Goodnight, Rhino Westwood
Published January 06, 2006
As George Harrison said, all things must pass. Particularly, record stores as we have known them are a dying business model. Exact facts and figures are tricky, but one outfit from LA called the Almighty Institute of Music Retail says that their database of "independent record stores" went from about 5000 in 1995 to around 2800 currently. Grim times to try to be anywhere near that business.
As a shopkeeper's son, I admit to a bit of nostalgia for those little mom and pop stores. As a high school senior, I sold records out of Barger's Lakeview Market, selling Kenny Rogers and Lynyrd Skynyrd discs to fund my interests in Captain Beefheart and the Residents, among others. Good times.
Now comes the news that even Rhino Westwood is closing. Richard Foos founded the store in 1973 in LA, and started the now almighty Rhino Records label in the back of the store in 1978. Thus, it may be the most famous independent record store ever.
From the LA Times:
Rhino Westwood, a Westside landmark for more than three decades, announced its closing on Thursday, news that follows the November shuttering of Aron's Records, the storied shop that sold music for 40 years (and practically invented the used-LP sales practice), first on Melrose Avenue and then Highland Avenue.Rhino founder Richard Foos, speaking in dejected tones, said Thursday that it "had become very apparent that it was too difficult to go on." The store's lease expired and Foos opted to lock the doors. The store plans a Jan. 21 parking-lot sale that will be part wake, part fire sale.
"But we are hoping now for a white knight to show up and buy the inventory and the name and hopefully carry on the tradition," he said. "It was a very emotional decision but this is where it's at. Now in Westwood you have no free-standing record stores. You have one of the largest colleges in the country and no inde-pendent record store. That says a lot."
Folks, if Richard Foos can't keep even this landmark store running, then take it as a hint that the whole business model is doomed. The writing is on the wall.
I blame myself. Depending on accounting, in life I've probably seriously spent a third or more of my disposable income on music. Yet, I've bought hardly anything from a record store in years, maybe a total of half a dozen used CDs in as many years. There's no likely successful business model there.
Geez, I used to hang out in record stores, poring happily for hours through the new releases and crazy used bargains. But no more, though. I'm listening to more - and more different - music than ever before. I'm just not hanging around record stores.
- Goodnight, Rhino Westwood
- Published: January 06, 2006
- Type: News
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Music: Alternative Rock
- Writer: Al Barger
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Comments on this articleComments
All sad but too true, Al, especially this "Geez, I used to hang out in record stores, poring happily for hours through the new releases and crazy used bargains. But no more, though. I'm listening to more - and more different - music than ever before. I'm just not hanging around record stores."
I am always amazed and surprised to find music stores where the clerks actually know about good music, but I see them all slowly falling away, and it is sad, but it does not stop me from primarily downloading tunes , legally whenever possible. I can only hope that as CD's become less used, music publishers large and small will offer up their entire back catalogs online, no more "Lost Bands" that live on only in my very old cassettes and mix tapes. I can only hope.
homebrewing shop I can get to
jasper's in nashua?
Indy CD and Vinyl in the Broad Ripple section of Indianapolis has a good selection - I've bought several CDs there - but I could have found all my purchases on Amazon.com. I just happened to decide to stop at the CD store while I was out.
You mentioned music magazines...Creem was holy writ for me in my late teens through college. Before that, it was Hit Parader, which is where I first heard of the Velvet Underground. Now you can find fan sites for everyone you'd ever heard of on the Internet.
Mark - Stout Billy's in Portsmouth. The owner advised or helped start Redhook, Smuttynose, Ipswich, and a slew of others, and Sam Adams is rumored to be using a recipe or two of his.
Sorry for the threadjacking.
ah yea, stout billy's!
let's unjack then: right around the corner from stout billy's is one of the best record stores in new england: Bull Moose Music.
Mark,
sadly not true anymore... SBs moved to a strip mall down Route 1 to save on rent.
I'll continue this offline.
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*cue stentorian voice*
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Al, you're right of course. Although I can cavil and quibble about the severity and timing of the coming of the Great Record Store Disappearance From Every Shore, I agree with you that people who want physical music media are going to become like model train collectors or home brewers, people with a quirky and obsessive habit that most people just don't understand or care about.
What this means, however, is that although there will be fewer and fewer record shops around, there will always be a FEW. Hell, there's a Lionel shop down the street from my house, the only one for fitty miles around. (Then again, I'm also driving an hour north tomorrow, all the way into New Hampshire, to go to the only really good homebrewing shop I can get to, so maybe the record store situation might be as dire as that.)
I did, however, think that Rhino was going to be one of the survivors.
Goodbye, Rhino!
Goodbye, Electric Fetus!
Goodbye, Music Millennium!
Goodbye, Newbury Comics!
Goodbye, Hear Music!
Goodbye, Bull Moose!
Goodbye, Criminal Records!
Goodbye, Wax Stax!
Goodbye, Outside Music!
See you all on the b-side.