response 17 of 64:

Sep 6 02:07 UTC 1998

danr in resp:13 : I don't know how much it would be being a "bad 
businessman."  I think it was a classic cash flow crunch: once 
the well-capitalized new stores, in this case Tower and more 
importantly Borders, open up and siphon off business, the local 
independent has less and less money to use in reordering stock. 
I saw the same pattern with Jocundry's Books in East 
Lansing, after the Barnes & Noble opened nearby; the cycle just 
played out slower here in Ann Arbor.
 
Schoolkids established its reputation in an era when it was a 
"destination store," clearly the best record store between 
Toronto and Chicago.  But as Tower and Borders pushed into the 
Ann Arbor CD market, Schoolkids' margin of superiority
over all other area shops vanished.

response 19 of 64:

Sep 6 19:04 UTC 1998

        I just got back from my trip to Schoolkids.  Glad I had a chance
to talk to Steve Bergman.  He said he recognized the face that was in 
the store and bought lots in their 22 years there.  The large type 
letter on the door says it well.  Said he was working over the past 
months to get a buy-out, but that it fell thru by last Friday.
        I wonder if having Schoolkids in Ann Arbor is why Ann Arbor does
not have a Harmonney House?
        Did Schoolkids displace someone else in the local market when
they opened in 1976?
        I came back with:
        Greatest Hits - Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band
        Mulling it Over - Martin Mull (a greatest hits package)
        The KingBees (a SchoolKids Records CD issue of their LPs)
        Wally World - Wally Pleasant
        Tiptoe Through the Tulips/Resurrection - Tiny Tim (an import
                CD]
        Kay Starr Collectors Series (a very complete Capitol records
                collection, put out in 1991, when CDs had finally 
                become established in the market
        The 1950s, Volume 1 - hits from the era, the CD looks like
                a good collection of tunes I may have scattered 
                elsewhere, and maybe only on LP.

response 21 of 64:

Sep 7 07:11 UTC 1998

Tower is overpriced.  They have adequate selection and that's about it.  You
need to leave the country to really get good music at good prices anyway.

response 23 of 64:

Sep 7 18:01 UTC 1998

Well, there are a good five or ten artists that I can never find any
place but Schoolkids, or at least anything beyond a one-album token 
sop to the folkies who *might* shop at Towers or Borders. So I think
I will have a lot more mail order in my future. Sob.

response 25 of 64:

Sep 8 21:11 UTC 1998

I have. In the past. It's hard. Very hard.

response 27 of 64:

Sep 8 23:16 UTC 1998

  Well, I stopped by to pick over the carrion and found a couple of things
  I'd been meaning to get and a few others I'd been thinking of trying,
  most notably Muszikas' "Blues For Transylvania", Hedningarna's "Kaksi",
  and Massive Attack's "Protection".

response 29 of 64:

Sep 9 01:13 UTC 1998

I found out, suddenly, this weekend, that Schoolkids' Records was closing
when I stopped in to look around for something.  I was stunned.  I've
shopped there for over ten years.  I milled around for a while, but it
felt funny, like getting a stuffed dog for your birthday, instead of a
real one, like you wanted.  So, I went home and tried to remember what it
was that made going there special, before soaped windows would wash it
away for good.  Although I never did get a dog when I was a kid, like I
wanted, I did get to go on a class trip to somebody's farm.  I guess going
to Schoolkids' was a lot like the class trip to a petting zoo.
Schoolkids' had a good selection of earthy ethnic music, American and
foreign, and you could reach out and touch it.

It was always a pleasure hearing about various albums from the
salespeople, hearing them in the store, and sometimes, even hearing them
*perform* in the store. 

In fact, I visited Schoolkids' the day I saw my first concert at the
Michigan Theater, back in 1991, to catch a glimpse of my favorite British
folk rocker, Billy Bragg.  I remember Billy, all set with his scones and
tea, equally as ready to belt out verses of "The Internationale" as
"Greetings to the New Brunette", posing for pictures and giving people
hugs.

I recall stumbling across Bill Miller, a Native American folk musician,
there, while shopping for something else.  I was so enthralled with the
performance, I stopped what I was doing and just listened.

It was a place where, after visiting the library and picking up a copy of
the music of the legendary 1930s Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab as
performed by Simon Shaheen, a virtuoso violinist and oud player, you
could, as I did, see Shaheen perform there, the following week.

