a friend and mentor. Car City Records boss, Robert Setlik lost his battle with cancer.

Over the course of over 50 years in the biz of music, books, supporting the arts/artists, wild stories, recommendations and much more – Bob touched thousands and thousands of lives directly or tangentially, for the better.

Much love and good vibrations to Bob’s lovely wife Sandy and the rest of the extended family at this time.

I hope there are good weird records wherever you are now.
RIP Bob, we’re gonna miss you.

Pat Frisco, jazz afficianado and friend:

I had shopped for records at Car City for years and came to know Bob, who would special order a lot of avant-garde jazz that was difficult to find at that time. Bob and Warren Westfall began to produce concerts in the area and hosted the David S Ware Quartet at Alvin’s Delicatessen. The band featured pianist Matthew Shipp so Bob and Warren were forced to rent a grand piano for the gig. I mentioned to Bob that Henry Ford College, where I was hosting an avant-jazz radio program, had a large band room with multiple grand pianos.Thus began our involvement together in the New Music Society, providing the community with live music that was lacking in our area.

Bob and I would become good friends as a result and we discovered a mutual love of music, good red wine and baseball. Many nights were spent tipping a glass, listening to Xenakis and Peter Brotzmann records and watching the Tigers on television. Bob would join me at WHFR Radio, hosting “Delusions and Furies” on Sunday afternoons where he could share his great knowledge and love of music via the airwaves. Memorable music festivals in New York City, Chicago and Victoriaville Quebec would follow and then the introduction of Bob to my neighbor Sandy that would end up in marriage after Bob retired and moved to Indiana. I’d see and hear less from Bob, especially after his move to Indianapolis, but I’ll always be grateful for the enlightenment that Bob shared with myself and the world that he came in contact with.

Matthew Smith, Car City employee and musician:

Bob was a source of endless knowledge about music, literature, cinema and especially the more avant-garde and experimental side of things. After his military service in the 60’s, he was a film critic in Boston, then a collector and dealer of rare jazz records on the West Coast, and then he ended up owning Car City Records in the 90’s, becoming an integral part of the Detroit music scene.

All the musicians in town hung out there, and many of us worked there too, all of us discovering all kinds of music back in those pre-internet days. Bob saw to it that Car City had a staff of the most knowledgeable music folks around. He was also involved with promoting concerts and playing weird stuff on the radio. Bob once booked me and Michael Dec as an electric guitar duo opening for Derek Bailey. He also helped to start the Detroit Electric label, which released the 1995 compilation CD “Lighting a Match Underwater”, documenting the Detroit underground music scene at that time.

Bob also had a lot of stories to tell, like the time he picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be Jimi Hendrix, or the time Howlin’ Wolf came offstage to convince a lady with a knife not to stab Bob just because he’d declined an invitation to dance with her. We are all going to miss Bob.

Mike Rubin, music journalist, from his IG Page:

When you spend as much time in record stores as I have for the last half-century, the owners & employees can become like extended family, & their shops’ inventory & selections—as well as their personal tastes & collective wisdom—help shape the listener you become. The community—nay, SANCTUARY—these brick & mortar establishments provide is crucial, & the flesh & blood interactions that occur there will ALWAYS trump any algorithm. The foundation of my jazz collection was mined at Car City between the 1980s & its 2011 closure, & I’m grateful for the guidance that Bob & his staff provided. Condolences to his family, friends, & former customers, & please pour one out for Car City & fellow shuttered oases like Sam’s Jam’s, Schoolkids, Record Time (Roseville AND Ferndale), Vibes New & Rare Music, St. Mark’s Sounds, Kim’s Underground, Other Music, Sonic Groove, Dance Tracks, & Turntable Lab.

Every day is potentially Record Store Day, so please support current shops like @somewhere_in_detroit, @threads_detroit, @peoples_records, @streetcornermusicltd, @circle_game_detroit, @spotlitedetroit, @ergotrecords, @recordgrouch, @360recordshop, & any other independent businesses that make you feel right at home.

