records at recycled sounds

[nicholas]

i like recycled sounds.

but it's not big enough to serve the purpose it wants to.


the internet is why record stores are failing.

who really goes to record stores? collectors and djs. there's not a whole lot of money in collecting obscure shit unless it's by something pretty mainstream. i think that's one of recycled sounds' issues. they could do well by catering to club djs around town too, money-wise, i think. and stock more classics for the collectors, whether or not they're first print.

either that or shift to one genre and use the space to have a wider selection within that genre... then maybe someone else can open a store for whatever they left out. without a big selection, people will order records. shit, i do.

but that's just my two cents.

[wakarusapunk]

sometimes It's a Beautiful Day has good punk records. it's on Broadway. we once found a crucifix record there. check it out.

[nicholas]

i was coerced into going there once. the egyptian place next door is way cooler.

they don't have punk records, but you can get all the anubis shit you can handle.

[smellygirl]

I got brittney spears on vinyl yesterday at it's a beautiful day. I say SCORE!

[justin anxiety]

the thing about making a store work is you have to first and foremost really care about the music and equally care about making music available.

aside from that if you want an independent music store to do well you have to offer something you can't get somewhere else. for example it's couterproductive to carry major label stuff that you can find at the mall at a small record shop.

also you've gotta know your niche. me, laz and our boy george (ha not the singer) did a distro out of box only selling punk, hardcore, sxe hc, indie, crust, emo, metalcore/grind etc. only selling at shows and we did really f***g great.

we carried the stuff you wouldn't be able to get at love garden, recycled or the mall and it worked. the trick was taking the time to do label direct orders and dealing with three or four large distros. at our peak we did almost 2 grand in orders in a month and got out music that people cared about and maybe hadn't even heard of yet. if we had a store we would probably still be around today.

but that's the kind of stuff it takes to make a place work, we were as excited to order stuff and get it in as we were to sell it.

[nicholas]

justin said:

for example it's couterproductive to carry major label stuff that you can find at the mall at a small record shop.

nobody that buys records buys records at a mall. not on purpose anyway.



yeah, the key is regulars. so you've got to know how to keep em fiendin'

[justin anxiety]

nicholas said:

justin said:

for example it's couterproductive to carry major label stuff that you can find at the mall at a small record shop.

nobody that buys records buys records at a mall. not on purpose anyway.



yeah, the key is regulars. so you've got to know how to keep em fiendin'

I was mostly referring to cd's but then again that store hot topic sells records, I would guess they sell enough to keep doing it.

But yeah, I get what you're saying.

[thousandaire]

internet has def killed record stores, be it stuff like i-tunes, insound, or p2p. the whole model is changing, and unf people like recycled will be the casualities. but so be it, thats what change does, markets dry up, move, and evolve.

[justin anxiety]

will has a point about ipod, p2p etc but i don't think that'll get rid of music stores. it'll sefinitely get rid of mediocre ones everywhere but the good shops will survive.

ipod's are nice but how many people can throw away 300 bucks on a digital age walkman? i can't even though they are cool. until they have those at an affordable price and you get the cover art, lyrics and extra stuff as well as the songs they'll still be a limited medium.

the biggest reason interenet sales are killing stores is that you can find tons of stuff online but not at your average store. so it's really about instant gratification to a large degree.

stores like extreme noise in MPLS persevere because they know and care about what people want to hear. so the place is stocked with the latest punk and hardcore from around the world and is staffed by volunteers which keeps it firmly in the black.

i think it's not necessarily that stores in general are dommed. i think its just a challenge to the format/setup and te business model of stores. if you shake up the arrangement you'll survive.

also just being a good shop with a large selection will never go away. for example visit the love garden on any given saturday afternoon and the place will have a ton of people in there buying stuff. or even better look at the amoeba records shops in california. that place is insane. when i went there i had to wait in line to checkout like i was at the grocery store. there was no sign of them being even remotely affected by internet and ipod type junk.

so yeah it's more like the e-music formats will just weed out the mediocre places people only went because they don't have an alternative.

[jh]

my inside source at ameba in sf says they move over 150,000$ on the average sayurday.

[jh]

i mean saturday

[nicholas]

thousandaire said:

internet has def killed record stores, be it stuff like i-tunes, insound, or p2p. the whole model is changing, and unf people like recycled will be the casualities. but so be it, thats what change does, markets dry up, move, and evolve.

i didn't mean downloading so much as ordering online. i get half of my vinyl from turntablelab.com

still, mp3 players have made downloading more... practical for those who don't want to buy music.


also, consider the invention of the cdj.

[thousandaire]

yeah i picked up on that, thats why i included insound. but add online stores, mp3 stores, and p2p and you have three major channels attacking the brick and mortor stores. i do agree with justin tho, the truly great store might survive, but knowing a small record store owner in a niche market, even he says things are BAAAD

[justin anxiety]

i read something interesting today about the whole ipod/mp3 explosion i thought was interesting. and it also might have bearing on this issue in the future.

apparently all the record labels now are fighting with e-search tools (like yahoo, google etc.) over money the search engines make from advertising that appears on pages when someone searches for videos and stuff about "artists" on their labels.

basically the record companies are saying that companies like google owe them a cut of their ad revenue for every visit to a page where their bands are shown.

it's being speculated that in the long run this fight has a good chance of raising the prices people pay for mp3's and other downloads. as a result there's speculation that this will slow down the growth of download sales.

i guess we'll see.

[thousandaire]

how about we make up a list of people the record compaies are NOT going after, cuz that list certanly would be shorter than the list of those that they are