Re: [ARSCLIST] Is The Record Shop Dead?

[Dismuke <dismukemail@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, of course it is dead - meaning the kind that the
article talks about and not the kind that Phillip
Holmes talks about.  

(There actually is one of the latter still around in
Fort Worth - but on the very rare occasion I have
found 78 rpms there, none were really worth having.  
But I am able to buy steel phonograph needles there in
a pinch and I have found some very nice 1920s and
1930s recordings on LP reissues there.   The world in
Fort Worth/Dallas, however, has never been the same
since Collectors' Records in Dallas with its back room
full of cheap 78 rpms closed because the owner did not
feel like moving after his rent went way up.)

As for the conventional sort of record store that
sells modern stuff - of course they are going to be
all but dead very soon.  

There are essentially two types of music buyers -
those sheep who merely buy the lowest common
denominator stuff that they hear on FM and that
somebody has convinced all their friends is somehow
"cool" and those who have more discriminating and
specialized tastes.

The former don't need a record store because the
Wal-marts and Best Buys of the world sell that sort of
stuff as a loss leader.   

Those who have more discriminating and specialized
musical tastes would probably LOVE to have a good
record store that they could go to.  I HATE having to
wait for a CD or anything else I buy for pleasure to
arrive in the mail.  I want my gratification to begin
the moment my funds leave my possession - and I can't
begin to count all the times over the years I have
really wished I could be able to simply walk into a
store and be able to find something that I could
become extremely enthusiastic about listening to THAT
SAME EVENING.  I was occasionally able to find
something really good that I didn't already have or
know about in the Tower Records store in Dallas and
that was a very nice treat.  But it wasn't something I
could count on when I walked in - especially if I had
only visited recently and bought up all that I was
interested in. 

The problem is that, as much as I would love to have a
great record store to go to and buy everything in
person - well, I really doubt a store in Fort
Worth/Dallas could have ever survived catering to my
tastes.  Maybe in New York City it would have been
possible - but not very many other places in the USA.

The Internet is so much better for people who fall
into that second category - even online retailers
catering to a mass market stock a lot of the sort of
CDs I buy because it cost them no more to sell one of
them than it does a mass market CD.  Brick and mortar
stores only had so much shelf space and had to fill it
with what sold the most.  Warehouse space at Amazon is
much cheaper than shelf space in high rent shopping
centers or even in low rent shopping centers.

So while I hate to wait for CDs that I order over the
Internet to arrive, I at least never have any
difficulty finding plenty of CDs that I am eager and
enthusiastic to listen to.  Before the Internet, I was
frequently not able to find such CDs at the still
thriving record stores that were available to me.

So I guess I won't miss the conventional record store.
All I will miss is the hope that I might someday find
one that would be perfectly suited to me.


-- phillip holmes <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> The real record shop died a slow death in the '90s. 
> What I mean by real 
> is:  33, 45, and 78 rpm; all genres; record care
> supplies; ephemera; the 
> selection of replacement styli; the stylus
> magnifier; the audition 
> turntable and headphones; tobacco smoke _OR_ an old
> man chewing a cigar 
> _OR_ the hourly help dealing pot out the back (but
> preferably all 
> three); two pair of JBL L100 on the walls; cardboard
> stand-up Beatles; a 
> ceramic nipper somewhere in the store; at least one
> crotchety old worker 
> and one bipolar young worker; a jaded owner that
> USED to be in "the 
> business"; the smell of paper aging (the not
> acid-free kind); and let's 
> not forget the most important part of a real record
> shop--delusional and 
> weird record collectors.  Yes, it's dead.
> Phillip
> 
> Roger and Allison Kulp wrote:
> >
>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/music_week/agenda_recordshops.shtml
> >  
> > ---------------------------------
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