Hey everybody, welcome to National Record Store Day. Independent record stores all around the nation want you to know that they're putting up a fight against the forces of shrinking retail space. Did you know that there are over 2,400 stores still in business? Yeah sure, Tower Records went away and the selection (if you want to use that word) has gotten progressively worse at places like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Best Buy. That's okay, they never really cared about the music lover anyway.
Yes, I know, there's the online thing. There's Amazon.com, and iTunes (which recently passed Wal-Mart in sales figures). Yes, there's the convenience factor. Hey, I'm all about instant gratification too, but sometimes there are other things to consider. In a word: culture.
Maybe someday, the whole Web 2.0 (it could be Web 3.0 by then) thing will provide as much camaraderie and guidance as the scene that surrounds a good record store. Heck, I've made a whole lot of friends on the Internet and we end up discussing music 'til we're blue in the face. Still, it's not nearly as satisfying as being able to ask a store clerk about the mystery guitar player on that particular Little Feat album. Or joking with the same clerk about the sly location of the "noise jazz" material right next to the easy listening CDs (yes Bull Moose Portland, I'm talking about you!) My comment was that someday, somebody's uncle is going to get the shock of his life when he puts on that Merzbow CD that he thought was Mario Lanza.
In just a little while, I'm going to make myself a part of the celebration by heading over to my local book and CD store, the Toadstool Bookshop. I've had a hankering to get the latest Counting Crows disc after listening to Josh Hathaway's interview with Adam Duritz. Go ahead and give that show a listen. You will discover that there are folks out there who are in the business for the love of the music, just like your local indie record shop.
After that, go out and buy a couple of CDs!
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Cindy
Thanks so much for getting the word out. My husband and his best friend run a record store, and while they do have a loyal following of clients, the big box stores and deals made between artists and certain outlets have really hurt...no way to compete. But there are thousands of albums, and c.d.'s that those stores will never even know about, and many local bands our store helps support.
2 - Douglas Mays
Record Store Day!!!! I love it. Yes, places I do hang out at. The beauty of it is that vinyl will remain, and is making a comeback! The CD may lose out to downloading, but vinyl is the superior audio quality. Shall never die.
rock on,
DM
3 - Glen Boyd
Thanks for recognizing National Record Store Day Mark. I cut my musical teeth in retail, managing a number of local record stores in the eighties and nineties, before finally opening my own shop in the late nineties. Unfortunately, a combination of the big box retailers, low margins, and the internet pretty much doomed it to failure.
If you love music, get out and support your local indie record store today. Hell, do it every day. Because every day should be National Record Store Day.
Thanx again for this Mark.
-Glen
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks for the reminder, Mark. Way back when I stumbled into working in and running record stores, (music and records being a personal passion that, along with books later on, translated into the only kind retail work I could fathom doing)-- I would've never thought there could be a subsitute for the sheer physicality of handling records and browsing in a store and, as you mention, the communal nature between other customers and clerks.
Happy Record Store Day!
5 - Josh Hathaway
Keep fighting the good fight!
6 - Kevin Eagan
I still frequent my local record store, but the big box guys and the internet is still just too tempting. Days like this remind you to support the underdogs.
7 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
*Walks into Saleski's Vinyl Shop*
I miss'em too(record shops)... Some new music news:
Check out Blind Melon's latest
The new singer is pretty damn good & they seem to have gained an interesting retro-like edge.
8 - Douglas Mays
the Record Store must remain. It would be much the same as not having live music venues anymore. Record Stores are a point of scene creation and scene activity.
The internet does not cut it on that level. You see, everyone is all thinking that the future is in downloading. Don't worry. In time it will become the most boring, anti-substance way to listen to music.
Give it time. The downloading world cannot live too long as is. It is lacking too many of the instrumnts needed for social movement. That is what art/music scenes are all about.
Record stores. It is your job to create a scene. One thing here in Seattle (your town also)is the 'in store' performances by artists you would think are too big for that. anyway, give people a reason to hang out at your store.
