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Grex > Classicalmusic > #54: Music retail again: SKR Uptown (Classical) & Downtown to close |  |
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krj
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Music retail again: SKR Uptown (Classical) & Downtown to close
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Jan 7 23:13 UTC 2001 |
As expected, the end has arrived for Jim Leonard's SKR stores on
Liberty St. The remaining stock is now 30% off.
A clerk said that holiday sales were disappointing, and that the stores
would close by the end of January.
SKR Classical was originally a division of the old Schoolkids Records,
and for about a decade it was a pretty good classical specialist shop.
The Classical store was sold to manager Jim Leonard around what, 1997?,
as the original Schoolkids struggled for capital. After
the original Schoolkids suspended operations on Liberty St. in fall 1998,
Jim Leonard's SKR Classical took over the storefronts and ran a
pop/rock side and a jazz/blues side. The new SKR stores never seemed
to establish themselves with customers; I rarely saw more than one or
two people in there, at times when Borders was packed.
I was afraid this expansion would end up costing us SKR Classical,
and my expectations were fulfilled when the SKR operations ran a
"partial liquidation" in Spring 2000. That large sale wiped out most
of the classical stock, and it was never rebuilt; since then the stores
have just seemed to be marking time.
Previous comments about the Schoolkids and SKR stores can be found in
the music conference, items 149 & 154. (item:music,149 and item:music
,154)
((( linked between Agora, Music and Classicalmusic )))
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| 194 responses total. |
senna
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response 1 of 194:
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Jan 8 06:18 UTC 2001 |
I never really shopped there. I'm a different market. In fact, from the
looks of it, *everyone* is a different market.
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senna
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response 2 of 194:
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Jan 8 06:20 UTC 2001 |
My only worry is what is going to replace the location. Another music store
would be nice, though economically hard to justify. I'd prefer to keep some
of downtown reasonable attractive to visit. Starbucks is infringing on too
much already.
At this rate, South U and the rest of downtown might not be recognizable (or
worthwhile) to me in five years.
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mcnally
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response 3 of 194:
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Jan 8 07:28 UTC 2001 |
So how many record stores are left in Ann Arbor now?
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scott
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response 4 of 194:
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Jan 8 12:29 UTC 2001 |
Discount Records at State & Liberty,
The music section at Borders (which is pretty well stocked),
Harmony House on Liberty right close to Discount Records,
Encore Records (used CDs, vinyl, & cassettes),
Some kind of used store (or maybe two) over on S. University,
Wazoo (used)
P.J.s (used)
Then a lot of big-box stores on the edge of town, if you want to count them.
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keesan
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response 5 of 194:
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Jan 8 14:56 UTC 2001 |
Don't forget that you can also find used records and CDs at the public library
book sale (Sat. mornings), Kiwanis (ditto - records start at 10 cents and go
up to a dollar), and the PTO Thrift Shop, and Reuse Ann Arbor (both open
daily), and yard sales. Anywhere else?
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carson
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response 6 of 194:
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Jan 8 16:53 UTC 2001 |
(there's a store or two in Briarwood, last I checked.)
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ashke
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response 7 of 194:
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Jan 8 17:08 UTC 2001 |
yes, but ever since briawood made the exclusive deal with record town making
them the only music store in the mall, both tape world and musicland closed.
If you wondered why Musicland expanded their store in Arborland (back when
it was "indoors") that's way. to make up for the lack of one in Briarwood.
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scott
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response 8 of 194:
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Jan 8 19:26 UTC 2001 |
How could I have forgotten Schoolkids in Exile? It's still there under
Bivouac.
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mcnally
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response 9 of 194:
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Jan 8 21:42 UTC 2001 |
How on earth does Discount Records stay in business? Or is it for some
reason being propped up by the remainder of the Musicland chain?
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trex
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response 10 of 194:
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Jan 9 02:48 UTC 2001 |
discount is a sam goody store.
if you want to talk about used records, I think treasure mart has a slew of
them too.
Disc Go Round is on south university.
I hope tower comes back and moves into SKRs old spot.
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senna
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response 11 of 194:
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Jan 9 11:54 UTC 2001 |
That would be the most attractive option to me. I don't know if they could
make it work, though. Borders is tough competition, and they have to start
from the ground up. I suspect their employment and stock have moved on to
other things.
Then again, a foothold in the location might just be worth all that trouble.
I'll cross my fingers.
I'd count Best Buy and Media Play if we're counting mall stores as well. I
used to like Best Buy's selection better, but they still have a fair amount
of good stuff.
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mary
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response 12 of 194:
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Jan 9 14:29 UTC 2001 |
It was in the very early eighties that I started building a classical
music collection. I had no idea what was good and only a slightly
better grasp on what I liked. Jim Leonard sort of took me on as
a project, I think. Every few weeks I'd stop by, tell him what I
thought of his last pick, and he'd suggest another. It was years
later, as I started to hear other versions of the same pieces,
that I realized how he'd help me avoid a lot of mediocre purchases.
