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Grex > Music2 > #154: Schoolkids II, and Music Retailing |  |
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| 25 new of 247 responses total. |
katie
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response 192 of 247:
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May 19 06:12 UTC 2000 |
(Which Mary McCaslin album?) Mary is playing at Green Wood in Oct.
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krj
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response 193 of 247:
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May 19 17:20 UTC 2000 |
I got Mary McCaslin's "Old Friends" out of the bargain bin. I think
there were other McCaslin CDs in there, but I can't be sure.
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krj
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response 194 of 247:
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May 19 20:57 UTC 2000 |
Back to the Minimum Advertised Price policy, resp:184, resp:185 ::
this is from http://www.billboard.com/daily/2000/0518_08.asp,
from a tail end of the story:
"Merchants privately say that the elimination of MAP
rekindles fears that price wars will break out and return
music retail to the unprofitability it suffered from 1994-1996,
before strong MAP policies were adopted and enforced.
"During those price wars, electronics retailers like Best Buy
and Circuit City were selling music at a loss, in an effort
to increase customer traffic for higher-priced electronics
goods. The labels argued that MAP policies would make it
easier for small retailers to compete with the giants, thus
increasing consumer choices."
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krj
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response 195 of 247:
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May 21 04:46 UTC 2000 |
Leslie and I took another trip to the SKR Clearance Outlet today,
since we were going downtown for dinner anyway. There's a new, more
alarming note from Jim Leonard in the window. The discount has been
ratcheted up from 45% to 50%. "The situation is critical," says the
note, and if they don't sell enough clearance CDs the stores could
close in a couple of weeks.
So we did our part. :) I got three CDs which I'd passed over on
the Thursday trip, and it amazed me that they were all still there,
after being on sale at half price for three days; especially
the import reissue of the Kinks' LOLA VS.POWERMAN album. And with
Leslie there to answer questions I pillaged the classical section
and Leslie picked up a bunch of classical vocal discs.
It was 8 pm Saturday night, and there was only one other customer in our
side of the store. It wasn't that no one was downtown: Borders was
pretty crowded.
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void
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response 196 of 247:
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May 22 04:48 UTC 2000 |
htat's skr classical across from borders downtown, right? i may
go check it out tomorrow, if i can convince myself to drive downtown.
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mcnally
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response 197 of 247:
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May 22 18:38 UTC 2000 |
Like most Kinks albums, "Lola Vs. Powerman and the Money-go-round" is
fantastically uneven, but it's well worth having if solely for my favorite
Kinks song, "Apeman"..
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anderyn
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response 198 of 247:
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May 26 13:54 UTC 2000 |
It is quite a bummer to go in there. (We went on Monday night, and I picked
up a Silly Wizard Greatest Hits CD, Tannas, an Irish sea shanty record, and
an old Connie Dover -- all ones that I had been mildly interested in
obtaining, but nothing I would have bought normally.)
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krj
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response 199 of 247:
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Jun 18 04:53 UTC 2000 |
I did not know until tonight that the "SKR Downtown" store was in
the former Annex storefront. The two westernmost SKR storefronts,
the original Schoolkids space and the early '90s expansion,
have been vacated.
I have said for a long time that Ann Arbor has been overbuilt for
CD retailing. But I was not expecting the jolt I got tonight
from the "bummed" item in the Agora conference:
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#977 of 984: by Yay the Happy Whale (otaking) on Sat, Jun 17, 2000 (20:12):
IBB Tower Records is closing at 4PM on Sunday, June 25.
#978 of 984: by Bruin the Bare Bear (bruin) on Sat, Jun 17, 2000 (20:52):
You don't mean the Tower Records on South University in Ann Arbor, do
you?
#979 of 984: by Yay the Happy Whale (otaking) on Sat, Jun 17, 2000 (21:35):
Yes, unfortunately I do.
They claim to be closing temporarily, to make way for UM offices, but one of
the staff members said that was a false hope.
They're having a clearance sale. Anywhere from $2-4 off all CDs. 30% off all
books. 20-30% all DVDs and videos. All sale prives are off the regular prices,
not, the existing sale prices. Guess it's another victim of online sales.
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mcnally
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response 200 of 247:
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Jun 18 05:34 UTC 2000 |
Wow.. I wouldn't have called that one, although it retrospect it
doesn't surprise me. It always seemed like there were not a lot
of people wandering around in there relative to the amount of floor
space they were taking up in what has to be a more expensive location
than places like Best Buy, etc..
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krj
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response 201 of 247:
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Jun 18 07:20 UTC 2000 |
As was pointed out in Agora: the demolition of the Forest St. parking
ramp has to have hurt Tower badly; there is now essentially no public
parking near their store before 6 pm. But I had always thought the
chain was willing to ride this period out.
Still, I had detected the standard sign of retail distress in a CD shop:
the stock was collapsing. In particular, the pop/rock rack space had
been cut back to make more room for geegaws.
I'm still in shock. I have never seen this many CD retail failures,
this fast. I know this city's been overbuilt for CD retailing for at
least five years; but this is supposed to be a good economy.