That is something big box stores or the internet cannot do. Record stores are basically a form of art gallery and art museum. Can't sell a painting without a gallery. Sure, try that on the internet! Unless you are into hotel paintings overstock....
DM
9 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Here we go again...
The internet does not cut it on that level. You see, everyone is all thinking that the future is in downloading. Don't worry. In time it will
become the most boring, anti-substance way to listen to music.
So, let me ask you this:
With Internet 2 on the horizon with blazing speeds that will allow you to download(roughly)4.5Gb in about 5 minutes and the fact that people can compress music(flac,ape)without losing information(quality)thus exceeding what the physical medium,CD, has done for the music industry along with the possibilty of actually recording at the spectrum of analog,digitally and all of this while being connected with the world instantly as opposed to just your neighborhood not mentioning the fact that computers will soon be used without keyboards and a mouse leaving all the work to your body & vocal language of choice thus making it easier to communicate via A/V with someone in Japan,again, Instantaneously ..
-How are you going to be able to cover these growing needs with brick & mortar?
-Why should concert venues with their ridiculous over-pricing stay in business?
-Why should I pay exorbitant prices for CDs along with either a convenience mark-up(CD Shops) or shipping to my home just to find out that the CD sucks & I cannot return it?
Ultimately, your POV is out of date. Grasping on for dear life because you are afraid of real progress & change (unlike the f*cking useless change that our presidential candidates blow hot air about). No one needs to waste time,energy & money (except at the gym) to find the entertainment that really suits their wants & needs....
10 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
*one more thing*- I remember when people used to say the same thing about Fiber Optics & High Definition TV...
11 - Douglas Mays
Brian, nice try again, the very basic point of it all overlooked. I guess that is the nature of the overhyped technically obsessive brain.
Music? Art is being sold. Comment #9 you quoted a significant point. Yet it does not register in a mind like yours. I guess your brain does not have matching software. We are Devo....
Change, schmange. It is all the same deal. The internet is merely another way to spend money. And right now the artists (and business) are in a position to get ripped off big time by it all. that is why the industry is in restructuring right now.
You can speak of all these technological advancements, but so what? Technological advancements have always existed in the music industry before the computer even existed. It is just a case of channeling things to the advantage of the artists.
Anyway, you seem to be missing the point of why it all exists.
DM
12 - Josh Hathaway
For some of us, there was a time when the buying part of getting new music was an enjoyable part of the experience. Maybe it's an outdated, romantic notion but it did exist for some of us.
There are a lot of new ways to acquire music these days and I like some of them. I love my iPod. I love some of the advantages of digital. I like the cheap prices of the Big Box retailers. I like the generally reasonable prices and great selection of some of the online establishments. For me -- and I think what some of these other folks are saying -- is none of them delivery the same level of enjoyment for us that the "old" way did.
Brian, you're free not to participate or agree. Don't mind us anti-progress folks. It's probably best you don't follow us to the indie store. I think you'd get impatient with the clerk when he totals up the bill using his abacus.
13 - Mark Saleski
i don't have any problem with music via the internet. it's just that for me the transaction is lacking.
online browsing, which is how i've acquired a significant percentage of my collection, leave a lot to be desired.
also well away of the high rez/higher bandwidth issues...just don't really care.
14 - Tom Johnson
Brian is right - once the issues of bandwidth are cleared up, most real music fans' issues with downloading will also be cleared up, aside from the pesky issue of how to download the tangibility of actual records and CDs. But will the infrastructure to distribute the good stuff we all look for exist, or will it have been crushed and destroyed by what's going on now with the music business?
