response 1 of 106:

Feb 4 20:53 UTC 2001

Another CD shop obituary...  I hopped over to Windsor today and found 
that Dr. Disc will be closing on February 11.   The sign in the window
invited customers to stop in and pay their respects; viewing hours 
end at 6 pm.   My visit was cut drastically short; I had planned 
on the store having its usual late evening hours.

Dr. Disc was part of a southern Ontario chain of indie-oriented stores,
and I didn't ask if the whole chain was going out of business, or 
just the Windsor store.  I'd only been there a few times over the years;
their folk stocks were always disappointing, but they did carry a 
lot of Canadian rock bands which I might have heard on the CBC-FM
late night shows.   Today, the stock has already been well 
picked over -- the store was about half empty -- and the sale discounts
weren't too deep, so I wouldn't recommend a trip there for anything 
except sentimental reasons.

Perhaps the relatively new (?) HMV store in the Devonshire Mall 
pushed Dr. Disc over the edge; the HMV store had a lot of goodies 
in it.     ((preserved from item:154...))

response 3 of 106:

Feb 21 21:16 UTC 2001

  A Tower outlet carries 80,000 different selections?  That's way higher
  than I would have guessed..

response 5 of 106:

Feb 22 19:57 UTC 2001

It's probably the Internet that's killing off local (recorded) music 
stores. These days I listen to mostly Cajun and Zydeco music, and trying 
to find much of that stuff in local stores is tough (although Borders 
probably had the best selection for the locals). But that's no problem--I 
can just order anything Cajun or Zydeco from Floyd's Records down in 
Ville Platte, Louisiana! I would have liked to support the local stores, 
but I wouldn't waste my money on most modern 'pop' music.

response 7 of 106:

Apr 15 14:42 UTC 2001

That's totally weird. 

response 9 of 106:

Apr 15 18:46 UTC 2001

        Betcha someone could have success selling CDs in that area
near MSU if they where only going for 'current music college students
are buying' in much less square footage.
        Tower probably had the stock it thought would satisfy the 
*entire* Lansing area market, as normalized by a large corporate
view.  It, of course takes much more square footage in probably
costly rental district.

response 11 of 106:

Apr 16 02:41 UTC 2001

(I'd thought that Best Buy [and possibly others] were selling CDs as 
loss-leaders, meaning that they *aren't* making money on music.  that 
might account for why more money is spent on music without profits 
being generated directly by it.)

(also, I imagine the used record stores are doing just fine making 
money in Ann Arbor, and maybe in other college towns, too.)

response 13 of 106:

Apr 16 20:18 UTC 2001

  re #11:  OK, I've heard that too..  If it's true, then seemingly
  *nobody* (or damn close..) is making money in music retail.  How
  can that possibly be true?  Put a different way, all of that money
  has to be going somewhere.  Conventional wisdom has it that it's
  not going to the artists, record stores are dropping like flies,
  etc..  The traditional bogeyman in this scenario is the big, bad
  record company, but I'm not sure I buy that..  Do they really
  monopolize (or oligopolize, I suppose..) the production, distribution,
  and sale of recorded music to such an extent that they're the only
  ones in the whole chain who are able to make money?  How is this
  supposed to be sustainable in the long term?

  re #12:  Ann Arbor's music retail woes began long before anyone had
  ever heard of Napster, and evidence that this is true elsewhere has
  been widely trumpeted by Napster supporters, if not by the record
  companies.  It's probably fair to assume Napster is a factor of some
  sort in college-area record sales, but it's by no means safe to assume
  that it's as important as you suggest.

response 15 of 106:

Apr 18 19:38 UTC 2001

Austin music stores seem to be thriving. I admit that I'm not frequenting
retail music stores enough to observe any slow downs, but they do seem to be
expanding all the time. I'm not sure if this growth is simply a mirror of the
continued growth in other sectors, or if this has something to do with the
seemingly insatiable appetite for music for which Austinites are known.
Whatever the reason, I am thankful that there are so many options, and I try
to support the local retailers whenever possible.

I tried to list the stores with a sizeable retail music section, and came up
with this:

Waterloo Records (the granddaddy of Austin's independent music stores, still
doing well in their downtown location, despite traffic and construction
snarls)
- Jupiter Records <www.jupiterrecords.com> (recently opened a second store
in So. Austin)
- ABCDs (www.chainstoressuck.com) another wonderful independent, around since
1987. I like this store a bunch, because they have two smaller soundproof
rooms, one for classical and the other for jazz.
- Wherehouse Music (formerly Sound Warehouse, and I'll forever mourn their
passing) ... 3 locations in Austin
- Tower Records - one location, on The Drag right across the street from the
UT campus
-  Barnes & Noble, at least 4 of the newer super stores around the metro
- Borders (!) two Austin locations

There are probably more I'm missing, but there you have it. Music is big
business in Austin. The office of the Governor has even set-up a website
clearinghouse to promote Texas music. 
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/music/

response 17 of 106:

Apr 19 01:43 UTC 2001

I want one of that! (The Horslips.)

response 19 of 106:

May 15 21:30 UTC 2001

Here's a discouraging word from musicalamerica.com via Usenet.
Go to www.deja.com and search on "Tower Records" to see the whole thing.
 
The story reports that Tower has stopped buying new releases from three
major independent classical distributors: Allegro, Harmonia Mundi and 
Qualiton.   Tower appears to be in deep financial trouble and it has 
pressured the major labels to give it deep wholesale discounts, and to 
allow it to wait a year to pay for product.  Universal, Sony, BMG and EMI 
have gone along, WEA has balked, and the independents feel they cannot 
afford such generous terms for Tower.
 
Quote:
"All parties quoted for this article insisted on anonymity --
understandable, for, without Tower, selling classical CDs at the retail
level would be well nigh impossible. Tower is just about every classical
distributors largest retail customer."

Bankruptcy is rumored to be a possibility.

response 21 of 106:

May 16 01:49 UTC 2001

Little preachy, I thought.  But still funny... "If you're an investor, just
dump your money into the hole" (points to hole in floor).

response 23 of 106:

May 27 03:48 UTC 2001

Well, that was pretty deafening.

I've made my first visit to Tower since the above news hit.  There are 
two Towers in my area: one has a smaller, but choicer, classical 
selection than the other, and it was the smaller one I visited.  So 
far, at least, it doesn't look much different, and I even found a BIS 
release I'd been meaning to buy.

I forget whether Chandos is one of the labels hit by the distributor 
crunch, but they didn't have a new Chandos release I was looking for.  
OTOH, I'd read about it in the latest issue of BBC Music, and anything 
they mention often takes months to show up.