Has your independent record store closed yet?

Just out of curiosity, because Schoolkids' Records in Chapel Hill will close its doors due to slumping sales.

nearly. the two in town have started selling music related books, t shirts and prints. one shop is a block away from campus and the other in the major retail district and neither one is ever busy. It's not looking good.

Used to be 4 or 5 small record stores here way back in the mists of time.Now the only place yer can actually buy cds round here is Tescos , Woolworths etc..

no, hope this helps

In my youth, you could spend a whole day crawling from shop to shop.

Nowadays, the town is twice larger and except hardcore techno shops (two or three) and an excellent reggae shop (you smell it more than you hear it), you have a FNAC, a Virgin and then suburbian hypermarkets.

Note : Downloading music is part of these closures in my opinion. Nothing to do with companies' benefits and all. In local shops, you had second hand records so that collectors could be found... Today, with digital formats, no chance to grab such a grail...

johnny wrote: Used to be 4 or 5 small record stores here way back in the mists of time.Now the only place yer can actually buy cds round here is Tescos , Woolworths etc..

So sad, so common...

there's still two great ones in Eugene, and one in Salem, that I greatly support, but I have to drive half an hour or so to get to them.

Portland still has the mighty Music Millenium, always a great way to while away a rainy afternoon. Sad to say though that both Ozone stores have gone under, the guy who started it all when it was the Ooze also started Soleilmoon Records.

No record shops left in my town.My nearest proper shop is FOPP in Cambridge.A mere 30 miles away!!:\ohwell:

Main indy shop closed bout 4 years ago. Were only left with HMV and woolies

Music Millenium closed last August, after 30 years in business, done in by t'internet. One thing special about Millenium, apart from its extensive new and used collection, was its stage-- bands playing in town would often stop by to do a free gig.

Try doing that with an iPod.

isaac wrote: No record shops left in my town.My nearest proper shop is FOPP in Cambridge.A mere 30 miles away!!:\ohwell:

And that's only really good for cheap back catalogue stuff... Cambridge really is shite for buying music... Both of my favourite haunts for record-buying are long gone now... Avid Record in Oxford and Strawberry Fields in Rickmansworth (maybe Hooky's Six String Bass remembers that?)... Suppose t'net has compensated (and contributed) in some way but it ain't the same...

Snorri xxx

Indies are still surviving in NYC. Most of my friends who visit from out of town spent at least 1 day going from shop to shop. However, in my hometown of buffalo, home of the hits closed and i'm sure its hard to find anything obscure there now.

Comrade Shampanyov wrote: Music Millenium closed last August, after 30 years in business, done in by t'internet. One thing special about Millenium, apart from its extensive new and used collection, was its stage-- bands playing in town would often stop by to do a free gig.

Try doing that with an iPod.

The only indie music store in DeLand, Steve's Downtown Music, is still standing after about, erm... 8 or 9 years?

I'd rather walk half an hour to Steve's store and find something good that he ordered for me than walk 15 minutes to Wal*Mart and not find anything worth my ears. It's my favorite store to go to. And Steve was one of my first friends I made after I moved to DeLand almost 5 years ago.

Every now and then he'd rearrange his shelves of stuff to make room for the stage for visiting and local bands to visit and perform. That's where I went to my very first gig--a local band known as Pax Meus. Three years ago. Good times.

Got all my JD/NO, Kraftwerk, Bloc Party and Radiohead albums there.

Damn. I've been to Chapel Hill once, in high school looking at colleges and I bought my first Joy Division and Smiths posters there. Made the trip worthwhile, and blissfully free of people with tar heels painted on their faces.

Mine is still open (Tunes, in Hoboken NJ), thank God.

even music zone (which is a chain) has shut down.record shop in great harwood and clitheroe though.i had the option to consider a job in the clitheroe one,which would be my dream job really,but pay was very low really

it's really sad...

either they have closed or got smaller.

not only that, most of their inventories now are VIDEOS!

Indeed!

Can I make the point that these stores are businesses, and if you fuckers stopped downloading stuff they might be in business?

Lack of internet marketing might be a big factor too; I'm sure some places would've survived if they'd used the internet resource available, rather than rely on geeks walking through the door, who now use the net.

At least the largest indie record store I know of is still, just about, going.

http://www.beanos.co.uk/

Mine closed a few weeks ago and good riddance. The staff sucked, music was overpriced and disorganized. Worst of all it either stunk of patchouli or someone's stinky feet.

I'll take Itunes over that any day.

Chris Nash wrote: There will come a time when almost all have closed down.

THEN would be the good time to open a great second hand place - corner the market.

The internet can't compete with the following:

Meet Notting Hill at 10am

Coffee at 10:15

Record & Tape Exchange 10.45

Sort through thousands of rarities and buy a couple 12.00

Sit in pub and proudly show your purchases to your friend while carefully removing price stickers 12.00 - 13.00

Go back to store and rummage more 13.00 to 14.30

Drink more beer, peel schtickers and chat abowt msuic you've bought 14.30 to 16.00

Go to next music store and buy all the crap you can still afford with the change you won on the fruit machine 16.00 to 18.00

Go bakc to the pub and look at more pruchases hic and relasie that you boughhgt losts of shiet. 18.00 to 20.00

Get train hmoe singing with yer best mate in the wrold and lose all your pruchases hic on the way 20.00 to 21.30

Shit I mean sit in a pub and reminisce about those pruchases that grot away 21.30 to 23.00

Go home and annoyy the neighboursh by playing the stuff you manadged not to loosh on yer way home. 23.45 to 04.00

Fall asleep 04.00 to....

