The move to 8700 Georgia Ave. turned out to be more complicated than expected, says the store’s owner, Johnson Lee. He’d planned to reopen the shop last month, but he says he didn’t realize he needed to obtain a building permit from Montgomery County to open a retail operation in the building’s basement.

The space was previously occupied by Hearts & Homes for Youth, a nonprofit now headquartered in Burtonsville. In Montgomery County, a commercial change of use requires a new building permit.

“When you have a change of use at the place, you have to really do a lot more, and think about fulfilling requirements that you just may not know about,” Lee says, “and that is a risk.”

While Lee scrambles to meet county requirements, Joe’s Record Paradise remains closed. Most challenging, he says, is missing out on annual vinyl event Record Store Day this weekend.

“Not having that nice chunk from Record Store Day I was going to use to pay off things” is difficult, Lee says. He adds that he’s been selling off his personal record collection to make ends meet.

Lee says he’s especially concerned about retaining staff during the transition. “I just want to be able to get my employees taken care of,” the store owner says.

The GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $5,000 as of Friday morning.

Photo by Flickr user David Hilowitz used under a Creative Commons license.

According to H.R.’s wife, Lori Carns Hudson, the veteran performer (aka Paul Hudson) was diagnosed in December with a rare and painful condition called SUNCT, which stands for short-lasting, unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing.

“He’s been getting headaches for about 10 years,” says Hudson, who lives with H.R. in Philadelphia. “He used to think they were migraines but it’s been very, very strange. They’ve progressively gotten worse until they culminated in November [to the point] where he’s just constantly in pain.”

The couple’s friend, Brian Marsh, started a GoFundMe campaign Monday to help Hudson cover her husband’s medical treatment and other expenses. The campaign aims to raise $30,000.

Hudson says H.R., who has struggled with physical and mental issues for years, is unable to work.

“He goes out and takes a very brief walk every day,” she says, “but he mostly just relaxes and watches TV.”

Hudson supports him with income from her retail job, and she’s begun selling H.R. artwork (like the above) for extra money. Meanwhile, her insurance covers some of her husband’s medical expenses. But conventional treatment has only helped so much.

“We’ve been through a lot of doctors … [and] the medical community does not understand this specific type of headache,” she says. She would like to try herbal remedies — Hudson herself is an herbalist — but those aren’t covered by health insurance.

Money raised from the GoFundMe campaign would help pay for alternative treatment and other expenses, like traveling to see medical specialists.

Friends have suggested that H.R. try psychoactive drugs like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, but Hudson rejects the idea.

“He would never do any kind of psychoactive drugs,” Hudson says. “So it’s not something that we will be trying.” But she adds that they are looking into CBD oil, a common medical marijuana treatment.

Hudson says despite H.R.’s chronic pain, he maintains a positive outlook. “He really does live that PMA,” she says, referring to Bad Brains’ philosophy of a positive mental attitude. “He still has a smile on his face every day — even though he’s spending most of the night sobbing and crying out because the pain is just so much.”

So far, the campaign for H.R. has raised nearly $6,000.

There is also an ongoing GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Dr. Know, the Bad Brains guitarist who suffered a heart attack and organ failure last year. That campaign has raised more than $40,000 since it launched last week.