That said, I sadly couldn't make it out to any stores on Record Store Day, being laid up with my stupid foot and all. Couldn't risk getting stepped on, which would have been a serious gamble. I've made sure to support locals once a week or so prior to this, however, and will resume supporting them in a few weeks when I'm back on my feet (and able to drive myself to one - the first lady seriously does not enjoy my extended browsing sessions, so they're out until I'm independent again.) I'm already suffering the serious "browsing joneses" after one week. I can't imagine what this is going to be like in, say, a few more weeks. I may not make it. Say some prayers for me, everyone.
15 - Mark Saleski
if anybody's interested, i also wrote a bit about this topic for jazz.com
16 - Dominique Minor
I enjoyed this story thoroughly. I've watched as nearly every local music shop has gone out of business over the past several years (although, in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with that). There's still two stores around putting up a fight, but I won't be surprised if they're not open in a few years.
17 - Tom Johnson
My point made a lot more sense before I hacked it all in trying to make it more concise. I apologize - I'll make my point again in a much better way: the sonics of downloads have always been the issue, and, yes, once the download speeds are no longer a part of the problem, that will be cleared up, but that's only one part of the equation for most of us. I wouldn't have five big racks of CDs if all I cared about was how nice music sounded. I want the physical media - CDs, the booklets of credits, liner notes, artwork, etc. - that goes along with them. Yes, it's a obsession of some kind, I guess - but what isn't? Somehow it's okay to obsess about sports or politics now, even film, but not music. I don't get it, and I'll never submit to the reasoning that being a music lover is somehow childish while dudes get upset over other dudes who chase balls.
Downloads are pretty depressing - files with . . . what? Audio with no reference materials, or maybe a PDF file or URL? That does not interest me (save for live material as from DGM Live. Live stuff doesn't need all that, never has because of the bootleg culture.) We're seeing a kind of an art come to an end here, and an entire way of life around it. I don't get the appeal of a life filled with files. And I don't get why people are so excited and happy to proclaim physical media dead. How happy will everyone be when they finally figure out just how crappy those 99 cent Itunes files sound on their big surround systems . . . and that's all they have? I'll be fine here - I'll have my CDs that I can go back to for good source material.
18 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Anyway, you seem to be missing the point of why it all exists.
Oh..The Great DM, please explain why the advances in computer technology have progressed so fast. PLEASE?! Because I just don't seem to grasp the underlying meaning to "it" all...
If you're saying that the internet & computers progressed in the name of the RIAA then you are way off...
How happy will everyone be when they finally figure out just how crappy those 99 cent Itunes files sound on their big surround systems . . . and that's all they have? I'll be fine here - I'll have my CDs that I can go back to for good source material.
Tom, it doesn't take Internet 2 to d/l flac or ape files. And, musicians are starting to offer their material in those formats. So, I can understand why you want the hardcopy because I still purchase the "hard to find" music on CD but anybody with a real working sense of the internet & a true love for music isn't d/l'ing sh!t from iTunes anymore.
I guess I never had the attachment to purchasing physical materials. It's just so much easier working with CD quality music (and higher) on my computer & Zune.
19 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
It's probably best you don't follow us to the indie store. I think you'd get impatient with the clerk when he totals up the bill using his abacus.
I wouldn't mind soo much if that "Indie" dude had a clue about the latest in metal from Norway & didn't want to charge me $17.99 because it was an import. I remember those "Indie" dudes from my day..."What? You don't want the new Nirvana album, Man, Metal is Dead"...*HaHa! Kurt NoBrain is Dead! F*cking Jerkoffs!
Actually, I'd be quite impressed if that brain dead a$$clown knew what an abacus was never mind how to use one efficiently.
20 - Glen Boyd
Abacus? Isn't that some Genesis album?
-Glen
21 - Tom Johnson
Brian, if everyone was downloading FLACs there would be a tremendous problem with the internet, and especially if non-lossy hi-rez and surround formats were introduced into mainstream downloads, most, if not all, cable systems would come to a screeching halt.