Ben Blackwell, Third Man Records, musical archivist, IG page comment:

Absolute legend. He once told me he was the first white guy to ever sell at a record show in Japan. Brought over primo Blue Note, Impulse and the like and sold out insanely fast. He was told by the local Japanese dealers that the custom was whomever sold out of all their records first had to buy the drinks for all the other dealers. When he returned the next year, he purposefully hid/held back a box until someone ELSE had sold all their records so that he wouldn’t be on the hook for drinks two years in a row. Classic Bob. Really gonna miss this guy.

Lenni Bukowski, musician and friend:

Bob Setlik was a man of many tales. Who told few. Who made Formica cool in his home in St. Clare Shores, a home festooned with 50’s style. Coffee tables laden with art books, shelves of writings from the content and discontent. Who kept thousands of records in his basement.

Who, from his store Car City Records, ran a business known for its’ quality and quantity of music moods. Who employed, for the most part, the unemployable. artists, writers, musicians ne’er do-wells. Who possessed a knowledge of various and sundry wisdom and idiosyncrasies forged over a life of blazing one’s own trail.

Who drove a car with me and Cary and a person now forgotten down 696 to Greenfield to BookBeat one afternoon so long ago. Who played the Brother Ahh (Robert Northern) cd ‘Sound Awareness’ just released and of course CarCity always had the music first. Who smiled as we all screamed along with Max Roach screaming “lovelovelove” on tune ‘Love Piece.’

Who brought music to Detroit and environs. Who supported the arts as best he could. Who would embody a Detroit culture. Who wore black as a religion, hipster cool.

Who gave it all up and moved to Beverly Shores, Indiana, to dwell near dunes and a lake. Who vanished into a wilderness. Who is no longer with us. Who I will always remember.

Ryan Mathews, author and friend:

I can’t remember the actual first day I met Bob but I vividly remember our first “conversation”. It wasn’t long, but as I said, it was memorable. Somebody, presumably a customer, had placed a brand new released CD on a sales shelf. When I took it up to the register Bob wanted to charge me full price. I explained where I had gotten it and that it therefore should be mine at the sale price.

Sitting at the register and staring through me with all the fixed and appropriate distain of an English headmaster at a school for delinquent children getting ready to levy some horrible punishment, he told me to take it up with the idiot customer who had put it in the wrong spot, not him.

He stopped perilously close to telling me exactly where to put it.

Over the years I watched him drive out teenagers looking for the latest Brittany Spears albums “because we sell music here, not that crap”, lose patience with “expert” customers trying to explain classical music to him, and suffer other of the various indignities that come with the job of selling culture to the masses through an open door.

And – at least I like to think – we became friends.

The best times were when the store was slow and he’d begin talking about his early forays as a writer or when he would ecstatically show off a rare Northern Soul 45 he had discovered at the bottom of a box of useless, scratched up singles he had paid $4.00 for.
If you let him, he could take you deep into an amazing number of musical genres beyond the classical and jazz that much of his popular reputation rested on and discuss the “right” costs of various sizes of Godzilla models. He liked Godzilla maybe because he, much like the giant green monster, might scare off the bad guys with a single glance but would always come through to save the good guys in the end.
He visited me several times in my studio in the Russell Industrial Center and at The People’s Arts Festival but I knew I had finally made the “A List” when he came to my house for a visit.

I always respected how his staff – mostly musicians – like Matt Smith, Dion Fischer, John Nash, Geoff Walker, Tom Potter, and so, so many more managed to evaporate onto a tour only to somehow rematerialize back behind the counter. And I respected how he respected them, their talents, and their insights into forms of music that may not have always matched up with his personal aesthetic profile – even if that respect was often communicated in ways that were … well let’s just say … nontraditional.