And I certainly never expected to end up with Borders as the leading
CD retailer in town, in terms of selection.
As I wrote in Agora: for maybe 25 years, beginning with the opening of
Schoolkids, Ann Arbor was (arguably) the best place to
shop for LPs & CDs between Toronto and the west coast.
Friends who were visiting SE Michigan for science fiction
conventions would make pilgrimages to the
Liberty St./State St./South U. area. But with the closing of Tower,
it's over. Ann Arbor will no longer have a significantly better
CD shopping scene than most towns with a Borders and a decent used
store.
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krj
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response 202 of 247:
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Jun 18 07:32 UTC 2000 |
Heh. If you want to read what Grexers thought of the *opening* of
the Ann Arbor Tower, almost nine years ago, it's in the oldmusic
conference, item 17. (item:oldmusic,17 and eventually that link will
become item:music1,17)
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mcnally
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response 203 of 247:
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Jun 18 08:33 UTC 2000 |
Somebody alert the RIAA! This *must* be Napster's fault.. :-p
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mcnally
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response 204 of 247:
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Jun 18 09:18 UTC 2000 |
re #202: I was kind of surprised to see how consistent my Ann Arbor
record store opinions were over the years.. And I was mortified by
the section where several of us were discussing the anticipated
release of an Enya album -- can that be expunged?
If nothing else, it was worth reading for the nostalgic flashback I
got when I came across the responses about the demise of the longbox..
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brighn
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response 205 of 247:
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Jun 18 18:17 UTC 2000 |
#203: You don't think there's the slightest bit of a coincidence that indie
college-city-based CD outlets are going out of business at the same rate that
Napster is spreading?
You're more naive, or in deeper denial, than I thought.
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cyklone
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response 206 of 247:
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Jun 18 18:33 UTC 2000 |
What about the study that showed a decline in such sales before Napster was
created?
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brighn
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response 207 of 247:
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Jun 19 00:08 UTC 2000 |
don't confuse the issue with facts and statistics, Cyklone.
this is an emotional issue.
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krj
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response 208 of 247:
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Jun 20 07:19 UTC 2000 |
I'll write more about my pillaging of Tower tomorrow. There's still
a lot of stuff worth digging through, since the sale is just a
standard Tower storewide sale; Tower doesn't have to liquidate
the stock, since they can just ship it to another store.
Even after knocking $4 off Tower's inflated prices, there were
folk and world music items which would be cheaper at Elderly
Instruments. And the new Neil Young album had a "base price"
sticker of $19.99, though they were selling it for a few dollars
cheaper than that.
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otaking
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response 209 of 247:
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Jun 20 13:30 UTC 2000 |
Yeah, the sale at Towers isn't very impressive. That's why I only bought a
couple of things there. Neither was music-related, so I won't talk about them
here.
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jules
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response 210 of 247:
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Jun 21 03:20 UTC 2000 |
i got two cds at wazoo today
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carla
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response 211 of 247:
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Jun 22 17:52 UTC 2000 |
wazoo is a great place.
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krj
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response 212 of 247:
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Aug 8 20:44 UTC 2000 |
News item from www.wired.com, reprinted widely so I won't bother with the
URL: 28 states are suing the major record labels seeking damages over
the now-discontinued Minimum Advertised Price scheme, which the FTC
found to be an illegal price-fixing conspiracy. The FTC was content to
slap the labels' wrists and get a consent decree, but the
state A.G.s want damage checks that they can wave in front of voters.
"The lawsuit alleges that traditional retailers pressured the
record companies to set minimum retail floor prices after a price war
brought by discount retailers dropped the average price of CDs
from $15 to $10."
$10 is below wholesale; the discount retailers, as I've discussed
elsewhere, were (intentionally or not) engaged in
predatory pricing by selling CDs below cost. The goal of the
discount stores was to use CDs as loss leaders and make it up on
electronics sales.
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mcnally
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response 213 of 247:
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Aug 8 22:33 UTC 2000 |
I can't remember the last time the "average price of CDs" was less
than $10. When exactly is this supposed to have occurred?
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krj
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response 214 of 247:
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Aug 9 05:32 UTC 2000 |
Mike, see resp:194 in this item.
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krj
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response 215 of 247:
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Aug 9 05:53 UTC 2000 |
Schoolkids-in-Exile continues to grow on me. This weekend, Steve
Bergman was chatting about how the little basement store is the same
size as the Schoolkids he opened in 1976. The folk music section
continues to grow a bit, and I also found some goodies in the African
music section. I suspect the selection continues to bear
Bergman's personal stamp, so how much you will enjoy it will
depend on how congruent your tastes are with his.
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mcnally
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response 216 of 247:
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Aug 9 18:48 UTC 2000 |
The only way I can conceive of "the average price of CDs" having been
under $10 during the 1994-1996 period is if Best Buy, et al, sold enough
of those $5.99 cut-outs at the front of the store to counter-balance the
entire rest of the industry. $12.99 was a pretty average price for a
retail CD in those years, at least by my recollection.
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