I was pleased to see him advance to salesperson, to manager, then owner,
and it saddens me now to see SKR close. But I also know I'm part of the
problem. First off, I'm down to only buying one, maybe two new classical
disks a year. And those are pretty obscure pieces which would need to be
special ordered from a traditional shop. Instead I find them on
Amazon.com, listen to excerpts, and have them delivered to my door within
days.
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eeyore
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response 13 of 194:
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Jan 9 14:31 UTC 2001 |
The thing is, at this point it's so much easier to go to Amazon and wait a
couple of days, rather than try to park downtown.
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ashke
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response 14 of 194:
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Jan 9 15:07 UTC 2001 |
re 10, Discount records is not a Sam Goody store, since Sam Goody, Discount
Records, Media Play, Suncoast Motion Picture Company, and Musicland are all
owned by the Musicland Group, based out of MN. They expanded too quickly and
most of their stores floundered. The only think that keeps someo of them
alive, is that people don't know they're musicland.
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danr
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response 15 of 194:
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Jan 9 17:55 UTC 2001 |
I've never had a good opinion of Jim Leonard, no matter how knowledgeable about
music he is. Some of his comments about Schoolkids' Records and his takeover of
same sounded childish to me. At least, that's the impression I got. I also was
not favorably impressed when he almost ran me down with his SUV one day while I
was walking on Linwood.
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anderyn
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response 16 of 194:
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Jan 9 19:48 UTC 2001 |
Y'know, I still don't like to shop on Amazon. Just hate it. I'd rather go to
a store, and look, and fondle, and all that. (I *do* buy music and books over
the Internet, but only those that (a) I can't find in town or (b) that would
cost an arm and a leg if I were to buy them from the physical stores.)
Mostly, these days, I go to Borders. Though the British Isles section at the
downtown Borders stinks right now. And I'm not thrilled with the folk section,
either. The Arborland Borders, interestingly enough, has shown some
intelligence and spark in its acquisitions of those categories, and I've found
things there that I haven't at the downtown store. This is scary. (Well, to
think that a mall Borders would be better/faster/more interesting than the
main downtown store means that SOMETHING is seriously wrong at Borders HQ,
imho.) If I don't go to Borders, I will check Schoolkids in Exile (when my
knees are feeling un-creaky enough), or *ick, Twila hangs her head in shame*
MediaPlay/BestBuy. (But when I go there, I feel in need of a fix of popular
music!)
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eeyore
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response 17 of 194:
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Jan 9 20:18 UTC 2001 |
Media Play is owned by Record Town, I think. I know that it is owned by one
of the mall chains.
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ashke
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response 18 of 194:
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Jan 9 20:31 UTC 2001 |
Musicland Group. I know. I worked for them and set up several stores. It's
amazing the amount of information you get when you are hoping to become the
coveted Assistant Manager.
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brighn
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response 19 of 194:
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Jan 9 20:40 UTC 2001 |
Actually, it's not terribly arcane information. It's all listed (except the
Discount Records part) on www.musicland.com
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davel
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response 20 of 194:
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Jan 9 22:45 UTC 2001 |
Hmm. I'll really miss SKR, though I don't buy that many CDs from them. I
haven't been all that impressed with Borders's classical selection, in
comparison ... but then again, I really don't get downtown often enough to
have checked out SKR's in a couple of years at least. Borders's folk-type
sections (the only other stuff I've really ever checked out) aren't all that
great, either, I think.
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keesan
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response 21 of 194:
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Jan 10 00:22 UTC 2001 |
Borders is noisy.
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janc
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response 22 of 194:
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Jan 10 06:09 UTC 2001 |
Schoolkids was one corner of my great triangle in the late 1970's and 1980's,
together with the Michigan Theater and Borders. Three places to go for
happiness. I moved to Texas, and by the time I came back Schoolkids and
Border's were wearing a little thin, but still great. Now Schoolkids and
Border's are both dead and getting to the Michigan Theater is impossible for
me to fit into my schedule. Sigh.
Oh, you thought Borders still existed? Sorry, different Borders. The thing
that stands on the site of the old Borders and bears its name is merely the
animated corpse of Borders. It still has lots of books, and I still go there
sometimes when I want to buy some books, but what differentiates a great
bookstore from a lousy one is that spirit that that staff feed into it. In
a great bookstore, if you walk into the mystery section and look at the
arrangement of books on the shelf, then you see before you a physical
manifestation of the understanding of the genre brought to it by an informed
intelligent reader of mysteries. Today the mystery section at Nicola's books
has some of this (but the science fiction section there is stupid). No
section in Borders has it, though every section used to. If there are any
staff members there who are still passionate about books, then they have been
embedded in a corporate framework that ensures that they don't express their
personal tastes in their work. The shelves are clearly arranged by the same
anonymous corporation that arranges the shelves at Barnes & Noble, which cares
more about the price stickers than the contents of the books. If they sell
you a good book, you can be sure that it was by accident. Foo.