As to the rest of "the music experience," let me put it to you a different way, Brian: you can have huge, beautiful scans of artworks at tremendous resolutions to view on your computer, TV, whatever, or you can have beautiful prints on expensive papers in nice frames that you can admire upon your wall. They both achieve the same purpose - you can see the artwork - but one is distinctly different from the other. You can appreciate both for their artistic qualities and yet . . . the physical print is going to have that something extra. There's going to be an attachment to the beautiful framed print that the file is not going to have for people. Do you get what I mean?
Don't take me for being anti-internet. I'm not - I buy a lot of stuff off the internet. And I will be interested when high-quality material all we have to purchase in terms of downloads (when mp3s and others of their ilk are not even a choice) and I'm sure I'll be a customer. But it won't be the same. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't pick up a CD and thumb through the the book. I've done the equivalent online and it's just devoid of enjoyment - it's just research, rather than involving myself in the full aspect of the album. Maybe that's a distinction only those of us who lived with music in this format make, maybe younger people who are living with downloads as their norm are never going to get it. But I can bet that someday, years from now, kids will be looking at CD and vinyl collections like many of those above me have and wishing that they'd gotten to experience that. I know from the little vinyl buying I've done that opening that big package is pretty damned cool - a CD is nothing like that 12" square of cardboard with all the liner notes, artwork, etc. Imagine what it's going to be like for kids who grew up on simple files?
You're not attached to the physical, and that's fine, but I think you're also on a different level, which is something I've noticed from musicians - they seem to view things differently when they're on the other end, which is unfortunate. A lot of them either forgot or never knew what it was like to simply be a fan. Maybe try not to look at everything with such jaded cynicism and see why people get swept up in the physical part of music.
22 - Mark Saleski
dominque sez:
There's still two stores around putting up a fight, but I won't be surprised if they're not open in a few years.
so dominique is probably the only person in this conversation young enough to have the angle about whether kids will care about the lousy sound of mp3s.
do think it'll happen dominique?
23 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Tom... Your comment says alot about what you don't know. Unfortunately,the problem here in the US even going back to the days of vinyl is that the supposed "music fan" cares more about the look & the packaging then about the music & it's even more evident in today's mainstream. I used to love looking at record covers & CD booklets(especially Maiden - trying to find the artist's symbol on every "Eddie" drawing) but what started happening was that I began learning more about composition & instruments. I eventually started to play drums when I was 10y/o.
I also learned that 80%(imo)of the population doesn't analyze music past the "entertainment" factor. I also realize that what sold people on CD technology doesn't really matter to that 80%(again,imo). So, to keep this comment within bounds of a reply to your comment, I will say this:
Holding onto the physical aspect of art or music as a "fan" does not make the experience any better or any worse. It just does not matter! Simple files won't be so simple when all of this supposedly matters by your standards. Kids won't be listening to Mp3(lame) or viewing little pdf's at the resolution of a 16-bit nintendo. The mere fact that you think the internet would freeze due to lossless file d/l'ing shows you're not educated about the technology at hand especially with faster bit-rate packages coming down in price. Try these artists/sites:
www.nugs.net
www.livemetallica.com
ghosts.nin.com/main/home
mindawn.com/index.php
Ultimately, the audio experience is what's important! I'm not jaded... I'm just tired of the uneducated & untalented hacks that are in control of the industry here in the US!! AND..Even if they are educated about the future of the music industry their only concern is making a buck!
24 - Mark Saleski
Holding onto the physical aspect of art or music as a "fan" does not make the experience any better or any worse. It just does not matter!
to you. it matters to some of us.
and as far as audio quality goes, most people just dont' care, if they ever did at all.
25 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
to you. it matters to some of us.
and as far as audio quality goes, most people just dont' care, if they ever did at all.
If that was the case ,Mark, then we'd still have 12" Vinyl in mass production & the CD would have never existed. DVD-A & SACD would've never been fathomable and A/V Electronic companies would not invent better & more precise speaker & component technology. The fact of the matter is, artwork on any cover whether it be CD,Cassette or Vinyl is not the main focus nor really that important...Period