Thomas F. Lynch, IG Page:

Bob Setlik hired me thirty years ago December 10th, 1994. It was a rough patch of time for myself. Car City and the staff were a great new bunch of coworkers/friends, I learned a lot from Bob and my new friends. Instore play was unmatched in my experience, nothing was off limits or barred from being played. Bob really allowed the freedom of play for adventurous ears. Bob cracked me up playing a Xenakis recording and mimicking the sounds coming through the speakers, like a kid would. He told me stories of booking Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, John Cage, his harrowing adventures in Vietnam. Or his record trading with Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar. Nothing was a surprise when Bob was telling it to you, of course. Through the digital grapevine I’ve learned that Bob lost his battle with cancer this morning. Another teacher has moved on and I’m ever grateful for having learned from you, Bob Setlik. A completely original cat.

Chris Flannagan from Street Corner Music:[reconstructed from a New Year’s Eve conversation after a couple Proseccos-Ed.]

Setlik would constantly beat us and other dealers out of the best collections in town. He knew exactly what to buy —and could size up a collection quickly and make offers that were spot on perfect. Later, I’d be talking with the sellers and they’d say, “That other guy that was here before you wasn’t very friendly but he just offered more and I had to go with his offer.” Bob wasn’t the most charming to people he didn’t know, and appeared gruff and off-putting to some, and maybe that’s what made him good in business. The other thing was Bob would just hop on a plane at a moment’s notice and go see a collection anywhere if it was good enough -not many dealers would do that. He knew the market for records maybe better than anyone and I respected that.

Geoff Walker, musician and co-worker at Car City

I had the pleasure of working at Car city Records from 1994-1999. I worked at several Michigan record stores, and this was NOT the usual employment situation.

Bob paid us more than minimum wage AND gave us an hour paid lunch. We got bonuses. And insurance.

Bob let us play ANYthing over the in-store speakers.

Car City was an awesome locus of talent. During my tenure there, all but one or two of my fellow employees were artists, musicians, promoters, DJs, and radio personalities. We were the scene.

Bob hung out with us after hours, booked our bands, and released our music; he supported us. He often looked the other way at our wild behavior, and sometimes encouraged it. At the same time he expected us to be good employees with deep musical knowledge.

He taught me so many important things. Many of them were direct and about records. As time has gone on I’ve realized many of them were unspoken and not about records.

I miss Bob.

Warren Westfall owner of The Record Collector, Livonia:

I first met Bob when he came into The Record Collector’s first location in northwest Detroit. He bought 45’s that I thought almost disposible. He introduced me to the collectability of Northern Soul records. Quiet and reserved it became obvious to me rather quickly that he had more knowledge of music across many genre’s than anyone I had ever met. I began to look forward to his visits.

Never in an arrogant way he was always generous in sharing his vast knowledge. Slowly we became friends and found many shared interests in music. In hindsight I now see him as my mentor. He opened many vistas in music that I had only minimal knowledge of. Contemporary Classical being one of many.

I don’t remember the origins of our founding The New Music Society. An organization for presenting Avant Jazz in concert setting. I do remember we had no illusions about its profitability. An inverted Amway model. We expected to lose money. The question was how much and how many others could we enroll in sharing the risk spreading out the losses. We had many events with him, myself and Pat Frisco. Concerts that I am proud to have been a participant in presenting.

There are several stories I could tell, and one was when Bob was serving in Vietnam. On leave he chose to go to India in search of Beatles 78 RPM records. That truly impressed me.

One adventure I took with him was attending a music festival in Toronto dedicated to Maurico Kagel. It was a pilgrimage to what was a shrine for me. Held in the Glenn Gould studios of the CBC. Bob also introduced me to the films of Yasujiro Ozu that weekend.

There were many evenings at both our homes that were salon settings. Several people in attendence sharing favorite records. Drinking wine. Something that once that time had passed you realized the specialness of what had happened.

With the closing of Car City Records and his moving to the Chicago area our relationship dissapated. Many people have been impressed by my range and knowledge of music. Few will ever know that Bob Setlik was a major source of that aquired eclecticisam. I have often thought of him over the past several years. When one reaches a certain age we acknowledge the inevitability of all our passing. Bob as an individual I will miss. His cultural contribution to the Detroit Metropolitan Area is / was immeasurable.

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