Oh well, at least Seva is starting to return to some of it's old glory. I
thought I'd lost that as well, but it's rebounding under its new ownership.
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scg
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response 23 of 194:
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Jan 10 07:19 UTC 2001 |
Interesting comments about Borders. My feeling too has been that the Ann
Arbor Borders has been slipping the last few years, but at least as of six
months ago it still struck me as a good bookstore. Perhaps it's because it
was the layout I was used to, but I still generally went into Borders and
found lots of stuff I wanted to read, very easily, and when I did have
questions for the staff they usually seemed to know which books or sections
to direct me towards. I don't know whether it's the staff in the Ann Arbor
Borders that does the parts of the layout that aren't dictated by what the
publishers pay them to do, but even if the dictates are coming from the Ann
Arbor based headquarters, it's likely that the Ann Arbor Borders is the one
the people doing the layout see on a regular basis.
I've spent the last several months scouting Bay Area bookstores, with the Ann
Arbor Borders being the standard I measure others against. Looking at the
various Borders clone stores has been interesting. They all seem to have
copied their sections from the Ann Arbor Borders, but the implementations vary
widely. The Union Square Borders in San Francisco has all the sections, and
probably all the same titles, as the Ann Arbor Borders, but has the feel of
something that somebody put together from an instruction manual, without
really understanding what they were doing, such that even being very familiar
with what they had apparrently been trying to copy, finding stuff there was
pretty maddening. The Palo Alto Borders, on the other hand, I found to be
quite nice. Once again, it has the same sections, and probably most of the
same titles, as the Ann Arbor store, but they seem to have done the layout
very well. Their sections focusing on more local stuff, which I assume aren't
dictated too strictly from headquarters, are stocked with lots of interesting
stuff. The building is different enough from the Ann Arbor Borders that
copying the layout wouldn't work, but the layout they do have works very well.
I haven't interacted much with the staff there, but it's been because I didn't
have to. Being in a university town probably makes a big difference to the
sort of staff they hire.
I've been exploring non-Borders bookstores too. There's a bookstore in my
neighborhood that certainly fits Jan's requirement of having a staff that's
passionate about books, and I know lots of people who think it's the world's
best bookstore, but I've never had much luck finding what I was looking for
there. The best conclusion I can come to about the place is that the staff
is passionate about a different type of books than I like, but I also get the
impression they haven't given much thought to how a bookstore should be
organized. There are some good independant bookstores or small chains around
here, though. Staceys, which is next door to my office (can't beat the
location), is every bit as huge as the Borders stores, and seems to have a
very good selection. Still, it made me feel like I had to really look to find
the interesting stuff burried among the rest of the selection. Stuff I knew
I wanted was easy, but it seemed like the sort of store I could browse in for
a long time before finding anything that would really grab me. Telegraph Ave,
the street in Berkeley that seems like a year round combination of Ann Arbor's
Art Fair and Hash Bash, has a couple of good bookstores. Moe's seems to
mostly be a used bookstore, with a collection large enough to seem really
daunting. Their new section is considerably smaller, so the selection is
somewaht limited, but the stuff they do have is pretty good. Next door to
Moe's is Cody's, which is quickly becoming my favorite. It reminds me
somewhat of the pre-chain Borders, back when it was on State Street. It's
very much an academic bookstore, with a huge selection obviously arranged by
people who understood what they were doing. The tables and book displays just
inside the door are covered with interesting stuff. It's the place here that
I walk into not intending to buy anything, and come out with large quantities
of stuff that I really want to read, which is what used to be the best thing
about Borders.
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mdw
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response 24 of 194:
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Jan 10 10:13 UTC 2001 |
My parents are very impressed by the Borders in Rochester. This
surprised me a bit, but in thinking about it, even in it's attenuated
chain form, it may still be overall better than anything else I can
think of in the Rochester NY area. When I was growing up, there were a
variety of bookstores in Rochester, but not a huge number and they each
had their interesting limitations. I also think most of those places
have since gone under - mostly for reasons not connected to Borders. I
remember Toronto as being a much more exciting place to buy books and a
real treat compared to what was available in Rochester. I'm not sure
that's true today. The chains seem to have invaded Toronto as well and
it seems much more the same as what we have here in the states.
Used book stores still seem to be more different; I don't quite
understand why, but it always seems like used book stores in different
states have categorically different "stuff".
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