Sounds like a perfect day to me!

violaine wrote:

Chris Nash wrote: There will come a time when almost all have closed down.

THEN would be the good time to open a great second hand place - corner the market.

The internet can't compete with the following:

Meet Notting Hill at 10am

Coffee at 10:15

Record & Tape Exchange 10.45

Sort through thousands of rarities and buy a couple 12.00

Sit in pub and proudly show your purchases to your friend while carefully removing price stickers 12.00 - 13.00

Go back to store and rummage more 13.00 to 14.30

Drink more beer, peel schtickers and chat abowt msuic you've bought 14.30 to 16.00

Go to next music store and buy all the crap you can still afford with the change you won on the fruit machine 16.00 to 18.00

Go bakc to the pub and look at more pruchases hic and relasie that you boughhgt losts of shiet. 18.00 to 20.00

Get train hmoe singing with yer best mate in the wrold and lose all your pruchases hic on the way 20.00 to 21.30

Shit I mean sit in a pub and reminisce about those pruchases that grot away 21.30 to 23.00

Go home and annoyy the neighboursh by playing the stuff you manadged not to loosh on yer way home. 23.45 to 04.00

Fall asleep 04.00 to....

Sounds like a perfect day to me!

That used to be a PERFECT Saturday for me! Used to finish at Post Office at 12.30, burn down to Manchester,meet my mates, look down stairs in Underground market,which you used to go downstairs off Market Street.Used to be a mother and daughter who were both Numan fans and ran a Record stall together.Go to Piccadilly Records,which is still around but moved up road;there used to be POWERCUTZ near the Temple toilet (sorry bar)which used to do mega cheap imports.Bought Guitar & Other Machines by Durutti for about £2 in there;Record Peddler,a great place to find NO and Chameleons rareties,then go and have a few "blobs" down at YATES on High Street.And compare what we got..."I got ALL THESE for £15!" At least there's still Piccadilly Records and Vinyl Revival,Vinyl Exchange despite the name,didn't have so much VINYL in last time I went in. Is it me or have Record Fairs fizzled out? Used to see posters up advertising it on at C.I.S. Building or downstairs at Sashas.But you never see anything advertised anymore.

Chris Nash wrote: There will come a time when almost all have closed down.

THEN would be the good time to open a great second hand place - corner the market.

The internet can't compete with the following:

Meet Notting Hill at 10am

Coffee at 10:15

Record & Tape Exchange 10.45

Sort through thousands of rarities and buy a couple 12.00

Sit in pub and proudly show your purchases to your friend while carefully removing price stickers 12.00 - 13.00

Go back to store and rummage more 13.00 to 14.30

Drink more beer, peel schtickers and chat abowt msuic you've bought 14.30 to 16.00

Go to next music store and buy all the crap you can still afford with the change you won on the fruit machine 16.00 to 18.00

Go bakc to the pub and look at more pruchases hic and relasie that you boughhgt losts of shiet. 18.00 to 20.00

Get train hmoe singing with yer best mate in the wrold and lose all your pruchases hic on the way 20.00 to 21.30

Shit I mean sit in a pub and reminisce about those pruchases that grot away 21.30 to 23.00

Go home and annoyy the neighboursh by playing the stuff you manadged not to loosh on yer way home. 23.45 to 04.00

Fall asleep 04.00 to....

my favourite post so far this year

Comrade Shampanyov wrote: Music Millenium closed last August, after 30 years in business, done in by t'internet. One thing special about Millenium, apart from its extensive new and used collection, was its stage-- bands playing in town would often stop by to do a free gig.

Try doing that with an iPod.

A Music Millenium closed, not the original Music Millenium on the eastside, still as cozy (and as busy, judging from what I saw a couple of weeks ago, as ever.)

Beyond Good And Evil wrote:

Comrade Shampanyov wrote: Music Millenium closed last August, after 30 years in business, done in by t'internet. One thing special about Millenium, apart from its extensive new and used collection, was its stage-- bands playing in town would often stop by to do a free gig.

Try doing that with an iPod.

A Music Millenium closed, not the original Music Millenium on the eastside, still as cozy (and as busy, judging from what I saw a couple of weeks ago, as ever.)

True, not the original. I haven't been there in ages though-- the one that closed was much closer to me. Is there a stage at the original? I don't recall...

Another indie that's closed down and reopened and closed down several times has been Ozone Records.

Well a local Record & Tape Traders near me closed. Selection was limited selection & a shit location in a strip mall next to a DVD porn store in a crap part of town.

The stores in my area are Borders (meh-wannabe coffee house twats) and Best Buy-decent selection( I found Husker Du!!) but worst atmosphere I have ever seen in a store-"Worst Buy"

Working at Tower Records made me love a great record store. Okay it was a "chain store" but deep catalog and was most fun I ever had getting paid. It was cause I never got paid a lot!!

I'll never work in another record store again. Most are going away and well I will always compare record stored to my Tower and they will always lose.

I still have the occasional customer at my current sales job say how they loved my Tower store and that I really knew my music. It still makes me feel good.

If I lived in Baltimore, I'd work at Sound Garden. Good catalog, knowledgeable staff, and thriving....

Comrade Shampanyov wrote: Music Millenium closed last August, after 30 years in business, done in by t'internet. One thing special about Millenium, apart from its extensive new and used collection, was its stage-- bands playing in town would often stop by to do a free gig.

Try doing that with an iPod.

Probably could do a version of that with podcasting. Not totally the same but a modern improvement to rare and usually crap in store performances.

yep, this time last year. a sad day