a thing of the past

[awatt]

Not sure if anyone saw this in today's NYTimes, but made me feel quite old, especially as a former employee at Music Plus, selling records, in mid-80s. Now when I go into local record stores, mainly just see gray-hairs like myself....

 

You youngins will feel this way too, eventually.

 

 

July 16, 2006

The Graying of the Record Store

By ALEX WILLIAMS

 

SO this is an evening rush?

 

On a recent Monday, six people

[wheelco]

got a few good ones here - Ace in the hole (close by, smaller)

Magnolia Thunderpussy ( S of OSU)

[street spirit]

the biggest indie store here just expanded a couple of years ago, and despite the ability to preview via the internet, there's still heaps of people waiting to listen to cds on a saturday afternoon. i even do it myself sometimes. its a different sorta thing to sit in a record store for a couple of hours on a rainy day, rather than having had listened to everything already, and just pop in to pick up exactly what you want.

 

the future is not completely bleak.

[mountain bed]

the future is not completely bleak.

Indeed! On a brief venture to Yellow Springs,OH just 15 daze ago to catch NRPS I wandered into a local store & spied the cashier marking LPs w/ a price gun.I was able to check out the quality of the LPs & walked out w/ 10 LPs for $20,including an excellent copy of one of the best live records of the '70's--J. Geils "Full House".

[Analogman]

We have not had one for many years now - nor a bookstore. And I live in a college town. As I mentioned somewhere else - some dude opened one a few months ago - but he has next to nothing in there - seems to be mainly a place for rappers/djs to hang out. I don't see him staying in business very long.

[OOO]

Amoeba isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Its always crowded.

[bobbob1313]

South Florida has no indie music stores.

[awatt]

Glad to see signs of hope--not that I see anything wrong with digital music revolution, but when I walk in to local Atlanta record stores, it's mostly empty and mostly older crowd. But I do love the vibe inside and usually like the music being played. At one store, they have a signed (!!) Wilco poster from Being There tour, which is always a thrill to see.

 

Maybe I'll take a short drive in the car and head to one right now....

 

[Basil II]

The last indie store in my town ( 4000 Holes) does alot of internet business on e-bay.......without that......He would not have been able to keep the doors open.

 

 

-Robert.

[quarter23cd]

got a few good ones here - Ace in the hole (close by, smaller)

Magnolia Thunderpussy ( S of OSU)

Good to hear MT is still around. I wasn't sure if they'd last after moving further away from campus. Where is Ace in the hole?

 

There are absolutely zero record stores, period, where I currently live in CT. We've got a Borders down the road a bit and one of those crappy "we only sell top-40" stores in the mall, but no actual real record stores that I'm aware of.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

South Florida has no indie music stores.

Maybe not, but there are good "new and used" places in Tampa & Brandon, namely Sound Exchange. They deal in "new and used CDs, cassettes, LPs, 45s, VHS Videos, Laser Discs, DVDs and accessories," and, as the name indicates, they will give you cash or credit for old CDs and records.

I just picked up Dick's Picks Vol. 11 there for 13 bucks about a week ago. Not too shabby.

[jff]

Some independent owners are resisting the demographic challenges. Eric Levin, 36, who owns three Criminal Records stores in Atlanta

 

 

Not that it matters, but there's only one Criminal Records store.

[bedbug]

Shake It Records in Cincinnati

 

If you're in Cincy (for some reason), this place is definitely worth a stop.

[mountain bed]

I just picked up Dick's Picks Vol. 11 there for 13 bucks about a week ago. Not too shabby.

A 30 min. '72 Dark Star ain't too shabby,either

Scott

[LouieB]

Vals Halla in Oak Park, IL is closing its doors after 30 years.....sad.

 

LouieB

[Dr. Steve Brule]

 

We're not going anywhere. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and the people in our neighborhood support local businesses. I know that's not the same everywhere though, when I went back to Jacksonville, FL recently-ish there was only one store still open, and they had turned to selling mostly tchochkes. We recently have started selling more used books, but we used wall space that was previously only taken up by posters. We also buy and refurbush turntables so people that want to listen to records have affordable options. There's never a ton of customers in here at one time, but we manage to increase sales every year. I like to believe the indie music buyer likes the connection with an actual item they can hold in their hands, and with a person who cares about what they do. Anyone who works here will talk about music (or anything pop culture really) for as long as possible. You have to pass a test of musical knowledge to work here. I also wouldn't say our customers are oldsters.

 

If stories of the indie stores closing make you sad, make sure you support your local independent store. Sure you can pick up the Thom Yorke for $9.99 at Best Buy, but what if Mom and Pop's down the road closes because of it and your band with its self released CD has nowhere to go? And when you get tired of the Thom Yorke CD and you want to trade it in, is Best Buy going to give you cash or credit towards something else? Can you trade in your iTunes files you bought drunkenly one night back to iTunes? If you really really care about these stores, put your money where your mouth is. Music is my passion, I'm no good at performing or writing, but I am good at listening and trying to drum up interest in others. On my days off I actually go to other indie stores in Chicago and buy more records.

[LouieB]

 

We're not going anywhere.

Thank goodness, where would I spend my time afterwork and my (relatively) hard earned dollars....

