Re: [ARSCLIST] Is The Record Shop Dead?

[Dismuke <dismukemail@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- phillip holmes <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Did you know I was thinking of Collectors' Records? 
.......  Did you ever meet John Stainze
> there? 

I would probably recognize him if I saw him - I never
really knew people's names there.  Except for the
older gentleman in the back with the 78 whose name I
usually can remember but forget at the moment.  He
passed away before the store closed.


>  Am I supposed to cry because the Virgin
> Megastore left Dallas? 

I wasn't even aware it left.  I went to the Grapevine
Mills location once - and yawned.


> However, I was
> sad when Tower 
> died.  They were the last CD Store to carry a deep
> catalog and they even 
> sold records, making it a record shop.  Tower was a
> chain of real record 
> shops. 

I went to the one in New York City on Broadway not too
far from Greenwich Village a couple of years ago.  It
was one of the only times in my life as an adult I
actually had to make a choice between which brand new
CDs of 1920s and 1930s reissues I wanted to buy as I
had already picked out about $200 worth of stuff. 
They even had British releases of reissues that I was
not even aware existed.   THAT store would have been
wonderful to have had in Fort Worth/Dallas.

On the other hand, when I was in Atlanta several years
ago I went out of my way to visit the Tower Records
there and found absolutely nothing of interest.


 
> Perhaps people are just too stupid or have no taste.


Or they are victims of a popular culture that
introduces them to nothing but garbage.  They don't
know anything better - because for so many years,
unless one was fortunate enough to have cultured
family members or other influences, it was almost
impossible for kids with limited spending money to
access other music.  All that was there was AM/FM type
drivel. Thankfully, the Internet today gives kids who
are willing to explore new genres the opportunity to
do so.   And, of course, there are always plenty of
those who pick their taste in music on the same basis
that they pick their taste in clothing - they are
mindless sheep who are trying ape their peers who are,
in turn, mindless sheep trying to ape everyone else.  


>  The selection at 
> Target, Wal-Mart, and the like, remind me of that
> little rack of 
> cassette tapes they have at every mega truck stop. 
> "Tammy Wynette and 
> "old possum face's" greatest duets" and the complete
> works of ZZ Top.


There actually are people out there whose tastes and
approach to life never advances beyond that of "If
Wal-mart don't got it, you don't need it."

Don't get me wrong - I love Wal-mart when it comes to
buying things such as basic groceries and garden
hoses. I was about to say that cheap mass market stuff
has its place but not in the world of music.  But then
I forgot - I LOVE the wonderful "dime store" dance
band music sold in the day's Wal-mart equivelents back
in the late 1920s and early 1930s. So there is nothing
inherently bad about mass market tastes, per se.  It
all comes back to the pop culture.  Taste and style
went out the window after World War II and fell into
the sewer in the 1960s and has yet to dry off, let
alone recover. 

> 
> So where is the store in Ft Worth?  I go there to
> buy 
> surplus/used/military/aviation tubes and parts for
> radio and hi-fi 
> restorations.


It is on University directly across from the TCU
campus.  I THINK it is called "Record Town" - but I
may be mistaken.  Regardless, you cannot miss it as it
has a big 1950s vintage sign showing a record with an
RCA Victor label.