Schoolkids' was a place where the music was alive, and you couldn't help
but enjoy it.  Now, I'm afraid all we've got left is stuffed animals with
cute names, free with the purchase of a combo meal at the local fast food
joint.



_________________________________________________________________________

Mark, who's been retailing music for five years, listening to it and even
making a little of it for nearly two decades, and generally enjoying it
all his life, will be holding a memorial service this weekend for his
favorite local music store with his stuffed animal collection.

response 31 of 64:

Sep 10 06:17 UTC 1998

When I was in Ann Arbor I visited Schoolkids in order to buy some 
alleged 'famous cheap' cd's. That point was a disappointment: cd's in 
the US aren't that cheap anymore compared to the Netherlands. I had been
 told that Tower was a sound alternative, but with tempratures rising up
 to 96 I walked right past it, sweating and sweating. Around the corner 
at the end of Liberty (some 100 ft from the cinema across the street) I 
finally found a small shop that has a fair good collection in 
alternative music, since Schoolkids didn't have the titles I desired. 
The shop doesn't look all that savoury, the people serving certainly 
live up to their status of being alternative and seperate from the rest 
of the world (i.o.w.: rude and obnoxious), but I bought Reload by 
Metallica and Mezzanine by Massive Attack. When Schoolkids dies, you 
might check that shop out. Don't ask me for its name however.

response 33 of 64:

Sep 10 13:23 UTC 1998

Actually, I go in there quite a bit, if I want something "popular". 
Their prices are good, and *grin* they never seem rude to me, even if
I am a middle-aged Mom type that must give their pierced little brains
a twinge of misery by reminding them of the middle-class respectable
(why is it I can't spell French words. Arrgh.) bourgeous folk that
many of them must be rebelling against.

I have always been happy with the service at Discount Records and 
with what I've found there. 

response 35 of 64:

Sep 10 15:06 UTC 1998

(you convince me to send them to you if ever I can...but I charge obscene
amounts f comission ;)

response 37 of 64:

Sep 10 17:28 UTC 1998

Borders.com shows:
   2 James Keelaghan discs -- I don't know his catalog to know how good that 
         is.  "A Recent Future" and "My Skies."
   0 solo albums by Garnet Rogers, just two collaboration/anthology discs
   1 album by Horslips -- a "greatest hits."  None of the catalog albums.
   1 disc by Old Blind Dogs, "Legacy."  They have five in print.
   1 disc by Great Big Sea -- their US compilation release.  But not 
         the original Canadian issues.

That's the online store's stock for the artists Twila mentioned.
One more:

   1 Runrig album, "Mara," their only current USA release.  None of the 
     dozen or so British imports. 

What this tells me is that Borders.com is not in the folk import CD 
business.

response 39 of 64:

Sep 11 22:26 UTC 1998

Sigh.  In the mid-eighties, I lived in Tower Plaza, and half my life
centered around three near-by institutions:  Borders Books, Schoolkids
Records, and the Michigan Theater.  I could get the best in books, music
and movies, in local stores with amazingly knowledgable staff people,
and I could get it all within a block of my front door.  I loved it.

Borders died years ago, slowly fading away into just another book mall. 
Nothing of what once made it special survives today, except for a large
stock.  Used to be each section was obviously maintained by people who
knew the genre.  The books that mattered were the books that were given
prominent display, and if you asked questions, it was clear that people
actually had read many of the books.  Those people have mostly vanished
with the culture that welcomed them.  Who needs an intelligent person
shelving books when the publisher's publicity campaigns determine what
goes where?

To loose Schoolkids too is awfully depressing.  I was pissed when
Borders reorganized and added the music department.  Borders was still a
perfectly good book store then, but why would undercutting Schoolkids
make them better?  What's wrong with having a perfectly good bookstore
across from a perfectly good record store?  I think it was a decision
dictated by some corporate management far from Ann Arbor that had no
interest in the health of Ann Arbor's retail community.  So they built
an average record store and killed a great one, while letting their
great bookstore lapse into averageness.  Fooey.  Sure, Schoolkid's
quality has been lapsing a lot over the last year, but plainly they were
facing financial problems.  Sure, in the best of all worlds, the people
who knew how to put together a brilliant record store would also have
the business sharps to keep it profitable in the face of corporate
competition.  But do the McDonald's and the Microsoft's always have to
beat out the people who actually have good products?

Well at least the Michigan Theater still exists.