 

LouieB

[candyfloss1214]

Vals Halla in Oak Park, IL is closing its doors after 30 years.....sad.

 

LouieB

 

I drove by there yesterday. The last day is July 30.

[Analogman]

Evetually, there will be no record stores or cds for that matter. May be a while - but it will happen.

[aricandover]

Evetually, there will be no record stores or cds for that matter. May be a while - but it will happen.

 

 

people said this about vinyl

[EL the Famous]

people said this about vinyl

 

and opium dens.

 

if it wasn't for indie stores like sam's, I would not have impulsively bought this:

 

i'd be lying if I said didn't take the easy way out and buy stuff from Tower vs. my local indie store (Record Breakers) out here in suburbia, but (like buying something off of iTunes) it's mostly due to my need for instant gratification...not price. I know they can order it for me, but I can usually never wait. that said, I still buy tons of used CD's and the occasional insanely hard to find thing from there...and you can't beat the atmosphere.

[EL the Famous]

but if I lived nearby, I would go into sam's shop quite a bit. nice selection, very cool and not pretencious as some of those places can be.

[P Dub]

Lew Prince has been telling the story of Carter Carburetor for more than a decade. The St. Louis auto-parts maker, he explains, thrived for nearly 40 years by serving the needs of the Big Three.

 

"They did everything right as a company," says Prince, co-owner of Vintage Vinyl in University City (and an RFT opera critic). "They improved their product, their delivery, their pricing." But, he adds, "What they never saw coming was fuel injection. They didn't learn how to make fuel injectors, and they went out of business."

 

The shaggy-bearded Prince first told the carburetor story when Vintage Vinyl was in the middle of a fifteen-year ascendancy that saw gross income jump between 10 and 20 percent per year. By all appearances, the store had few worries, as it was the destination for music fanatics throughout the Midwest. But Vintage and other mom-and-pop record stores saw dark clouds gathering on the horizon: Internet retail. The Carter Carburetor cautionary tale was Prince's way of explaining the need for Vintage Vinyl to adapt to the times.

 

That need is more pressing now than it was a decade ago. The arrival of Internet retailers was a mere portent. File-sharing software such as Napster and LimeWire followed, and signaled a sea change in the way society consumed music. Now, legitimate download stores like iTunes, Rhapsody and eMusic offer legal alternatives to "stealing" music, and consumers are growing more accustomed to storing their music not on shelves but on hard drives. This change has decimated the retail landscape.

 

It's like Carter Carburetor facing not only fuel injection but teleportation.

 

According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks sales data in the music industry, sales at independent retailers in 2006 are down 27 percent from the same period from last year. In 2000 as many as 5,500 independent music stores spanned the nation. At the end of last year, that number had shrunk to 2,600.

 

Vintage Vinyl, despite its sterling reputation, is not immune to the vagaries of the market. Since the boom times of the 1990s, Vintage Vinyl has eliminated nearly half of its 40-person staff. Last year the record store laid off its longtime general manager, Steve Pick, and recently Vintage cut the jobs of three other managers. Pick is now a part-time manager at Euclid Records.

 

While customers could once be assured of finding the best musical selection at Vintage Vinyl, the pickings are now far slimmer. A fan looking for, say, the newest release on the hot Southern Lord Records imprint will come up empty.

 

Even with much advance warning, effective strategies to compete with the monolithic changes in the business have left the store feeling a bit helpless.

 

"I feel like we see it all coming," says Prince, "but it's at a level where perhaps we won't be able to compete."

 

 

 

It is reasonable to ask whether record stores are still relevant. If, for example, one wants to find out about the new Gnarls Barkley CD, or doesn't care to spend hours scouring bins for the best new music, there's Pitchfork (www.pitchforkmedia.com), the eleven-year-old Web magazine that can do the sorting for you. After reading an album's Pitchfork review, one can order the CD from hip online independent stores InSound (www.insound.com) or Other Music (www.othermusic.com), and the e-retailers will send the music the same day. There's no real need to visit Vintage Vinyl.

 

That wasn't the case a decade ago, says a frustrated Tom Ray, who, with Prince, founded Vintage Vinyl 26 years ago at a Soulard Market booth. "For a lot of people in St. Louis, there were two gatekeepers

[Sid Hartha]

All of this may seem blasphemous to many older music enthusiasts, who prefer the tactile pleasure of flipping through discs to find some hidden gem. But the younger crowd seems not to care.

Really? My son and his buddies are bigger vinyl snobs than I ever was. Come to think of it, the record stores I go to still seem pretty busy - and most of the customers seem pretty young.

 

The truth is that most record stores will disappear. I would guess that 90% of people who used to go to stores weren't serious music fans - just casual listeners looking for the latest top 40 release, and are now happy to sit at home and get it online. Those customers are gone forever, and proportionally most of the retail stores with them.

 

A small number of record stores will continue - even thrive, selling to what you might call a 'niche market' (just the same way that vinyl continues to sell, in small - but stable - numbers). The record stores that survive will be the ones that recognize this, and adapt accordingly. Seems like more than a few have already figured this out.

 

Or they can just slowly go under and blame the internet, like that guy who's running Vintage Vinyl.

[Analogman]

people said this about vinyl

 

 

You don't think something such as iTunes will one day be the standard?